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Trump: It’s Time Americans ‘Got Theirs’

GOP front-runner questions 'the system' in new op-ed

America? Trump would like a word with you. (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)
America? Trump would like a word with you. (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump wants Americans to know it is time they “got theirs.”  

Trump writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “the political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs.”  

In the piece, titled “Let Me Ask America a Question,” Trump pushes back against criticism of his grasp of the GOP delegate rules.  

“Let me ask America a question: How has the ‘system’ been working out for you and your family?” he writes. Not well, he continues.  

Trump’s argument about getting some isn’t a new one in politics. The late H.L. Mencken once famously wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”  

It would, though, be a departure from other political figures’ appeal to the common, not individual, good, perhaps exemplified in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address that Americans “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” America’s answer to Trump’s question, at least in part, can be seen in the Journal’s comments section under his piece. A sampling:

  • “There is something psychotic about a 70-year-old man who signs a loyalty pledge to the RNC, doesn’t read the rules, loses, and then blames his opponent because his opponent read and followed the rules.”
  • “You will vote for him when the rubber meets the road in November.  Trump has a way of growing on you.  I was adamantly opposed to him last fall.  He’s starting to make a lot more sense to me and millions of other voters. Trash The System. Vote Trump!
  • “Here’s another ‘intelligent’ question being posed by Mr. Trump during his recent trip to Penn State: (see related WSJ article): “How’s Joe Paterno? We gonna bring that back. How ’bout that whole deal?”


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