The Right Resistance: Look for the signs of Trump strength around you. Then go vote.

Everyone knows, looks can be deceiving, especially in politics.

Take the recent 2024 campaign dynamic as an example. If you’ve been paying attention to the news and the world around us, you may have sensed the presidential race has entered its final phase with Republican Donald Trump riding momentum into Election Day next week. Early voting has been going on for weeks in many spots, so, as Sean Hannity argued, Election Day is practically every day, but still, there’s something about “the” day that provides irrefutable evidence that something’s happening.

For those who caught Trump’s astonishingly well done “closing” rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City last weekend, if you’re like me, you probably concluded it doesn’t get much better than that. Granted I didn’t catch each speaker’s presentation in its entirety, but I tried ascertaining how a political event could improve on the model.

Literally, within hours came the cavalcade of negative condemnation from liberals looking to downplay Trump’s advantage, mostly belligerent about the “insult comedian” who made off color/tasteless remarks about Puerto Rico, among other smears. The Trump campaign disavowed the man’s presentation, but yet it was evident the damage may already have been done.

Trump is a master showman. He’s proven it time and again. But his formula for conducting live events sometimes lands him in trouble. In an opinion piece titled “The pros and cons of Trump’s political showmanship”, the usually on-point W. James Antle III wrote at the Washington Examiner the other day:

“[T]he main takeaway from the event was an insult comic’s disparaging reference to Puerto Rico. The commonwealth island doesn’t get a vote in the presidential election, though Trump won more than 96% of the vote in its Republican primary. (It should be noted that only a little over 1,000 people voted and the other candidates on the ballot had already withdrawn.) Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans living in the battleground states do, however.

“The Trump campaign distanced itself from the joke, which clearly fell flat with the audience as well. This has so far invited scrutiny of which other remarks at the sprawling multi-speaker rally the former president disavows or endorses.

“It is the paradox of Trump’s live events. A reality TV star, Trump nevertheless prioritizes entertaining and exciting his supporters in the arena no matter what the impact on the viewers at home. This was on display in his 90-minute acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.”

Yes, indeed. We’ve seen it all before. Trump holds one of his “standard” mass rallies and the establishment news media’s producers and commentators sift through the hours of “regular” footage to pinpoint one moment or collection of spliced together tidbits to show on the evening news and imply that the candidate was either off his game or acting like the Democrats say he does – namely, as a racist, sexist, “fascist” or generally an off-putting cad who gets people’s dander up.

It's an illusion, mostly, but the left has honed the impression carefully. They make it seem as though just about everyone despises Trump. They also say his fans will vote for him because conservative MAGA proponents are mind-numbed zombies, or just hate people, or are uninformed, misguided, propelled by “misinformation” or are consumed with dislike for women of color and/or ex-high school football coaches who served “honorably” for 24 years in the National Guard and never told a lie in his life.

Listening to the noise, a reasonable person may surmise Trump is way behind, and his political ship is listing badly and in danger of foundering and disappearing beneath the waves, never to be seen again except by a submersible searching for it. One that doesn’t implode, that is.

In other words, it’s not always easy to spot the clues that one of the candidates has established separation. If liberals are truly able to look at an event like what took place in Trump’s hometown last Sunday night and isolate one speaker from the rest of the who’s who of American political and cultural figures and find negativity, they just might have you believing the sky is falling in Trump world rather than correctly concluding Democrats are panicking and searching the landscape for something that will deliver them political life support.

Obsessing on the incremental – and slow – movement of opinion polls leads to insanity. After nearly ten years of Donald Trump residing in the realm of politics, we just can’t make heads or tails of how Americans really feel about him. On one side we’ve got the leftist establishment media and RINO establishment Republicans telling us Trump isn’t so well loved. On the other we have scenes on TV depicting gobs of red, white and blue adorned Trump fans turning out by the tens of thousands at nearly every Trump rally hoping to get in to see their candidate speak – something they could easily catch on TV if they really needed a Trump fix.

It's confusing and frustrating to say the least. So, in the interest of promoting mental stability just a few days before the election, here are indicators that reality isn’t so impossible, and sometimes seeing and living is believing.

