SALENA ZITO: Groundhog Day In America:
“There is no limit to what we can achieve when we set free the dreams of our incredible people,” President Trump said to a crowd of supporters standing on a decidedly cold cement floor of an equipment company in suburban Pittsburgh.
He paused and told them they were incredible people, then peeled off a list of American achievements over the ages, from the early frontiersmen, to the workers who dug out the Panama Canal, to the building of the Empire State Building and the Hoover Dam, and the launching of a man onto the face of the moon.
“American hands and grit poured the concrete in our highways and forged the steel in our skyscrapers,” he said.
“Americans do anything, build anything, and create anything — as long as we have pride in our country, confidence in our values, and respect for our great American flag.”
It is unlikely that many outside of that room heard the words of what was without question the best speech he has given in his presidency; it was sharp, concise, to the point, and both filled with information on the benefits of his tax reform bill and aspirational for his supporters.
But for those who were there, it just reinforced the hope and confidence that his supporters derive from him, when he delivers to his highest potential.
One year after his inauguration, the voters who supported Trump have rarely changed their minds about how they see this unique figure in American politics. For a year and a day, most of the news they intake about him has been negative — sometimes, it is his fault; sometimes, it’s not; most of the time, it is a combination of both — delivered by a press that still struggles with trying to figure out how this disruptive, un-presidential, blunt, and sometimes uncouth man appeals to anyone.
As one gentleman at the rally, an engineer from suburban Pittsburgh and a Trump supporter, put it, “For me, it’s like Groundhog Day every day. I get up, read the news, he says something that no president has ever been caught saying out loud, the press explodes, and they spend the day talking about how awful he is and wonder how anyone could support him.”
“I go to bed, wake up, and it’s the same thing all over again,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think the press is too hard on him. It’s that I don’t think they were as equally hard on the last guy, and I voted for both of them,” he said of both former President Barack Obama and Trump.
And yes, he thinks Trump is doing a great job.
The past year’s freakoutrage doesn’t seem to have weakened Trump as much as his opposition.