Trump’s strongest supporters are sometimes the most anxious critics of his tweeting—not because his is a failing presidency bordering on caricature, but because it is adroitly unwinding the Obama transformation. But why, then, the need to go after failed media has-beens without an audience?
Of course, tweeting commentary and news over the heads of a corrupt Washington media pack is innovative and wise—and to some degree got Trump where he is today by reinventing communications with the public. But burning time ridiculing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s failed “Celebrity Apprentice” gambit or, more recently, the psychodramas and daily inanities of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski seems a misspent investment of energy.
Yet that said, there are lots of uncertainties about consequences of the latest round of Trump’s seemingly counterproductive tweets, right on the eve of the most important legislative challenges, health care and tax reform, of his young presidency—and at a time when he is regaining momentum, successfully engaging world leaders and issuing executive orders that are overturning the prior eight years of “fundamental transformation” of the country.
Is ad hominem tweeting, then, endangering or empowering Trump’s agenda? Or both? Or neither?
Start with the given that there are now regrettably few accepted norms of presidential behavior. Trump’s occasional uncouthness is a symptom, not a catalyst, of the times. Bill Clinton redefined presidential behavior when he had sexual relations with a 22-year-old, unpaid intern (so much for power imbalances as sexual harassment) in the presidential bathroom off the Oval Office, lied about his recklessness to his family and the country, smeared Monica Lewinsky, and then wheeled out to the Rose Garden feminist cabinet officers like Madeline Albright and Donna Shalala to deny and defend his unsavory predatory behavior. After that sordid episode, the apologetic Left lost all credibility as an arbiter of presidential norms.
Indeed, Clinton had brought us into new debased territory. In contrast, George W. Bush for eight years restored honor, integrity, and decorum to the White House. But he was rewarded for exemplary behavior by being branded a Nazi warmonger, as docudrama films and novels appeared imagining his assassination, and even the likes of John Glenn stooped to the Nazi slurs on his character. (“It’s the old Hitler business.”)
Out of office, Bush professionally kept quiet and busy as an accomplished artist, as Obama moved the country leftward. For that, Bush was ridiculed by the Left as reduced to a bewildered, paint-by-numbers dabbler.
The emeritus Obama, by contrast, frolics on billionaires’ yachts docked off tropical islands with the mega-rich whom he attacks in Wall Street chats for $10,000 a minute—and takes a day off from his wind surfing to weigh in on Trump’s unfitness. For all that, he remains a progressive icon.
From that brief Bush hiatus, it was a short slide back down to GloZell and Obama’s adoration in the White House of Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” (read some of the “ho’s”, “n—as”, and racist lyrics of that album and cf. the celebration over the corpse of a judge on the cover). In truth, Trump misdemeanors of attacking journalists are acerbated by his transparent over the top rhetoric; Clinton’s felonies were ameliorated by his bite-the-lip, contrived remorse.
Trump, in comic-book fashion, tweets his body slam of CNN; the socialist Bernie Sanders’ wife stands accused of evicting the disabled in what looks to be a real-estate scam by a failed college president. Trump goes after individual washed-up celebrities; Obama indicted an entire people for being lazy, clinging to their guns and religion, intolerant, nativist, and unnecessarily chauvinistic. Take your poison: personal score-settling or mellifluent contempt.
Factored into the Trump’s tweeting controversies are other variables mostly left unsaid by the media:
Trump has melted down partisan journalists and left the American progressive media in shambles. It was Obama, not Trump, who established the practice of going after journalists by name, both materially and rhetorically, from surveilling Fox’s James Rosen to using puerile hype to attack Sean Hannity (“You know, I’ll put—I’ll put Mr. Burgess up against Sean Hannity. He’ll tear him up.” [emphasis added]). Obama was angry that a few reporters did not join the cult of Obama worship; Trump is peeved almost no one in the press is disinterested. Trump saw Obama’s precedent, and proverbially trumped it.
CNN is now no longer a news organization, but has been reduced to caricature by Trump hatred. It has been exposed not just as unprofessional and dishonest (firing reporters for fake news reports; apologizing and retracting constant errors of content; producers caught on tape denigrating voters and bragging of their hyper-partisanship and anti-Trumpism), but also has run the gamut from scatology (Anderson Cooper and Reza Aslan) to violence porn (Kathy Griffin, or the jokes about Trump’s plane crashing) to simple fraud (last year’s Donna Brazile revelations).
align=”right” CNN is now no longer a news organization, but has been reduced to caricature by Trump hatred.
