By Mark Young

mark.young@manateeherald.com

It’s been a busy couple of days and so much that is worthy of discussion, but how in the world do we not address the big Red elephant in the room?

President Donald J. Trump’s Tuesday announcement that he will launch a bid to retake the White House was impressive and on point.

As I have noted, I am one of those people who had begun to wonder if we could look in a different direction for Trump policies without having to look directly at Trump.

But I was reminded on Tuesday that Trump is more than worthy to be given the opportunity once again to lead the Conservative movement and here’s why.

In a single hour’s time, Trump was able to deliver the essential messages that other Conservative candidates, pundits and politicians have been unable to do in the past two years.

The exception, of course, is our great Gov. Ron DeSantis, but I remain convinced a potential Trump-DeSantis showdown could prove to be a disaster.

But I was impressed with Trump on Tuesday because he was able to clearly explain his track record of success in comparison to the debacle that is the Biden administration. More importantly, Trump stayed on message without dragging popular Conservatives into the mud.

It’s one thing to go after the RINOs like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney. Have at them. We don’t like them anyway. But stay away from DeSantis and Youngkin.

You have to be able to read the room, and Trump clearly has. At least for now. And DeSantis has already proven that he can withstand a verbal assault and come out of it even more popular than he already is.

DeSantis doesn’t underestimate Trump. Trump would be a fool to underestimate DeSantis, and more importantly his growing base of supporters.

So the only question is whether staying on message will last. If Trump can go two full years of doing just that, focuses his ire on the dangers of leftist policies and avoids Conservative infighting, Trump can and will win back the White House.

The very simple truth in all of this is that no other candidate can win without the Trump base and the Trump base alone can no longer defeat the zombie left loyalists who are incapable of thinking for themselves.

One side within the Republican Party has to give in order to save America. It will be easier for Republicans who are not big fans of the person to return back to the Trump base than it will be to get the Trump base to swing over to another candidate.

It’s an obstacle that has to be overcome and can be, as long as the mud stays where it belongs instead of getting slung all over the place.

Even if DeSantis and Trump don’t respect one another, it’s important they understand that this has to end with DeSantis and Trump supporters respecting both men.

We shall see what happens and we have plenty of time but Trump’s first step back into the political arena was a decisive one. Now that march just needs to be consistent and it’s Trump who will need to take this time to mend the necessary fences by staying on message and staying out of the dirt.

I know my political friends are split on whether Trump can take us over the finish line or whether it should be someone like DeSantis who brings all the same political qualities without the personal baggage and can accomplish the same goal.

As I said during our last visit, all I care about is that they avoid an internal war of words that will harm the movement well into the future.

That is assuming DeSantis would get into this race, of course, and there is no guarantee of that happening. I still think DeSantis is politically smarter than Trump. Why split the Trump base when he can have them all to himself in a few short years?

And as a Floridian, I’m going to be selfish in saying I want DeSantis as our governor for a full term.

I know, I know. I’m speculating about 2024 and 2028 and we are only a couple of weeks out of the 2022 midterms. I can’t help myself. I’m a political writer because I’m a political junkie. It’s what I do.

Trump gave me the fix I needed after a disappointing midterm and now I’m all excited again. So forget the break I mentioned last time and let’s get the 2024 election cycle rolling.

Can’t wait to see what happens.

And neither can Biden apparently. Did you see he already released an anti-Trump political ad? If you missed it, it basically shows Trump talking about infrastructure legislation and then shows a split screen of Biden signing the big infrastructure bill.

Well that’s a farce. First of all, Congress was too busy trying to impeach Trump to get anything done in his last two years. Second of all, Biden’s so-called infrastructure bill has only 9% of actual infrastructure spending.

The rest is all climate change garbage that was whittled down from Biden’s unsuccessful Build Back Better bill.

So within 24 hours of Trump announcing, the leftist lies have already begun. Strap in my fellow Patriots, it’s going to be a rough and wonderful ride.

There were a lot of things I wanted to talk about today, including the media overreaction of an alleged Russian missile striking Poland, which as of right now, probably isn’t a Russian missile.

The media was all about, “Is this the beginning of a nuclear World War III?”

There are a ton of talking heads on all of the news channels that are desperately in need of a chill pill. Calm the heck down people and quit the fear mongering.

There also is so much to say about the collapse of FTX crypto coins and how this scandal is tied to democratic financial support.

We’ll get into the details of this Bankman-Fried muppet character at another time. All I’ll say for now is that I never saw the appeal of investing actual money into imaginary money.

And Lord oh Lord did I want to delve into Rick Scott’s bid for Senate leadership. I would agree with most that McConnell’s time has passed, but Scott?

Can I get a Hell No?

I’m not one that will bad mouth McConnell like other Republicans have. McConnell has shown steady leadership when it counted, but yeah, he’s also messed up and it’s time for change.

Scott is not the guy, however. Scott was a solid governor and we are all thrilled that he retired Nelson and flipped a long-time blue Senate seat. But let’s keep Scott’s legacy at that and call it a day.

We also need to discuss the report that dozens of FBI and ATF “assets” were secretly deployed to the Jan. 6 incident ahead of time. What was their mandate, who deployed them and why were they there?

What role did they ultimately play? Who knew what and when did they know it? So many questions.

And then there is Biden’s trip to Asia for the G20 summit where he failed to bring up COVID or fentanyl in his meeting with China, slept through a leadership dinner and called an emergency press conference only to give a one-word answer before the signal was cut off.

Wow, where do we even begin?

Then there is the NBC reporter who was suspended for actually reporting the truth about what happened when Paul Pelosi was attacked after police arrived.

Why won’t they release the body cam footage? What in the actual heck is really going on? What are they hiding?

And then there is the Arizona and Nevada election debacles – yet again.

And of course Alejandro Mayorkas once again testifies under oath that the “Border is secure.”

Wait, what? I would love to see him take a lie detector test to see if he actually believes that. Good Lord the lies from this administration are piling up faster … well … there isn’t anything faster that piles up quicker than liberal lies.

All of this has happened in the past couple of days since our last visit, my fellow Patriots. So there is a lot to talk about, but we are out of time for now. Don’t fret, we’ll take a deeper dive into all of this latest nonsense soon enough.

Until then my friends, you know what to do. Stay vigilant, stay aware and, as always, stay informed.