Staten Island has always been Donald Trump country.
Back in 2016, the future president took a whopping 82 percent of the borough vote in the GOP presidential primary. It was one of the best showings that Trump had in any county in the United States.
He won 57 percent of the vote here against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election that year.
Trump also triumphed here four years ago, beating Democrat Joe Biden, again with about 57 percent of the vote.
And even though Trump’s nomination for president looks to be a foregone conclusion and every other candidate has dropped out of the race, some Staten Island Republicans still turned out to vote for him in last week’s New York primary.
Trump got 5,942 votes on the Island during the primary, according to the state Board of Elections website. None of the other three candidates who remained on the ballot got more than Nikki Haley’s 307 votes.
For some people, it’s a mystery why Republicans, both here and across the country, continue to support Trump.
Maybe those people aren’t paying close enough attention. Because Trump’s appeal for many remains the same as it was in 2016.
Trump ran as an anti-Washington outsider that year.
He talked about the deep state and the Washington, D.C., uniparty, where where there’s no difference between the Clintons, the Bushes, the Pelosis, the McConnells, the Cheneys, the Kerrys and the Romneys, all of whom are feeding from the same trough.
Trump pledged the drain the swamp.
Voters responded to that. Not just Republicans, but Democrats and independents too. Trump shocked the world, literally, by beating Democrat Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
And many still remember that the media and the political prognosticators didn’t take Trump seriously in 2016. They thought he was in it to raise his profile, to make money, to launch another reality show. He didn’t really want to be president.
Which meant that those talking heads didn’t take Trump voters and their concerns seriously either. Which remains true to this day.
And what did voters see during Trump’s four years in office? Two impeachment proceedings, the second flimsier than the first, as well as willfully false attempts to link Trump to the Kremlin.
They saw social media firms ghost stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop and shady business dealings during the 2020 election and the possible connections to President Biden.
They saw the January 6 riot raised to the level of an insurrection. They saw challenging the outcome of an election criminalized. They’ve seen unconstitutional attempts to bar Trump from state ballots.
All courtesy of the entrenched powers that be who don’t want Trump anywhere near the Oval Office ever again, not even on a tour.
Now Trump is in court on various charges in multiple jurisdictions, the first president to ever be indicted either in office or out.
Richard Nixon, who by all available evidence was at the center of an obstruction-of-justice conspiracy at the very highest level of government during Watergate, never saw in the inside of a congressional hearing room, never mind a courtroom.
Trump is fighting New York Attorney General Leticia James, who wants to strip Trump’s assets from him. James is even looking into the law firm that secured the bond that staved off the seizure of Trump’s assets.
Join up with Trump and the feds will come gunning for you as well. That’s the message.
For many, it all proves that Trump was right in 2016 and he’s right today: go up against the deep state and the deep state will bring you down.
Not everybody who voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020 is still on board. For many, there’s just too much heat around the ex-president.
But plenty of people are still with Trump. Because they see how the permanent government has moved against him and they fear it could happen to them. Or they think it’s just plain wrong.
It’s no mystery.
Republicans still stand with Trump, despite trials, controversies. It’s easy to see why (opinion)
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1
07.04.2024
Staten Island has always been Donald Trump country.
Back in 2016, the future president took a whopping 82 percent of the borough vote in the GOP presidential primary. It was one of the best showings that Trump had in any county in the United States.
He won 57 percent of the vote here against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election that year.
Trump also triumphed here four years ago, beating Democrat Joe Biden, again with about 57 percent of the vote.
And even though Trump’s nomination for president looks to be a foregone conclusion and every other candidate has dropped out of the race, some Staten Island Republicans still turned out to vote for him in last week’s New York primary.
Trump got 5,942 votes on the Island during the primary, according to the state Board of Elections website. None of the other three candidates who remained on the ballot got more than Nikki Haley’s 307 votes.
For some people, it’s a mystery why Republicans, both........
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