Sputtering journalists (Jim Rutenberg, Carl Bernstein, Jorge Ramos, Christiane Amanpour.) are exasperated to the point of openly confessing that their craft should give up empirical reporting to deal with Trump, without shame any longer over the partisan propaganda their organizations and colleagues peddle. Those declarations are not a change of course, but a confession of what the media have been doing from the election of Barack Obama. The logical media progression from eerie Obama worship was to creepy Trump hatred.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg recently warned that Trump’s attacks on journalists lowered the bar and put them in danger. He added ominously to his Aspen audience that any violence would be on Trump’s conscience: “And someone, I mean God forbid, someone is going to do something violent against journalists in a large way, and then I know where the fault lies. And we’re heading in this direction, and it’s quite frightening.”
align=”left” Yet just when we pundits lament such suicidal behavior, Trump seems to recover without adverse effect. It has been two years now since Trump’s unkind and unnecessary comments about John McCain had supposedly doomed him—dire predictions followed by his political ascendency.
But what an odd thing to say about “fault” after the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalisi (R-La.), when reality, not hypotheticals, offered a clear example of how extremist rhetoric can incite partisan nuts to shoot and maim. Goldberg apparently fears for what he thinks might follow unseemly rhetoric rather than what did follow from Leftist extremist rhetoric. Goldberg is confused not just because he is a journalist, and journalists are by nature self-absorbed and melodramatic, but because he is a progressive reporter, who apparently sees the sort of vulgarity voiced by an Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Stephen Colbert, Martha Stewart, or Bill Maher or the assassination porn of Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Kathy Griffin, or the Shakespeare troupe, in some sense as understandable in a way that Trump’s response to the media is certainly not.
It is also hard to calibrate the effect of Trump’s occasional coarse tweets. He will go for two weeks with clever and timely messaging, interspersed with real accomplishments, only to shock with an attack out of the blue on some obscure critic hardly worth the mention. Yet just when we pundits lament such suicidal behavior, Trump seems to recover without adverse effect. It has been two years now since Trump’s unkind and unnecessary comments about John McCain had supposedly doomed him—dire predictions followed by his political ascendency.
Another strange fact is that amid the extraneous tweeting, Trump displays an undeniable natural cunning. Take his most infamous and most criticized tweet:
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Try substituting “Obama Administration” for “Obama” and “surveilled” for “wires tapped “and the tweet may prove an accurate synopsis of what Susan Rice, Samantha Power, John Brennan and others in the Obama White House were doing by sweeping up the communications of political opponents like Trump, supposedly inadvertently through national security surveillance, then unmasking the names, and illegally leaking them to the press. And so far nothing incriminating about Trump has been found, and yes, it resembles a McCarthyite effort to silence criticism by leaking lies.
Or examine another of Trump’s supposedly unhinged Twitter outbursts, his equally notorious May 12 “veiled threat” about tapping Comey:
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
Note that Trump did not say that the White House had taped Comey, only that he hoped there were not tapes of the Comey-Trump conversation (in theory from the NSA? FBI? CIA?) that might in theory refute Comey’s versions. Given that the intelligence agencies now seemed to have been surveilling almost everything Trump was saying, and given that Trump must have heard Comey was improperly and perhaps illegally leaking presidential conversations to the media (among them perhaps CNN that falsely would report that Comey would refute Trump’s assertion that he was not under investigation), and given Comey’s testimony of leaking a government document himself, Trump’s noxious tweet in retrospect seems prescient and strategic.
We do not know whether there is a saturation point at which Trump’s base will tire of the occasional ad hominem crude tweets, but so far we clearly have not reached it. Why?
So far, for three reasons.
First, half the country despises the mainstream media and sees it as arrogant, corrupt, hypocritical, and in need of comeuppance. Trump is not running against a centrist populist Democrat like John Kennedy or Harry Truman, but a crude Resistance of foul mouths like Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), unhinged celebrities like Maher and Colbert, street theater, thuggery on campuses, and not very bright media talking heads imploding as they try to top their rivals’ hatred for Trump and what he represents.
align=”right” Trump in this context is seen by his supporters as a fighter in a way no prior conservative president or presidential candidate since Reagan has been. The conservative base remembers the dark years of 2005-6 when the media and progressive activists smeared Bush daily—without riposte.