Signs you can tell Trump is winning and/or you can detect that cackling Kamala and “Tampon Tim” are losing:

Number one: The volume of campaign text messages imploring you to answer them and provide token assurance their candidate is still on your mind and in your heart. And that you’re possibly willing to dig deep and pad their war chest for the final stage – or provide substantive fuel for their post-election challenges.

Somehow, the Harris/Walz campaign got my telephone number and I was added to some Democrat list for donors and supporters. Actually, I should clarify – it was my wife’s name that was put on the rolls, since Kamala n’ Tim have personally (written in the first person) reached out dozens of times over the past couple months, each of the urgently worded messages begging her/me to reply and confirm that I still intended to vote for them. Lately, the number of texts has increased dramatically, yet another sign of heavy breathing and desperation at Democrat campaign HQ.

As a side note, I’m sick to death of these practically hourly interruptions, but have kept my phone number on their roster to serve as a small bit of inside intelligence on their campaign and insight into what arguments they’re using. Does it matter to them? Probably not. But I can decipher the depth of their GOTV effort by the tone of their messages.

I get the Trump campaign messages, too, and they’re somewhat similar in style. But ever since I voted earlier this month, they’re much less frequent. But not from the Democrats. It means I’m not on their list of “supporters” who’ve already voted.

Number two: Your mother should know.

Contrary to the popular legend, mothers don’t know everything, but their innate intuition usually has a pretty good sense about things. For example, my mom was way more worried than I was in 2020, and her fears were justified on Election Night. Kind of like Fox News’s Jessie Waters, whose mom is a liberal (and he talks about a lot), mothers know when something ain’t right.

My mom seems happy about Trump’s chances this year. Does her prediction carry as much weight as Karl Rove’s does, with his white board in tow? You be the judge.

Number three: Who’s winning the yard sign/bumper sticker/campaign paraphernalia race?

Similar to mom’s intuition, a greater number of yard signs in a neighborhood or bumper stickers on cars or quantity of hats and t-shirts isn’t dispositive of true support numbers, but they all provide clues as to the confidence people have in showing their “colors” with other folks around. Judging by the number of honks and thumbs up I receive when simply driving along – or being rudely cut off in traffic – my Trump bumper sticker is generally positively accepted.

Further, I talked with a group of MAGA hat wearing grandparents at a travel baseball tournament last weekend, and none of them harped on Trump cutting social security or Medicare. But they did express cautious optimism about the upcoming election outcome. To quote one gentleman: “Kamala Harris cannot win. People know it. Can you imagine her in a meeting with Vladimir Putin?” No, I can’t.

Number four: Who’s showing their cards in the Facebook public relations battle?

I’ve mentioned it before – I don’t personally post to Facebook. Haven’t in years. But I do enjoy “lurking” to see what others are posting. And based on the unrestrained worry exhibited by liberal friends, they’re terrified that cackling Kamala is lagging her MAGA opponent. Substantially behind. Trump social media backers display no such apprehensions.

One note – social media active liberals seem unaware that they have conservative friends, based on their heavily biased messages against Trump and not so veiled preaching regarding morals and conscience and responsibilities to our fellow human beings to vote for a woman/Democrat like cackling Kamala Harris. They’re so self-righteous, and their musings are all about personality and “fascism” and treating people as you would yourself. A couple of them are liberal “woke” church clergy, too. Is God punishing them for their ignorance?

We’ll discover the answer soon. I can’t wait to see what they post late next week if the election forecasts play out.

Other sure signs of Trump’s staying power:

Democrats have amped up the racism/sexism talk. If you haven’t caught it yet, check out Michelle Obama’s recent speech shaming men in Michigan. Man, they’re reaching. One almost feels sorry for Democrats being forced to watch them struggle. Almost.

Finally, some Democrat candidates are disassociating themselves with cackling Kamala – and outwardly praising Trump. You wouldn’t normally do this if you’re confident of victory, would you?

So yes, looks do deceive, especially when it comes to what the heinous, untrustworthy media shows. Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden certainly won him a lot more votes than it might’ve lost him by having one idiot who no one’s ever heard of insult a suspect racial classification. Don’t believe the boo birds. Look for the “signs” – and then decide for yourself.

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