RUTHFULLY YOURS

According to most polls taken since last month’s party conventions, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton enjoys an insurmountable lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump. Consequently, a number of commentators on both sides of the partisan divide have declared the race over. Clinton, they say, has won.

There are several problems with this conclusion.
First of all, the “official campaign,” won’t begin until September 26, when Clinton and Trump face off in their first presidential debate. Clinton is not a stellar debater and Trump, a seasoned entertainer, excels in these formats.

Second, recent polls indicate that Trump is closing the gap. Whereas until this past week Clinton enjoyed a 6-8 point lead in the polls, in two polls taken this week, her lead had contracted to a mere 1-3 points.

Third, it is quite possible that Clinton’s problems have only begun. Her peak popularity may be behind her. Since her nomination, barely a day has passed without another stunning exposé of apparently corrupt behavior on the part of Clinton and her closest advisers. This week’s AP report that half of Clinton’s non-official visitors during her tenure as secretary of state were donors to the Clinton Foundation was merely the latest blow.

The continuous drip of corruption stories will have a corrosive effect on Clinton’s support levels. If the revelations to come are as damaging as many have claimed, their impact on Clinton’s candidacy may be fatal.

In light of Clinton’s weaknesses, Trump’s main hurdle to winning the election may very well lie with the NeverTrump movement. That movement encompasses much of the Republican establishment – that is, the political class of centrist elected officials, opinion-shapers, former officials and ideologues. Its members have vowed not to vote for Trump even if it means that Clinton wins the White House. The fact that so many prominent Republican voices continue to oppose Trump even after he has been nominated hurts his ability to build support among swing voters.

As far as the NeverTrumpsters are concerned, Trump carried out a hostile takeover of their party.

Hillary Clinton has met with leaders of a racist hate group responsible for torching cities and inciting the murders of police officers.

Deray McKesson, one of the Black Lives Matter hate group leaders she met with, had praised the looting of white people and endorsed cop killers Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Black Lives Matter hate group had specifically made a point of targeting white people in “white spaces” for harassment. It would go on to incite the mass murder of police officers in Dallas and other racist atrocities.

Despite all this, Hillary Clinton has never disavowed the racist hate group. Instead she doubled down on supporting the hate group and its icons at the Democratic National Convention.

Now, after Trump’s appeal to the black community, Hillary is desperately trying to divide us by race.

Despite Hillary’s latest hypocritical and self-serving accusations, Donald Trump has never held a meeting with leaders of a racist hate group. Hillary Clinton has. And she has refused all calls by police unions to end her support for a vicious hate group that has championed the release of cop killers and endorsed BDS against Israel.

When an 83-year-old great grandmother is viciously beaten by racist thugs and then set on fire, Hillary Clinton has nothing to say. She has remained silent about the wave of racist violence by her political allies that is sweeping this country and leaving victims battered or dead.

Hillary is trading on accusations of racism to distract attention from her ugly record of pandering to racists to get ahead. As Trump has said, “It’s the oldest play in the Democratic playbook. When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument. You’re racist, you’re racist, you’re racist!”

It’s not Hillary Clinton who has a consistent track record of opposing racists, but Donald Trump.

In a speech largely aimed at moderate Republicans, Hillary Clinton declared that the “alt-right” running through Donald Trump’s campaign “is not conservatism as we have known it” and “is not Republicanism as we have known it.”

Speaking in Reno today, Clinton compared Donald Trump’s proposal for a religious test of immigrants to Islamic State policies, branded Russian President Vladimir Putin “the grand-godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism,” and said Trump’s “real message seems to be ‘make America hate again.'”

“No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed, racists now call themselves racialists, white supremacists now call themselves white nationalists, the paranoid fringe now calls itself alt-right, but the hate burns just as bright,” Clinton said.

“Now Trump is trying to re-brand himself as well. But don’t be fooled. There’s an old Mexican proverb that says, ‘Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.’ So we know who Trump is.”

At the beginning of her address, Clinton panned Trump’s efforts in recent days to appeal to the African-American community.

“Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms. Poverty, rejection, horrible education, no housing, no homes, no ownership, crime at levels nobody has seen. Right now he said you can walk down the street and get shot. Those are his words,” she said. “But when I hear them, I think to myself, how sad. Donald Trump misses so much. He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of black-owned businesses, the strength of the black church. He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive.”