Trump in this context is seen by his supporters as a fighter in a way no prior conservative president or presidential candidate since Reagan has been. The conservative base remembers the dark years of 2005-6 when the media and progressive activists smeared Bush daily—without riposte. They want no repeat of the McCain sanctimoniousness about not discussing the hate-filled career of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or the Romney Marquess of Queensberry rules campaign that was smeared and slurred with impunity by Obama. In the midst of the Morning Joe/Mika Brzezinski controversy, “At least he fights” was a commonly heard refrain from Trump supporters.
Two, conservatives favor Trump’s ongoing agenda on immigration, health care, tax, regulatory and national security reform. Note that Trump has not just appointed a good cabinet and agency team—at HHS, EPA, Defense, Justice, the United Nations, Homeland Security, State, National Security Council, CIA, Education, or Energy—but the most effective and talented conservative group since the Reagan years. And Trump is not just putting his finger in the crumbling conservative dike, but rebuilding it entirely. The appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch, the vast reduction in illegal immigration, the steady restoration of deterrence abroad, the move against sanctuary cities, the energy renaissance, and the effort to get jobs back are real accomplishments; In comparison, Joe and Mika are less than fluff.
align=”left” Finally, no one has calibrated quite the nation’s deep antipathy toward the coastal media-university-political-cultural nexus, most specifically its utter hypocrisy. Half the country sees not so much Democrats or progressives, but rather a bankrupt class whose venom for others is used to excuse their own exemptions from the ramifications of their own ideology.
Finally, no one has calibrated quite the nation’s deep antipathy toward the coastal media-university-political-cultural nexus, most specifically its utter hypocrisy. Half the country sees not so much Democrats or progressives, but rather a bankrupt class whose venom for others is used to excuse their own exemptions from the ramifications of their own ideology.
People are tired of the social justice warrior Obama frolicking in Tahiti, the feminist Hillary Clinton excusing four decades of the sexual predations of her husband upon the weak, the supposedly in the know campus bullies picking on the vulnerable while shelling out a quarter-million dollars for a mediocre education; the progressive media decrying inequality and fairness amid face-surgeries, hair plugs, nannies, and prep schools; the Silicon Valley masters of the universe sermonizing on the evils of walls, inequality, and social justice from their gated hideaways, servants, and schemes to monopolize, offshore, outsource, and avoid taxes.
There is a limit to Trump’s crude personal tweets, but apparently no observer has yet calibrated where it is—given the country’s disdain for the media, the progressive hypocritical agenda, and the scatological and obscene rhetoric of Trump’s opposition.
I would urge the president to stop tweeting about nothings and to keep his powder dry for bigger game to come than Joe and Mika. But considering that I have been urging just such pruning of tweets as a matter of strategy for Trump for a long time and that I have been mostly wrong about the downsides of his twitter invective for just as long, perhaps the president knows something I don’t.
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Excellently said, as usual from the extremely valuable Professor Hanson. Thank you, sir!
I think a lot of people are RELIEVED to see an elected person in a high position hit back against all the lies, misrepresentations, and hypocrisy which have gone unchallenged for so long.
Mr. Hanson uses the word calibrated multiple time and admits in the end, that the emperic evidence suggests that he has it calibrated about right.
What almost nobady dares to speculate is the why. Mr Hanson doged it completely.
#43’s presidency was destroyed by the leftist’s fake news. Our President has been making examples of all who don’t back off at his first warning. Last I heard, the first person to throw stones (Megan Kelly), MSNBC was trying to get FNC to buy out her contract and take her back. Kazer Kahn is afrade to put his contact information on the internet. In every one of these situations, the instigator has suffered significantly, while the President has surged. It will be no different this time. Eventually the press will be brought to heel, or at least as close as any Republican ever has.
Good points.
The fraud press will not succeed against our President. We are awake to their traitorous propaganda. “In order to continue advancing their illogical arguments modern liberals have to pretend not to know things”…David Mamet.
It’s all obscurantism from them now.
Excellent quote from Mamet. He’s brilliant. Thanks!
I agree David Mamet is the best playwright ever to write a sceenplay for Hollywood
The real life example of Bush 43 is all you need to mention. Classy? Sure. But to this day many of the Lies he didn’t challenge are believed by the uninformed. Even many casual republicans think Bush lied and people died, even as our soldiers in Iraq are still encountering old stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Very well said and very important. Except for the Surge, GWBush pretty much did not show up for his second term. I do give him major credit for his work supporting the Surge, but he could have addressed so many other problems.
