Cal Thomas: Dear Mr. President

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Dear Mr. President, “Would you take this advice I hand you like a brother”?

REICHARD: Cal Thomas now with some advice for the president.

THOMAS: That’s a song lyric from the musical “The Pajama Game,” and it’s fitting here.

Mr. President, there is a way you can engage and energize your base without constant Twitter assaults on those who criticize you for attacking them. If you lowered the rhetorical temperature, you might just add numbers to your support going into the midterms and beyond.

As a businessman, you have focused on results. You often brag about your success in dealing with members of the opposition party in New York. Why don’t you borrow from that strategy as president?

Americans may dislike sore losers, but they hate braggadocious winners even more.

So please accept a little advice, starting with your recent tweet criticizing basketball star LeBron James. In a CNN interview with Don Lemon, James blamed you for using sports to “divide the country.” Here you scored a two-fer, slamming James, but also calling Lemon “the dumbest man on television.”

James had spoken earlier in the interview about a school he recently helped open in his hometown of Akron, Ohio. The school helps at-risk children get a better education and James’ philanthropic foundation is working hand-in-hand with the city’s public schools to improve the prospects of disadvantaged students. It’s a noble and necessary effort.

Instead of blasting James, you should have invited him to the White House, along with some of the children he is helping. You might also have invited parents of those children trapped in failed public schools, and then taken that opportunity to promote your school choice ideas.

You campaigned on school choice and asked African Americans why they keep voting for Democrats when that party has done little to help them rise above their circumstances. Well, what did your criticism of James and Lemon accomplish? Was anyone’s mind changed?

Here’s another suggestion. You promote the low unemployment rate and the new jobs that have been created since you pushed for tax cuts and deregulation. As you campaign for congressional candidates, why don’t you bring forward people that previously could not find a job, but now are gainfully employed and grateful?

There are many ways you can promote a positive, upbeat agenda. Demonizing your opponents and the media isn’t one of them.

In the song I referenced already, the lead character asks: “Is it all going in one ear and out the other?”

I sincerely hope not, Mr. President.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President Donald Trump waves as he arrives on Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport, in Morristown, N.J., Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018, en route to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., after attending a rally in Lewis Center, Ohio. 

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