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Trump was, “the elephant in the room,” for Denham Event

August 7, 2018 By Eric Caine 4 Comments

Demonstrators, Red Event Center, Modesto, August 7, 2018

“When he was asked about hate, the elephant in the room was the president,” said Modesto resident Ken Schroeder after Congressman Jeff Denham’s appearance at the Red Event Center in downtown Modesto on Tuesday. The event was sponsored by the Latino Community Roundtable.

And even though the president’s name rarely came up during Denham’s question-and- answer session, Donald Trump’s policies hovered like a dark shadow over the entire program. In addition to being asked about hate crimes, Denham was also queried about his position on Trump’s threat to shut down the government and the president’s imposition of tariffs on exports.

Denham tried to thread the needle on tariffs, first saying he’s against them but then claiming, “some unfair things are starting to get worked out,” as a result of Trump’s insistence on revising trade agreements.

“I don’t think we should ever resort to threats,” said Denham about the president’s threat to shut down government unless congress can achieve immigration reform, “We can do better.” Denham may have been hoping people have forgotten his 2013 vote to continue the government shutdown, despite harm to many of his constituents.

Denham said the two biggest issues in his district are water and immigration. He showed the most passion about immigration, saying the issue is “personal” for him in part because his wife is a Latina. “I’ll stand up to anyone in either party for immigration reform,” he said, but then blamed Democrats and the Obama administration for failure to deliver a “clean” act for DREAMers.

He said he wanted to assure children separated from their parents were reunited, but didn’t say how it would be accomplished when the government loses track of both children and parents.

Jeff Denham

Denham said that we need more water storage and, “We need it now.” He said that the state’s demands for increased flows along our rivers threatened the entire valley economy, “Just so we can send 40% of our water out to the ocean.”

But Congressman Denham was clearly not eager to deal with questions seemingly related to government inaction in the face of growing problems with homelessness, opioid use, and hate crimes.

Denham said that our response to homelessness should be to become, “more involved in the community and with non-profits.” He said that congress had, “passed more than 50 bills on opioids.” To people familiar with the Red Event Center’s 8th Street location, the comments seemed acutely ironic, as the area is known for large concentrations of homeless people and frequent drug deals, despite many years of volunteer work by people, non-profits, church groups and charitable organizations like the Salvation Army.

And while many people believe Donald Trump has encouraged hate crimes and white supremacists with equivalencies like his, “Some very fine people on both sides,” in regard to the demonstrators at Charlottesville, Denham said the problem with hate,

“Starts with us. The first obligation is us as parents. The message we send our kids is the message they take home. We’ve got to have a serious look within.”

Denham also said that racist hate is, “more prevalent in the media than it has been in the past.” Whether he was taking a cue from Trump’s “fake news” campaign or simply offering an objective observation was hard to tell, but many in the audience felt that the congressman simply wished to deflect questions about the extremism which the Trump administration has made central to the Republican Party’s platform.

Virginia Madueno and Carmen Sabatino, Red Event Center, August 7, 2018

Another problem that could haunt Jeff Denham as the campaign for congress progresses toward the November 6 election is a new sophistication among district voters. Tuesday’s crowd seemed about equally divided among Republicans and Democrats, and the Democrats in particular were very well informed on Jeff Denham’s long record in congress, including his support for the president’s tax cuts for the rich and attempts to gut the Affordable Care Act.

Most of all though, it is increasingly clear that Jeff Denham faces the same quandary as other Republicans throughout the nation: How does he escape Donald Trump’s dark shadow without alienating Trump’s rabid supporters? It’s a difficult proposition, especially for a congressman who has thus far supported the president’s policies almost  98% of the time. It’s the elephant in the room.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Featured, Politics Tagged With: Congressman Jeff Denham, Jeff Denham, Josh Harder for congress

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Damon Woods says

    August 8, 2018 at 12:43 pm

    Well, as usual- the press speaks half truth’s to make their case against Denham and Trump. As Harry Reid was once quoted when confronted that he created ‘fake news about Romney’- his reply- so what- we won. That is all the matters is winning. And, if the campaign promises are delivered, well, too bad for those voters. We took a trip recently through Fresno- the bullet train Phase I was near the freeway- this is the train that will never run, cost the taxpayers over $100 billion and most of that money will go towards re-electing more Democrats who will stop at nothing to win and keep their pockets bulging. Ask, if you will, who owns the contracting firm building phase I- (he is the husband of Diane Feinstein). He won the bid by coincidence…. Pelosi, Feinstein and Brown are laughing all the way to the bank- they will soon have all of our money and our water…

    Reply
    • leilani hagberg says

      August 8, 2018 at 1:00 pm

      Troll and Pelosi and crew have not sent children to wander drugged and caged without their parents Or spent Taxpayer dollars spend on vacations, golf and personal security while not at the White house for Donald, Melania and Barron $147,000,000.00 over 9 months or $16,333,333.33 per month,and pushing for a useless expensive border wall.
      plus I’m a real person, not fictitious

      Reply
  2. Bob E. says

    August 14, 2018 at 6:06 pm

    Wow. Biased much? “Donald Trump’s policies hovered like a dark shadow over the entire program” really?? As for “Trump’s threat to shut down the government…”, I humbly submit, that when a government becomes this dysfunctional it SHOULD be shut down.

    Its a real conundrum for the left, and apparently Mr. Caine, that Trump made promises while on campaign. People voted for him based on those promises, and to everyone’s surprise, he has been delivering on those promises.

    Is it not time that the press began resigning their membership in the mutual appreciation society and started realizing that there is another half to the country who deserves unbiased reporting?

    Moreover, if the intent of this article to serve as a left wing whacko editorial, mission accomplished.

    Reply
    • S. Adams says

      August 26, 2018 at 8:18 pm

      There is nothing biased about this reporting but your reactive, dishonest, Trumpian-like response to it is very informative.

      Just because the facts aren’t on your side doesn’t make the information biased or untrue. Go back to Breitbart and Fox News where you can continue your delusions and I pray to God that the Valley won’t have to deal with greed-above-all, swamp creature that is Denham much longer.

      Reply

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