“B-b-b-but Bushitlar LiEd us into WARR and sayed ‘Misionn Accomplisheded.'”
Trump would have demolished these false and imbecilic leftie talking points with two tweets.
Dr. Hanson is right… after the cum-stain presidency, and Obama’s “bitter clingers,” “typical white person” and other racist dog-whistling, Trump comes off as earthy and occasionally off-mark, but by and large sensible, and blessed with good political instincts.
Yep. That political instinct gets him a 39 percent approval and makes him the laughing stock from, how do u say, mitteleuropa to Australia.
Think back to polls prior to November 2016….you still believe them? Amazing ignorance.
Yep. Cause the poles were off by about 5%, so maybe he has a 44% approval rate. So funny how the least-educated, low-GDP areas somehow mistakenly think they have keen insight. Donald Trump = completely shut down by the elite, of which u are not a member, BTW.
Oh my, now you’re making a fool of yourself. Ignorance of facts is not of itself a measure of intelligence, but the inability to spell confirms my suspicion of your intellect. The pissing contest ends here.
Nah. Microsoft word has all of us beat. Earning over 250K a year and my double Ivy-league education wins me. You can compete with MS Word all you want. You are still a lowly-educated churl. People who rely on spelling as a show of intelligence are the ones lost.
Mensa Fem. Don’t make me laugh. U probably went to a sh!t college and do useless work and pride yourself on getting 3 of five questions right in the presidents’ category on Jeopardy.
Your feeble attempt at demeaning my knowledge simply highlights your ignorance.
Sure it does. I was actually laughing because I suspect my pedigree is vastly superior to yours and my tax dollars support a tax sponge like you. Are you gonna brag now ’cause I write like I am texting? Let’s face it, you ain’t worth being careful w/.
I trace my ancestry back to my namesake in 1212. Just couldn’t stop myself from replying to your arrogant illiterate arse. And I’ve probably EARNED and paid more in taxes than you’ll ever earn in a lifetime. There, now I feel better, k.m.a.
Mensa? What’s that. Got closer to Prometheus than Mensa when I was 17. So, K.M.A. And, if you are bragging about your IQ, I am sure 162 and I get 90% to that number. If It’s your annual income, I double it. So, no. You aren’t special.
Pondering whether foresight or hindsight serves me better in the circumstances.
Pondering whether u channel menses or Mensa. Education level? Income level? Exact taxes paid? Higher than phd. Two Ivy League schools. More than 70k per year in federal income tax just for me alone last 8 years. Give me numbers, supposed genius.
Like he could have vetoed a budget or 3 or 6 and at least show he cared about the ballooning debt but we got Zip.
Pretty much a zero.
‘take her back’? I wasn’t aware that Megyn was ever at msnbc!
What fake news?
The left had better pace themselves. Personally, don’t think they’re gonna make the 8 years without a serious crackup.
Maybe you mean a total and final crackup.
Agree. I was impressed by this admission:
“But considering that I have been urging just such pruning of tweets as a matter of strategy for Trump for a long time and that I have been mostly wrong about the downsides of his twitter invective for just as long, perhaps the president knows something I don’t.”
Trump did spend decades of his life as a leading tabloid figure in the world’s biggest media market, while also raking in billions of $$$ from his various media properties, so I would suggest that he probably knows more than most of his critics.
In fact, I think this is probably why so many in the media despise him – he was something of a peer in the same industry and he obviously understands it better than they do (Seriously, could anyone see Jeff Zucker successfully running for public office?) so their hostility is really an expression of professional jealousy.
Excellent point.
A point I had never considered; and very likely true. Thank you.
I think two of the big motives for their shrieking hatred of President Trump are (1) material self-interest and (2) spiritual loathing.
(1) The Mainstream Media are like the Political Class: for the most part owned by Big Money, Wall St, and the (larger-scale members of the) Chamber of Commerce. Their owners have an agenda directly opposite to that which Candidate Trump put forward during his election campaign. Yodelling for mass immigration and crony corporatist trade deals secures their own privileged nests – AND they enjoy having cheap, non-unionised, deferential labor as their maids, cooks, nannies, gardeners. This gives them an aristocratic way of life with a whipped-cream topping of self-righteousness (“I am giving a poor Mexican family a leg up in the world [and I don’t bother to notice the harm it does to fellow-Americans who are without my money and privilege”]).
