By insulting his host city in his speech last Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club, convicted felon and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump figuratively pinned a “Kick Me!” sign on the backside pocket of his baggy, blue suit.
Quick to take the bait on Friday were two elected Michigan Democrats, Attorney General Dana Nessel and State Senator Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak, both on Deadline: White House on MSNBC with Nicole Wallace.
Nessel suggested Trump should contest his many court cases with a plea of his own insanity and demand a competency hearing. She said Detroit went bankrupt only once while Trump did so four times.
McMorrow, less glib, found Trump more sane — and called his tactics “ugly.”
“Donald Trump is actively trying to whip up white votes by convincing white people, maybe who don’t live in Detroit, that something nefarious is happening,” said McMorrow, who suggested Trump speaks coded language to scare voters away from the biracial Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
What Trump said, in part, was:
“The whole country’s gonna be like — Wanna know the truth? — it’ll be like Detroit,” Trump told the business elites of the Motor City. “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re gonna have a mess on your hands.”
McMorrow, whose telegenic presence is extraordinary, responded directly.
“What a tactic,” she said of Trump dissing the D. “It’s like inviting a friend into your house. They look around and tell you how much of a dump it is . . . What I heard here was dog-whistling and Trump trying to divide Americans against each other and Michiganders against Michiganders.”
Pointing to rowdy protests by Trump supporters in 2020 in downtown Detroit during the counting of ballots, McMorrow added: “You saw those visuals of largely white people, not from Detroit, banging on the glass, intimidating largely Black election workers. And he’s trying to do it again.”
Later in his Detroit appearance — which consumed nearly two hours — Trump rambled on like Abe Simpson (father of Homer, grandfather of Bart), talking about different circles while talking in circles and weaving from topic to topic as if responding to voices in his head that only he could hear.
With not-quite-convincing sincerity but with pointed specificity, McMorrow compared the 78-year-old Trump to the 82-year-old President Joe Biden, who is retiring.
“In the same way that it was sad for many of us to watch with President Biden, time catches up with all of us,” McMorrow said. “This [Trump] isn’t even a man who can finish a cohesive thought in less than 100 minutes.”
