The Mueller Report is out and for most Americans—the ones not addicted to 24-Hour round the clock panel discussions and continuous (albeit pointless) coverage of every nuance inside of Washington, it’s over and it failed to show President Donald Trump or anyone in his orbit had anything to do with Russian interference in the 2016 Election.
The end.
No matter how hard the Democrats try to pump life into the Mueller Report and try desperately to make it something it’s not, America has moved on. People have a lot of things on their minds but Russia isn’t one of them.
Here are what people in Michigan and The Rust Belt do care about today.
The Economy and economic opportunity — Democrats I talk with find themselves in the awkward position of grudgingly praising the President and his success in this area. The vibrant economy is noticed by tens of millions of people all across the nation and no matter how loudly the left proclaims the Middle Class is disappearing, most people are smart enough to see that just isn’t true. Anyone who goes out for dinner on a Friday night or a Tuesday night for that matter is going to find full parking lots and a waiting list at any place decent. The parking lots are also full at Kroger, Home Depot and Starbucks. That doesn’t even take into account how many times the mailman and the lady from Fed-Ex are stopping each day to drop things off at their homes. And if things were so bad in America why are millions of people fighting to stay here while millions more are fighting to get in? The truth is things are pretty damned good and everybody knows it.
Wages are increasing because of the simple basic idea of supply and demand—there is a growing demand for good employees in numerous places creating a jump in paychecks. How many jobs are sitting open today because there just isn’t anyone to fill the slot? Millions is the answer and because of that employers are being forced to dig deeper or go without. Wages do not need to be dictated by the government when the market is dictating an upward trend.
Abortion on demand matters. Elective abortion on demand is being rejected by Catholics in large numbers and by people of faith in general. Even Democrats who identify as pro-choice recoil at the idea of aborting full-term babies or worse, deciding the fate of a child born alive after the fact. This kind of open barbarism and butchery really isn’t appealing to anyone I’ve met and may, in fact, be the biggest issue in 2020. It is not widely discussed in the echo-chamber media but it should be because it is being discussed at dinner tables and water coolers in the heart of the nation. It is turning people away from the Democrats by the score. Trust me on this and then watch the exit polling in 18 months to see what I was talking about.
Anti- Semitism is forcing a re-alignment of the Jewish vote in the Rust Belt and elsewhere. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar do not go unnoticed here and their words are doing real damage to the Dems. Anti-Semitism and more accurately anti-American comments are taking a serious toll on the left whether they care to admit it or not. If they want to stop this hemorrhaging they must stop tip-toeing around the issue and tackle it head-on.
The push for Socialism on the left matters because it is so dangerous. It is soundly rejected everywhere except in big cities and college campuses. If you leave the Diag at the University of Michigan you won’t find much praise for such ideas—at least not in Michigan. I would guess the same holds true for Madison and Columbus. The far-left workers Xanadu only exists in their fanciful minds because in practice it fails at a cost of millions of lives every time. People living in this country know it takes hard work to get ahead. If you are willing to work you can do anything in America and everyone knows that is still true.
The 2nd Amendment matters and a lot in Union Households and blue-collar workers are seeing calls by Dems for gun bans and gun confiscation. They don’t like it, they won’t support it and in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin millions will flock to the polls just to vote against it. I said in 2016 and say again today, the hunting and fishing crowd is key to victory for Donald Trump. The more that group is alienated by the left with copious talk of gun control the better it is for The President.
The Border matters to people here. They can see what chaos looks like and they know what a crisis looks like. They are not idiots. Many will support an influx of new immigrants—millions in fact but only if they follow the rules to get here. They do not support open borders, or sanctuary cities or amnesty for those who broke the law without regard. They want law and order and, as an aside, they support the border patrol and ICE.
Impeachment matters because Democrats know that if another two years is wasted in this effort, they will suffer for it. The things they want to see happen and what Americans want will never get done instead the opportunity will be squandered. Democrats will be punished at the polls in 2020 if they are unable to admit they were wrong, Donald Trump was not a master spy for Vladamir Putin nor was anyone else and the nation is ready to move on.
Moving forward matters most because people on all sides are worn out by all of the talk of Russia. They know it was not a factor in why Trump beat Hillary and they are sick and tired of hearing about it — it really is time to move on. The new House in more than 100 days in office has done what? What has been put forward to address jobs? Healthcare? The border? Infrastructure? Anything? Swing districts will be the whole show again in 2020 and right now Nancy should be worried because the voters in those districts are not impressed with what they are seeing — and not one is thinking, “if only Hillary Clinton were President it would all be great!”
Not one!
Steve Gruber is a regionally syndicated talk radio host based in Northern Michigan. Find out more at stevegruber.com.