(2) Lefties everywhere are, in nearly every case, totalitarian nihilists. They desire the utter destruction of western civilization and its replacement by a grim tyranny which degrades humankind. For preference they would choose a Communist autocracy – that gives them more mileage in respect of ‘socialist’ humbug and canting self-righteousness. But, failing that, nearly any tyranny will do; hence their wondrous silence – for people constantly screaming about human rights, women’s rights, gay rights – on the theme of what Islam offers its subjects.
Prof. Hanson was more valuable when he appeared to have standards. This collection of every bad argument made supporting Trump’s worst tweets relies on relativism and emotionalism in place of objective standards. ‘The tweets are OK as long as the Left has done worse or they’re in response to the Left and make Trump supporters giggle.’ Or Trump is “right” in terms of getting the kind of attention afforded to crude minor celebrities. A more objective assessment recognizes that the latest ratings show that Trump has only helped CNN and the rest. Consequently, as Rob Tracinski noted, Trump is becoming increasingly boring to those of us who are not endlessly amused by reruns of Wrestlemania or Jerry Springer where we used to find real news.
It is hypocritical to call oneself a conservative or otherwise condemn the Left’s lack of standards while failing to consistently condemn Trump’s vicious personal attacks.
Hissy, hissy, hissy!
Standards are context sensitive. Your standard for acceptable drinking water would decrease dramatically if you were dying of thirst. Your standard of acceptable behaviour would decrease dramatically if you were on the front line of a war. At a certain point, you’re no longer holding the moral high ground, you’re just being sanctimonious. For most people that point was in 2008. I don’t need to tell you the how much opposition is stacked up against president trump. I’m sorry if his tactics offend your sensibilities, but you’re not a wartime consigliere
Relativistic nonsense. The lack of decent standards on the part of the Leftist minority doesn’t justify our abandonment of standards. The current president should feel free to engage in vicious personal attacks because the country elected someone you didn’t like in 2008?? His below-the-belt personal attacks aren’t a “tactic,” just a product of his thin-skinned lack of discipline, which would be obvious if your own standards weren’t already so eroded.
The alternative strategy has already been very fully, very lengthily tried – to exhaustion and major DEFEAT.
Previous Republican Presidents and candidates have been abstemious and gentlemanly in just the way you require – and it has caused them to lose several very major policy issues and battles; as others on this thread have well pointed out.
[1] If President Trump were everything YOU wish in demure conduct and language, the only difference it would make to the behavior of the mainstream media baying mob is that it would encourage it to spend yet more time and space lying about him and his administration, spreading fake news, misrepresenting him and taking up the nation’s attention with nonsense like the Russia nothing-burger – which nonsense has gone rather quiet for a few days owing to the tweeting.
[2] One of the reasons why the Mainstream Media have become such monsters of partisan propagandism, have abandoned journalism standards, and turned into one of the chief opponents of the American nation, is exactly because a double standard has prevailed for so long. They could attack ruthlessly, horribly and continuously anyone who offered to do or say a single conservative thing, secure in the belief that they themselves would never pay a price.
President Trump is causing them, partly as individuals like Jim Acosta and Megyn Kelly, partly as companies (like CNN), partly as a profession as a whole, to start doing some real serious payment for their extreme misbehaviour.
It is no longer a continuous shooting war – with cannons and Gatling guns on one side and no shot fired from the victim(s) on the other.
Cry baby.
Sounds pretty snowflaky to me. You whine as if a president’s only measure of success or victory is how much he lashes out at people who hurt your feelings by criticizing your officeholders or candidates. I’ve never seen such a bunch who describe themselves as butthurt losers looking for verbal payback, believing that “winning” some war of insults is what politics about. Who knew?
BTW, latest ratings show that Trump is only helping CNN and the rest. Is that what you call “serious payment,” or do you think media people are as thin-skinned as you and Trump and are suffering inwardly.
You said that Trump’s “below-the-belt personal attacks aren’t a “tactic,” just a product of his thin-skinned lack of discipline”. I’ll take your constant personal attacks as evidence of the same.
I try to have arguments at least outweigh personal attacks. I did notice that I didn’t include anything personal in reply to your comment referring to ‘someone’ as “utterly narcissistic.” That was you, wasn’t it?
