Trump noted all those things. But at the end of the day his speech was a rousing, affirmative paean to unity. At bottom, Donald Trump is a problem solver. He is an apostle of common sense. He promised to return to New York and sort out the anarchy. He to reach across aisles and put ideology to one side. He was looking for constructive partners. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “whether they’re Democrats or Republicans — because this is about our city and our country, and it’s about the people. It’s about our success. It’s about our greatness.”
Are you listening yet? “It doesn’t matter whether you are black or brown or white, we are all Americans. We all want better opportunity — and I’m not just going to promise it, I’m going to deliver it, as I did against all odds for four straight years.”
I know that there are a lot of very smart people who would simply laugh if I told them that I think that the state of New York is in play for Donald Trump. I am not — not quite, not yet — willing to predict that he will win New York in 2024. But I believe that he could. And I am confident that he will do much, much better in New York in 2024 than he did in 2020. Which means, as the Nate Silvers of the world will recognize, that he is very likely to win back the presidency as well. Trump had to win “beyond the margin of fraud.” I like his formulation better: “too big to rig.” That’s the margin that Trump requires. If his extraordinary tally in the South Bronx Thursday was any indication, his chances are far better than most of us in the lanyard class have yet twigged.
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