MARK ANGELIDES
President Donald Trump’s speech at Long Island Suffolk County Community College has been met with extremely polarized responses. The leftist media has seized on one aspect of what many consider to be one of the president’s best speeches; with the specific intent of distracting from the very urgent and very critical content delivered.
The speech was ostensibly centered on the damage that drug Cartel gangs, such as MS-13 are doing to American communities. But the larger scale objective was to show appreciation for the accomplishments of police officers fighting under restrictive, politically charged circumstances. Those constraints, however, have been lifted by the Trump administration; the president endeavored to rally the troops: “And I want to just tell you all together, right now, the reason I came — this is the most important sentence to me: On behalf of the American people, I want to say, thank you.”
Law and order speeches aren’t very popular with the left, as you can imagine. One part of Mr. Trump’s message, in particular, is causing a Social Media meltdown; the president talks about the kid gloves approach to arresting dangerous criminals. He said:
And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon — you just see them thrown in, rough — I said, please don’t be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody — don’t hit their head. I said you can take the hand away, okay?
The Huffington Post was one of the first news outlets to begin the all too predictable attacks on the president. They reported that Vanita Gupta, former President Barack Obama‘s head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, was quick to condemn President Trump’s words, stating that the president was actively calling for violence and police brutality:
The president of the United States, standing before an audience of law enforcement officials, actively encouraged police violence. We call on the president to immediately and unequivocally condemn police brutality. We can all respect our law enforcement officers without sanctioning unjust and illegal behavior.
In reality, the president was just putting across an important message, not only to the nation’s law enforcement officers but to citizens who see that the hands of the law are often tied. He was telling them that they shouldn’t be afraid to do their jobs; that they shouldn’t be thinking in the back of their minds about losing their job or pension if they do what is required to keep people safe.
Could he have done this differently? Sure. But the people didn’t vote for a president that is “business as usual”; they voted for a president who has respect for the Thin Blue Line, and who is not afraid of bringing down controversy if it starts a debate.
The leftist media has singularly failed to report the “meat” of his speech, and have instead tried to deflect attention by creating a “nothing burger” narrative. As long as the real facts are not reported, the media battle will continue to be waged in terms of politically correct sentiments and appeals to emotion.
But the bottom line is this: The war against MS-13 is being won, and it’s being won despite the Left’s Iron Curtain.