Hey either you have standards or you don’t. I guess if Trump had tweeted “facelift, but also healthcare and jobs”, he would have met the requirements of having arguments outweighing personal attack, and you would have been okay with it? You don’t even live up to your standards. Good try to rationalize though.
Telling me how I would react to something Trump didn’t say is your idea of an argument?My statement about arguments outweighing personal attacks wasn’t intended as an excuse for anything, but as a general attitude. Calling Trump’s attacks a “tactic” is ridiculous because he’s been notorious for that–especially on women–for years. When I mentioned his facelift tweet to my wife, she said, ” Oh, he was the same way on TV.”
Your “attitude” is in direct violation of your stated standards. You fail by your own standards. You hold other people to standards you don’t hold yourself to. You have defeated your own argument.
What a load of crap. I didn’t hit anyone below the belt.
A personal attack is a personal attack. I thought standards were important to you, but it’s so much easier to lace your arguments with below the belt shots. No wonder your “wife” is so depressed!
Maybe, as I suggested for Trump, you should try commenting on the actual tweeting issues instead of lamely trying to make this about me. Boring.
There is something utterly narcissistic about a person who allows their opponents to run roughshod over the people they are supposed to champion, just to preserve their own sense of moral superiority. I can respect your staunch idealism, however here in the real world, things can get a little messy. As you’ve no doubt already read several times on this thread, the losses of republicans who held to your “standards” led to the near undermining of the standards of western civilization. In such cases, it is necessary for someone to go out and get their hands dirty. Beowulf didn’t slay grendel by not deigning to justify his remarks.
You mischaracterize my point about 2008. The issue was not that the democrats won, but that republicans stopped defending themselves.
No one said anything about allowing anyone to run roughshod over anyone. You’re peddling the false alternative of responding in kind or not responding at all. You’re also conflating appropriate responses on political issues with low personal attacks in response to mere insults. What does a facelift tweet do for the economy, or healthcare or national security? Do you really think we lose on real issues because we aren’t sufficiently mean in our responses? Another commenter here reminded me how many conservatives are still butthurt over the mean treatment of Sarah Palin, not ever having faced up to her inadequacy to run for VP. What we needed to do was resolve to pick better candidates, not just be as mean as her critics.
Standards are not just some Platonic abstraction, but have value in the real world.
We lose on real issues because we aren’t mean enough. Yes. Absolutely.
We did resolve to pick a better candidate. That candidate was Trump and he won.
Feel free to run for president yourself in 2024 on a platform of standards and show us all a “better way”.
A “better candidate”? As I was telling csmats, he’s the same kind of candidate, an ideologically empty, media celebrity, whose specialty is pissing people off. See
http://thefederalist.com/2016/01/20/donald-trump-is-the-price-we-pay-for-sarah-palin/
All you have are your opinions, backed up by an opinion piece. So what?
You then evaluate opinions on how they fit the facts of reality. Try it.
Why are you posting articles from the long-ago primary season? Everyone has their “favorite horse” during the primaries, and many conservatives didn’t support Trump because he was indeed not–and still isn’t–as conservative as some of the other candidates.
Furthermore, why haven’t you apologized for your personal “thin-skinned” attack? As Michelle Obama proclaims, you’re supposed to “go high,” right?
The date of the article is irrelevant, and I didn’t attack anyone in response to some personal insult. You’re really reaching.
Are you related to History Buff? You seem like the same type of doctrinaire, recalcitrant, highfalutin “true conservative.” You might be a smidge smarter–which isn’t saying much.
Just curious: you aren’t a cuckservative by any chance, are you??
It was hard for Republicans to defend themselves in 2008 with the economy destroyed and two pointless wars that seemed like they would never end(and they still might not). But if there would have been a Trump, I guess he could have just lied about everything, blamed everything on somebody else, and dismissed all criticism as “fake news”. And that would have fixed everything.
Straw man.
They have embraced a trashy con-man who has been lying trash his whole life. To call him juvenile is an insult to juveniles. He lies demonstrably on a level we have never seen from a president or perhaps any elected official, easily demonstrable falsehoods no less, yet the rubes place their faith in him to act in their best interest. Pretending that the greater right wing in general has some sort of superior moral standards is laughable, RW media in general is a shameless cesspool of idiocy. Things like Obama putting mustard on his burger, wearing a tan suit, moving quickly down the stairs of AF1, using a selfie stick or playing pool were all things to whine about. Golf was another complaint, with the current moron-in-chief among the masses whining about it; then he turns around and takes the same habit to an extraordinary level while stealing from taxpayers and lining his own pockets in the process. Candidate trump pledged he would rarely leave the white house as there was too much work to do, that he thought people like him should pay more in taxes, that he would release his taxes, that he would start acting presidential, this list can go on and on….and his low IQ cult repeatedly celebrates his bait and switch.
