Opinion
By Steve Nicklas, 4-8-24

It’s the coyote-and-roadrunner cartoons on a re-run loop. In this adaptation, the roadrunner is covered with Teflon instead of feathers.
The coyotes are a pack of corrupt bureaucrats. The roadrunner is Teflon Don(ald) Trump. No matter the intricate traps the bureaucrats set, the flimsy criminal and civil charges they bring, nothing sticks. Trump effortlessly evades them.
He emerges smelling like a fresh rose. And his polling numbers reflect this.
The latest trap was to bankrupt Trump and his uber-successful company through a $500 million bond tied to a civil verdict. The unprecedented amount was quickly reduced by a higher court. And Trump paid it. He can now appeal the guilty ruling by a kangaroo-court judge over victimless business loans.
In ironic timing, a public offering of Trump’s media company, “Truth Social,” deposited billions of dollars into the former president’s pockets. Therefore, running out of money at this point appears ludicrous, like the coyotes.
In yet another instance, the bureaucrats got foiled again. We’ll include the biased national media in this example. When Trump used the term “bloodbath” in addressing the electric-vehicle fallout for the automobile unions, the media ran with it at the speed of a turbo Corvette.
They absurdly crooned that Trump incited violence. In response, Trump opportunistically doubled down on the term. He is now using it to define the sieve-like southern border under presidential opponent Joe Biden.
In a brilliant political maneuver, Trump has coined a phrase: “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.” He delivered a speech in Grand Rapids, Mich. with this theme. High-ranking Michigan law enforcement officials stood proudly on stage with him, in solidarity.
Trump is also running a graphic “Biden’s Border Bloodbath” commercial and an email campaign driving the same message. Voters are eating it up like chocolate candy. The border is polling as a top political issue and Trump is deftly piloting the messaging.
In the emails and in the commercial, Trump describes gruesome murders by illegal migrants who crossed the border under Biden’s feeble watch. Trump publicizes photos of innocent young women and children killed in these avoidable crimes. After all, the national media ignores it. It doesn’t fit their pro-Democrat narrative.
The “Biden’s Border Bloodbath” images are heartbreaking. The commercial shows looters smashing glass cases in jewelry stores. Chilean gangs inflicting havoc through 100 cells around the country. And the murder of 22-year-old Leah Gomez in downtown Grand Rapids, leaving behind her young daughter with special needs.
In Trump’s email blast, he details “a tragic surge in violent crime against innocent American citizens at the hands of some of the world’s most violent criminals – who would have never been in the country under President Donald J. Trump.”
It describes an illegal migrant from Haiti who admits sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl multiple times in Pembroke Park; another illegal migrant charged with human trafficking, sodomy and sexual abuse against a 14-year-old girl; and an illegal migrant deported eight times, with 11 arrests, now charged with murder in Ohio.
Michigan, Ohio, Florida. Critical swing states that are now border states. Where Biden must run on his broken border record in the presidential election.
In the cartoons, the coyote and roadrunner are entertaining and comical. In real life, this is demoralizing and disturbing.
Whatever the Biden campaign does to get Trump, to put the attention on him, he throws it back at them. With the impact and weight of an iron anvil.

Steve Nicklas is the managing partner of Nicklas Wealth Management in Fernandina Beach. He is also an award-winning columnist. His columns regularly appear in weekly newspapers in Northeast Florida and in Southeast Georgia, and on his website at www.SteveNicklasMarketplace.com. He has published a book, “All About Money,” of his favorite columns from the past 20 years. The book is available on Amazon. He has also done financial reports for area radio stations and for National Public Radio in Jacksonville. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 904-753-0236.
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.