Trump and Vance Deliver Love Letter to Detroiters; Democrats Insult Their Intelligence

J.D. Vance and Donald Trump delivered speeches in Detroit on October 8 and 10, which this author (whose roots were planted in Detroit over 100 years ago) felt were love letters to the real Detroit. Of course, Kamala Harris, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the controlled media presented Trump’s speech as the opposite of what it was. The Associated Press carried a headline “Trump insults Detroit while campaigning in the city,” and the Harris campaign immediately crafted an ad, featuring a Hollywood actor (of course), denouncing Trump’s comments about how the whole country will end up being like Detroit if Harris wins. Of course, those same newspapers which spoke of Trump’s so-called insult, also carried headlines that Stellantis, one of the Big Three automakers, is considering moving its headquarters out of Michigan!

Donald Trump did not insult Detroit. In his October 10 speech to the Detroit Economic Club, he insulted the destructive policies and “stupid” political leaders and greedy globalist corporate leaders whose policies turned the city, which once had the highest per capita income in the country, into one where the residents in those neighborhoods which are outside of the gentrified sports/entertainment/casino-supported  enclaves are among the poorest and unhealthiest in the country. Detroit students also have one of the lowest reading proficiency scores in the country. The Democrats apparently think that Detroiters don’t understand their own circumstances, just as they don’t understand how great Bidenomics has been for their standard of living. 

This is what Trump really said, 

And I’m telling you right now, standing here in the center of this once great city, that by the end of my term, the entire world will be talking about the Michigan miracle and the stunning rebirth of Detroit. 

President Trump reported that he had spoken to young Detroiters before the event, who love the state and the city, but can’t get decent jobs and are being forced to move away. Here is what Trump said to them, 

Michigan is going to be your biggest beneficiary for this. We’re going to put America workers first, America’s jobs first, American cars first, America factories first, and we’re going to put the American people first.

When we do all of this, you will witness nothing less than the launch of a new American industrial revolution. Thousands of factories will open up all across our land. Great paying blue collar jobs will lift up those who have suffered so terribly over the past four years…

Again, young people will move from the coast to big cities and to the heartlands to build their fortunes on the new frontier of the American Midwest. They’re going to move back instead of leaving.

Two days before Trump delivered his speech, Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance also addressed a Detroit audience. I was in attendance and was struck by how most of the warm-up speakers captured the essence of the new Trump-shaped Republican Party of workers and producers. The new famous Pastor Lorenzo Sewell of Detroit’s 180 Church (where Donald Trump spoke in June) roused the crowd with spiritual fervor. Martell Bivings, the black Republican candidate for the Congressional district which includes Detroit, ripped Kamala Harris to shreds over her tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act which has crushed the purchasing power of Detroiters. Auto Workers for Trump founder Brian Pannebecker went through the destructive impact of free-trade and EV mandates on the auto  jobs.

Vance’s speech was a straightforward presentation of Trump’s tariff and immigration policies. But it was in the Q&A at the end that he eloquently evoked the real producer spirit of Detroit. He was asked by a reporter, why should Black Americans vote for the Republican ticket?  Vance told the story of the real Detroit, how black and white Americans came from the South and from Appalachia to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families.

New Initiatives and New Hope from Trump

Trump’s speech to the Detroit Economic Club returned again and again to his commitment to use aggressive tariff and tax policies to bring manufacturing back to the industrial heartland. As he has said before, his tax cuts and incentives (like incentives on research and development and capital investment) will only apply to companies that build in the U.S. and hire American workers. He continued to praise the tariff policies of William McKinely as an example of how we will build up wealth in the U.S. and be able to reduce the crushing 1.8 trillion dollar deficit. 

He announced two new initiatives in the speech. First, he will renegotiate the USMCA treaty to ensure that China cannot build electric vehicles in Mexico and ship them into the U.S. And he announced that he will make interest rates on auto loans fully tax deductible. “That’s going to revolutionize your industry …(and) will stimulate massive domestic auto production.”

While the state of the economy, especially the manufacturing sector, is obviously a focus of Michigan voters’ concerns, foreign policy has more than a general interest to people in the Detroit area, since it is the home of the largest Arab/Muslim-American population in the country. Trump’s unflinching attack on the war-faction in both parties is resonating strongly among families, some of whom have lost multiple  loved ones in the latest, and most dangerous, of recent decades’ perpetual wars there.

Referencing Iran and the region, Trump said, 

Iran was broke when I left office, and I don’t want them to be broke. I want them to be a strong country. I just don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, it’s very simple. And you protect Israel, and frankly, you protect the Middle East. I want to protect the Middle East, the whole Middle East. And I hate to see this death to everybody. People that have nothing to do with anything are being killed all over the place on both sides. Nobody wants that, we have to protect everybody.

So we go in, we blow up countries, and then we leave. We got nothing except dead people all over the place on both sides. How stupid are we? That was a Cheney deal and a Bush. How stupid are we? Not just Democrats, it’s both. I’m equally angry at both, because we have humanity to think about also. You do, you have humanity to think about.

In the Q&A at the end, Trump further elaborated on what he had accomplished with his Abraham Accords which had put this historically unsettled and violent region on the edge of peace.  Biden and Harris dismantled the Abraham Accords immediately upon assuming office based solely on their desire to destroy everything Trump created while in office.