Mediaite Plays the Race Card Over Trump Rally
Unreal.
So here was the headline from Mediaite last week. Mediaite the leftward tilting cover-the-media site.
Trump Tells Rally Crowd ‘You Have Smart Ones’ And Black Congressman Byron Donalds Is One of Them.
The Mediaite story about the Trump appearance at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania last Friday begins:
Former President Donald Trump said of prominent Black supporter Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) “That one is smart!” — adding “You have smart ones” and without specifying what the “ones” were.
With all due respect, the implication here that Trump was injecting race here is nonsense.
Why do I say this?
Because I was there. An invited “Special Guest” seated in the “Special Guest” section which put me one row behind Congressman Donalds and two seats away from him.
[I]t was crystal clear who Trump was talking about: that would be Republican Members of Congress.
Notably, there were other Members of Congress there in the same section. Specifically they were Pennsylvania Congressmen Dan Meuser, Guy Reschenthaler, Mike Kelly, Lloyd Smucker, and John Joyce. Only Donalds was not from Pennsylvania. Trump called out all of them, and they all stood to be recognized.
Hence, when Trump looked over and saw Floridian Donalds sitting in the section with his Pennsylvania colleagues and other Pennsylvanians like myself, he, as he often does, called out the visiting Florida Congressman for recognition.
Thus Trump’s remark:
Byron set (stand) up please. Superstar of the future! He’s already a superstar, but he’s a superstar of the future! Byron Donalds, Florida.
Wow, that’s nice to have you here! That’s good. He’s great. He’s good. He knows exactly what I’m talking about. That one is smart!
You have smart ones and you have some that aren’t quite so good.
In other words, it was crystal clear who Trump was talking about: that would be Republican Members of Congress. Thus, for Mediate to suggest that when Trump said, “You have smart ones without specifying what the ‘ones’ were” this is flatly untrue. As someone sitting right there it was abundantly clear who Trump was referring to when he said, “You have smart ones and you have some that aren’t quite so good.”
Trump was talking about Republican Members of Congress — the ones right in front of him from Pennsylvania — and by implication the larger pool of House Republicans in general. It is no secret that Trump, in his term, was less than happy with various GOP House Members, perhaps most notably the then-GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, with whom he frequently clashed.
At no time was Trump’s recognition of Donalds tied to race. There was nothing racial about it. Indeed, to the contrary, Donalds was recognized exactly on an equal, color-blind footing with all his Pennsylvania — and white — colleagues.
So why does Mediaite inject race into something that had zero to do with race? Zero?
Who knows. But sadly, it can be said with 100 percent historical fact that the American left, as discussed from time to time in this space, has a long — very long — history of using race to win elections. A small list of the party’s predilection on using race in elections can be found here.
Yet in spite of the recognition of the Left’s “predilection on using race in elections,” that predilection still comes out, whether from left-leaning politicians or media organizations. As this attempt by Mediate to impute racism to Trump in the Johnstown rally illustrates.
For all the criticism here, I must say I do in fact read Mediaite (and lots of others on all sides of issues of the day). Thus my criticism here is that this imputation of racism to Trump for citing the presence of Congressman Donalds is simply not worthy of the site.
An apology coming to Trump from Mediaite? Don’t wait up.
On we go. Happy remainder of the election season.
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On the Biden Coup, the Post and the Times Disagree
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