The Gain Control Series - The Other Half Of the Widows-and-Orphans Equation

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


This series offers our two cents worth of advice to Candidate Trump, telling him how we - GOP Base Loyalists - might like him to respond, in debates and otherwise, to specific kinds of attacks by Hillary Clinton.


A new Clinton theme in the second debate: She's the super-champion of poor, defenseless little children, having sponsored or co-sponsored numerous bills supporting them when she was a Senator. And Trump hasn't (sponsored bills), so he isn't (a children's champion).


One obvious response to this - although it takes some initial research - is relating how many bills Clinton actually had a lead role in writing and getting passed and what percentage she merely signed her name to as one of numerous co-sponsors.


But what we'd like Trump to counter with is the other half of the Widows-and-Orphans equation, the essential-to-protect group of Americans who haven't been adequately protected for years: "Gray" Americans over age 50, the Age Peers and Experience Peers of both Trump and Clinton.


Trump Channeling Our Advice (on Widows-and-Orphans Braggadocio): Clearly, we all care about America's children, and we've outlined a number of ideas, in line with the thinking of most Republicans, on what reforms are needed in our early childhood education system, which many feel has deteriorated badly because of Democrats' protection of powerful teachers' unions against the best interests of children and their parents.


But I'd like to talk a bit about the other half of the Widows-and-Orphans equation, that very important core American value of protecting those most economically and socially vulnerable, sheltering them from the vicissitudes of rough spots in our economy - which we are certainly experiencing right now.


The other half of that equation is the pressing need for the continued well-being, financial and otherwise, of the now more than 43 percent of American citizens - or more than 2 in 5 of us - who are age 50 and over, a group which, by the way, includes both Secretary Clinton and myself.


These are Americans who are well-educated, highly-skilled, and highly-experienced, Americans who, up until this period of economic stagnation and virtually no growth, brought to you by the Obama Administration, were mostly comfortable and proud members of the great American Middle Class - a Middle Class which is fast disappearing.


These proud and patriotic and worthy Americans have been the true victims of the economic catastrophes the Limousine Liberals have almost casually - certainly carelessly - embraced over the past three decades.


This litany of catastrophes is downright frightening: Outsourcing, downsizing, financial engineering, the decimation of middle managers and production workers alike, the hollowing out of our resources and manufacturing sectors, the lack of support for small business and dying Main Streets, perpetual housing crises and market crashes, and the flood of immigration which has favored the interests of young and inexperienced workers over well-educated and skilled workers who've suffered the great - supposedly unforgivable - misfortune of having their hair turn gray.


As Mike Pence and I travel this great land, we hear the most heartbreaking stories each and every day: wonderful, creative, superbly skilled and educated men and women left adrift, almost without hope, because of the Limousine Liberals' Globalization Agenda, which seems to state that once you pass the Age Maginot Line of 50 - we hear it's been moved down to 40 in Silicon Valley - you are over-the-hill and useless to this nation, while illegal immigrants are coddled and courted and given all sorts of help we now fail to give unemployed and underemployed people over 50 - people just like you and me, Hillary, our own Age Peers or those just a few years older, now turning into an Army of the Desperate, while a Democratic Administration twiddles its thumbs.


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