The Next Wildwood? The Donald Does the Bronx

Is President Trump’s plan to hold a rally on Thursday at the South Bronx the kind of derring-do that could yet deliver him a second turn at the presidency? In 2020, the accompanying Assembly district went for President Biden by 88 percent to 11 percent. Mr. Trump lost the Bronx itself to Mr. Biden by 84 percent to 16 percent. Throw out the abacus, though. The 45th president, at New York for a trial, has his designs on high political theater. If it works, it wouldn’t be the first Mr. Trump surprised. We are reminded of his trip in 2016 to Rome, New York. That’s a Rust Belt town where, from a hangar, Mr. Trump delivered what we called a “devastating speech” that “turned out to be a template for his successful primary campaign and then his general election strategy.” He spoke there to “some 5,000 voters, hungry for hope.” This “Rome Strategy” helped him defeat Secretary Clinton.The forgetting of the lesson of Rome — the hollowing out of American manufacturing — cost Mr. Trump reelection. Could recalling a version of it could help him retake the White House? That is the promise of the South Bronx. Polls disclose Black and Hispanic voters are so disillusioned with President Biden and the Biden economy that they are giving the last president another look to be their next one. Like the Romans, they have been forgotten.The prospect of the rally, Politico notes, “could be the most damage red America has inflicted on New York Democrats’ psyche since” since the Knicks fell to the Pacers in a Game 7 defeat on Sunday. Local Democrats appear complacent. The City Council member whose district comprises the site of the rally, Crotona Park, muses that “I haven’t heard of any planned protests” and reckons that “we shouldn’t waste much time with that rally.” Another skeptic is Congressman Ritchie Torres, whose support of Israel is particularly courageous. He writes in the Daily News that “the odious Donald Trump is returning to the Bronx.” He reckons that “one of the reasons for the persistent poverty of the Bronx has been the far-right fanaticism that Trump himself embodies.” It’s a heady claim given that until last year, the borough had not elected a Republican to a City Council seat in 40 years.The Times wrote that the triumph of that councilwoman, Kristy Marmorato, “still sends chills through the city’s Democratic establishment and gives hope to Republicans.” Many voters — at the Bronx and elsewhere — still harbor significant doubts about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office. Our politics, though, would be better off with less micropolitics and swing state campaigning and more attempts by both parties to venture to unfamiliar ground.The conventional wisdom is that both candidates are despised and that most voters are beyond persuasion. The election, we are told, will be about negative partisanship. The lesson of Rome, though, is that there will always be voters for a candidate who speaks to the indelible issues. Mr. Trump’s campaign promises to “ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in New York.” Why shouldn’t that resonate at the Bronx?

The Next Wildwood? The Donald Does the Bronx

The Next Wildwood? The Donald Does the Bronx

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