Is this another case of Trump Syndrome? Illinois Democrat Sean Casten, who is hoping to unseat Republican incumbent Peter Roskam in the state’s 6th congressional district, said President Trump and dead al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whom we justly killed in 2011, “have a lot in common.” The entertaining thing is that he knows that statement is a stretch, even mentioning it before he makes the remark (via Free Beacon):
Democratic congressional candidate Sean Casten said he believes President Donald Trump has “a tremendous amount in common” with al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
“In many ways — and I don’t want to sound hyperbolic, I don’t know, hyperbolic — Trump and Osama bin Laden have a lot in common,” Casten said, according to an audio recording of a February campaign rally obtained by the Free Beacon…
[…]
Casten, a “clean energy entrepreneur” who emerged from a tight primary in March in Illinois’ 6th District, made the bizarre comparison after a voter asked him about his plans to introduce gun control legislation if elected. The comment was part of Casten’s explanation that opponents of gun control, whom he apparently likens to al-Qaeda supporters, are what will keep gun control legislation from advancing through the House of Representatives.
“They both figured out how to use the bully’s platform to galvanize marginalized young men,” Casten said. “Every demagogue has done it—find a group of angry people and give them something to be angry about.”
Free Beacon also has an audio clip of the entire meeting that you can watch can be found here. Here we go again, and Casten is not the first. Notice that he is making a demagogic comparison. He could have simply said that Trump is a Nazi, since that is the person most often quoted as a monomaniacal demagogue and someone who Democrats seem to think is all members of the Republican Party who secretly share their political views. Basically, anyone who deviates from the leftist ethos of the Democratic Party is a Nazi. That is a economical jab. That is a indolent jab. That is a historically illiterate jab. And it has lost its influence, if it ever had it, which I doubt it did. That is an exaggeration. It makes you look like a desperate lunatic who cannot articulate a real policy position. Most normal people (i.e. people who are not Democrats) know that this comparison is just nonsense. In this case, the left has chosen to focus on yet another loathsome figure with which to denigrate the GOP: Osama bin Laden.
Maybe it’s worth considering why these people are enraged. Most of them are patriotic, hard-working Americans trying to raise their families after decades of being ignored by the Acela Corridor, the Democratic Party, and the elite political establishment. They heard fancy speeches and got nothing in return. Maybe they voted for Trump because he wasn’t like other politicians, because he’s not one of them. He shakes up the system. They wanted to bomb it—and Trump certainly seemed like the man to do that. In doing so, they saw the economy go into overdrive. They’re seeing results. He’s America’s cheerleader in a way Obama never was. These people aren’t racists. They just wanted a seat at the table, which they got. And if you live in CNN-MSNBC garbage land, then yes, America is falling apart, Trump is Hitler, and the Russian plague is omnipresent, but you’d have to be on crack to believe it — and for the most part, everyone knows that what the liberal elite media puts out is just as much garbage as Trump and Osama bin Laden have in common.
Casten joins former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray, who is running for governor of Ohio, who has compared Ohio Republicans to Nazi collaborators or something. Nazis, Osama bin Laden … you don’t have anything, do you? A booming economy is something you can get behind. And for all the talk about the GOP running out of ideas, Democrats seem intent on making crazy statements, crying impeachment and wallowing in anti-Trump rage. That’s not a recipe for victory.
