My readers know that I am no fan of President Trump’s pugnacious, braggadocio and combative personality. He needlessly causes problems for himself, his agenda and offers ammunition to those who have taken up the poison pen of the press.
Let me make it clear, however, I am totally a fan of his toughness in dealing the Washington, D.C. big government elitist establishment. What was first built on a geological wetland has evolved into the metaphorical political swamp – inundated with authoritarians, power mongers, money grabbers, race baiters, class warfarers, deep state bureaucrats and world class hypocrites.
Every four years, America engages in a peaceful revolution and often “overthrows” our sitting government by switching party. It is most peaceful when there is no change in the party in power or when the two parties, themselves, offer little change. It is less peaceful and more chaotic when the principles and the privileges of an embedded ruling class are being overthrown. It was the case in 1932 and 1980, two of the Twentieth Century’s transitional elections, and it is very much what we see today.
When examining his appointments and policies, Trump has done quite well. Oh, I know the radical left is in panic mode. Their irrational and outrageous hysteria is palpable. Of course, they are the primary denizens of the swamp to be drained. They can only survive in the murky putrid waters of political progressivism, and that is losing market shares by the minute.
I can understand that sincere liberals in America may be unhappy at losing the reins of power. It is the sort of feeling we conservatives have when OUR policies are shifted to the back burner by the left wing Democratic Party or even those in the Republican Party who see false victory or personal benefit from taking up a Democrat-lite political stance.
The obvious reason that the left in public and editorial offices so viciously attack the personality of the President and the people surrounding him is that they cannot win on their big government authoritarian policies. This was evident in the Democrat’s eight-year election slide to the precipice of irrelevancy. It is currently seen in the Party’s apparent failure to find a winning message going forward. They cannot because it is not the message, stupid. It’s the policies.
Rather, they try to pump substance into meaningless minutia with massive misrepresentation. They falsely criticize the First Lady for wearing stiletto high heels to visit the flood area. (In fact, she wore tennis shoes upon arrival in Texas, but the left never lets facts get in the way of a good spin). Another dubious narrative is how Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are not well received among the Washington establishment (well, duh!) – calling them isolated in the White House (whatever that means). I had even seen an alt-left blogger suggest that there was meaning in the fact that the first four letters of Ivanka’s name spell a common Russian name, Ivan. I wonder what he would think of my use of Russian dressing on my salad.
Despite any personality issues one might see in Trump, they do not deserve nor justify the unhinged and extreme reporting by those on the port side of the mainstream press. I can readily admit that FOX News leans to the right. So, why is it so impossible to get liberals to admit that MSNBC not only leans to the left but wallows in the political propaganda of the extreme left? I have friends who see Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Matthews, Al Sharpton, Ari Melber and Stephanie Ruhle – to name a few — as legitimate journalists.
Apparently no gutter is deep enough or slimy enough to repel the likes of left wing low-lifers like television personality Keith Olbermann, who claimed that Secretary of Education would do more harm to schools than Hurricane Harvey – and calling her a mother—–r in yet another example of the alt-left’s reliance on serial profanity in place of civil dialogue. It would appear that he is in a contest with propaganda producer Michael Moore for being the Progressive’s least capable of intelligent discourse.
Whether journalism is the product of the state, as it is in left-wing governments like Russia, or the captive of an ideological extreme, it ceases to be the free press that we rightfully cherish as an important component in a truly representative republic. They lose their claim to be agents of freedom when they capitulate to one extreme view in a political dialectic. They take up the cudgel of the propagandist and prosecutor – shaping their reports to achieve narrow political objectives rather than to inform. They ignore every accomplishment and magnify every criticism. In tilting the news, they are as guilty of sins of omission as well as sins of commission – censoring out everything that does not advance a preconceived narrative.
Never before has a president’s fitness for office been so questioned by the media and what I like to call their “panels of parroting pundits.” Every fact is interpreted (spun) to the most extreme negative analysis. First, it was Trump’s personality. Then his policies. His fitness. And now absurdly his sanity.
They proffer the most insane (pun intended) arguments and narratives. Trump’s calling out ALL violence on ALL sides is deemed to be racist even though Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia did the same – as all good people should. The press continues to claim that Trump embraces such anti-social hate groups as the KKK and neo-Nazis even though he has repeatedly condemned them by name.
Though Trump was raised in Queens, educated at Wharton and ran a sophisticated multi-billion dollar business, he has always struck me as having the personality, or at least public persona, of a Brooklyn street fighter – a stereotypical impression I have received from so many movies and television shows. He talks tough and too often over the top. He always seems angry and threatening. He does not display a great sense of humor. He shamelessly brags. He does not act l like what we have come to expect in the style and demeanor of our presidents. We can all agree that he is not like other presidents of our personal memories. But … his appointments and achievements are commendable – more so if you are conservative.
If you blow away the smoke screen generated by media obsession, you will find a much more accomplished administration than we are led to believe. Granted the Republicans in Congress are having a unity problem, but that is to be expected of a party devoted to principles as opposed to the raw acquisition of power. For me, the top-down partisan unity of the Democratic Party is far more disturbing. It suggests the DNA of authoritarianism.