Piling on Trump
Piling on Trump is likely to become a cottage industry. It is an easy bet that the media will do everything it can to destroy Trump the man and the movement.
The Republican loss of Georgia and the Presidential election certainly adds to the credibility of these attacks. The Republican Party is split, which will make the Democratic victories all the more likely to be implemented. Success has many fathers – defeat is an orphan.
We cannot let pass our own view that Trump has behaved badly, read public opinion incorrectly and should have known that a mass gathering on the very day of the Electoral College meeting had the potential to get out of hand. That Antifa would exploit such an event by penetrating into the crowd should have been expected. As far as the press is concerned, anyone with a red hat is a Trump supporter even though red hats can be worn by anybody.
Given the treatment of events in Charlottesville by the media, it would have been far better if there had not been a march. But the march was more of a “happening”, without much leadership or much direction. After the Presidential address, things went off the rails.
People went because they wanted election fraud noticed. This worthwhile effort was obscured by irresponsible Trump supporters and agent provocateurs from the opposition. The sorry results are that it distracted from Republican efforts to call attention to election fraud and has severely diminished the accomplishments of Trump. The movement to “stop the steal” has failed and has caused his many accomplishments to be completely obliterated by the turmoil.
Expect the political party that encouraged riots all summer, that has divided the country along racial and sexual lines and that moved to defund the police while multiple cities burned will lecture us endlessly about what Trump supporters did in Washington.
Through much of President Trump’s term, his mouth was both his most effective tool and his worst enemy. While his personality made him a survivor from unrelenting and withering attack, it also presented him as arrogant, self-centered and tone deaf to advice he did not want to hear. Maybe he needed those traits to survive but these traits proved to have a downside as well.
It is being said that Trump made a mistake in challenging the election fraud. He should have been a “statesman” like Richard Nixon.
Really, was Nixon a statesman? If in 1960 Nixon was really the choice of the American people and Nixon decided on his own to not challenge the results, then Nixon actually chose our President and Vice President? How democratic is that? And did such magnanimous behavior discourage the Democrats from further cheating? Did the press love him by that gesture? If in your profession, regardless of what it may be, you saw fraud committed, is it not your duty legally and morally to say something? When did hiding the truth become the mark of a “statesman?”
No doubt Trump had every right to challenge the election results.
Administratively, he has made some bad choices. There was too much turnover in his Administration. Mad Dog Mattis may indeed be mad but Trump chose him, did he not? Many of his disgruntled appointees are now busily adding lumber to his funeral pyre.
Where we differ with many of the Trump critics is, they are forgetting that his very rise came out of frustration with the Republican Party. The GOP is for many of us the best hope to maintain freedom in this country but frankly, the party has not been reliable or effective on many occasions.
You might recall he bested more than a dozen competitors within the party. You can bet there are many wounded egos willing to attack him now that he is down.
Trump then went on to beat the mighty Clinton machine. How the heck did he pull that off?
He did this by bringing in many rural and working-class voters that Republicans could not seem to reach before. He touched into the frustration Republican voters have with the Republican Establishment. He reached people who feel abandoned and ridiculed. No wonder he built such a passionate following. He was a blue-collar billionaire.
Perhaps his greatest achievement has been to wake up the country to the threat of China. Even the anti-Trump National Review agrees that the long-held Republican (and Democrat) belief that trade with China and its integration into the global community would change the Chinese Communist Party was a mistake. See the multiple articles on China in The Prickly Pear TOPICS link above.
He did something about mass illegal immigration, choking regulations and stifling taxes. He moved the ball towards peace in the Middle East more than any recent President.
He helped make America energy independent.
Probably most important, his administration demonstrated the existence of what some call “the deep state.” Some call it the Administrative state. What it amounts to is a permanent bureaucracy, unaccountable to elected officials and the voters. It is a professional ruling class, much like the aides to the king.
No Republican has moved on these important issues as decisively as Trump.
Trump is not at fault for Republican inabilities to get the job done. Remember when George Bush was elected and had both House and Senate? Not much got done, did it? Remember the frustration? Remember getting into the Iraq War with bad intelligence? Do we have a plan to get out of Afghanistan after 20 years?
Do we know yet today fully the role Saudi Arabia played in the attack on the World Trade Center, which got us into these wars?
His greatest failure in our view, is not his personality issues. It was his failure to reign in debts and deficits. This will likely plague this nation for years to come. However, we have run chronic deficits basically since the mid-1960s. So, he joins many others in failure.
Yes, it would appear that Trump’s personality quirks may have lost us the Presidency. But remember watching Romney and McCain go down in flames? Can you remember watching those two candidates debate? It was like watching a prize fight, all the time screaming at the TV and wondering why our guy refused to throw any effective punches? It was aggravating and baffling. In short, we did not lose those races because of Trump. Trump’s very rise was because we lost those races.
In other words, Trump has his faults to be sure, but what was it about the other two guys that made them failures? At least Trump had one solid victory under his belt and likely will have a lasting impact on the nature of the party.
In this post-election period, there will be a period of reflection and introspection. That is only natural and healthy. We need to talk about why we lost.
But it would be misguided to blame all of this on Trump. He did some remarkable political things. Trumpism without the personality quirks may be more successful than Trumpism with the personality quirks.
He is not responsible for our losses. We were perfectly capable of that before he came on the scene.
Too much concentration on Trump and his persona will distract us from deeper questions to ask.
But the attacks on Trump will accelerate. Unfortunately, he just handed them a big stick with which they will pummel him. Remember in the end, it is not so much about destroying Trump. It is about destroying you and your will to oppose the Left.
Keep your chin up. We have just begun to fight.