So…were you equally dismissive of Hillary’s lies over the past 30 years? Or her hypocrisy (starting with defending a child rapist by lying about the child to the court and getting him off with a sentence of six months…despite the fact that the child was raped so violently that she was left sterile, and beaten so badly she was in a coma for five days.) That Hillary Clinton — the champion of women?! Are you kidding me?! (Let’s not get started on her husband…)
Just curious — what are your standards?
The standards have been eroding since Clinton. And, as Hanson pointed out, taking the high road only earned “Dubya” hateful criticism and vitriol from the left, not to mention the movie Hollywood put out about his assassination. We may cringe at Trump’s tweets and personal attacks, but celebrate at least the paring back of Obama’s hideous actions.
What are you standards, sir? And can you tell us which politicians on the left embody those standards?Take your time, we’ll wait.
You missed the entire point. You are supposed to have personal standards independent of others, especially those you criticize. They shouldn’t depend on what Clinton did or what I think of what Clinton or anyone else did.
Hahaha oh god, earlier you were talking about “objective standards”, now they’re personal standards?
Personal does not mean subjective. It means yours as opposed to others’
“Yours as opposed to others”. The definition of subjective.
Maybe you should try a good dictionary.
Unfortunately as has been mentioned there are no longer any standards. I believe that Bill Clinton and those who condoned his lying under oath while president lowered the bar for any sense of standards in 1998. All the rest has been a follow on. As was noted, W. Bush did not counter punch and we saw what that got him. Zip It is a shame that things have come to this pass, but it is a different world then the one that we would like to believe existed at some distance in our past. Bdseg is correct. the “standard for acceptable behavior” has decreased based on the circumstances we find ourselves in. Robert Kennedy was the last Senator shot, and that was not by a crazed Republican.
Our response to “no longer any standards” is speak for yourself. Really.
Politics ain’t bean bags, my friend. At least it shouldn’t be, if you want to get anything done….
On what planet does a facelift tweet get anything done (for anything other than Trump’s bruised ego)?
Yo Varian, what would you have told Jesus after he called the Pharisees “vipers, sons of the devil” or when he used a whip on the moneychangers in the Temple?For everything there is a season and I think it’s the season to respond in kind.
We’re now at Jesus vs the Pharisees? It’s been a while since I studied the Bible much so you’ll have to help me find the parable of Jesus and the bloody facelift tweet.
I have studied the Bible, but there is no parable and “the bloody facelift tweet”. Perhaps you should study it better.
Apparently I have to spell it out for you. That was my way of ridiculing your attempt to draw a parallel between Jesus’s actions and those of a 70-year-old creep who brags about how he gets away with grabbing some woman’s crotch. I grew up around enough people who take their religion seriously to know they’d resent your attemp to put it at the service of a jerk like Trump.
Typical liberal response; all sizzle, no meat. If you’re going to support an undicted felon for President at least be knowledgeable enough about their policies to defend them. You haven’t said anything substantive. Let’s debate your ideas for running the country. What’s your position on trade, the constitution, immigration, 2nd amendment,
I gave your stupid Bible argument the treatment it deserved. I’m not a Clinton supporter.
Ben Sasse, is that you, smirking?
Apparently you didn’t notice — and haven’t read any of Hanson’s many prior pieces criticizing Trump’s tweets — in your haste to call conservatives hypocrites. A bit of the usual projection. Nobody is saying Trump’s tweets are “okay” by objective standards; but there is zero objectivity in today’s MSM. Were you equally critical of Clinton’s behavior (either one of them, pick one) when they were lowering the standards of behavior?
Trump is not trying to entertain you — or anyone else — therefore it is irrelevant that you are not endlessly amused. The left and its media acolytes created Trump, and now you are shocked! shocked! by his manipulations and crude comments.
I hate them too….but I love his SCOTUS pick(s), I love his fearless undoing of Obama’s most corrupt and cynical actions,, I love his taking on the toughest challenges that Congress has been avoiding (or worsening) for decades. I love his family, and his Cabinet (with the exception of Tillerson) and his patriotism.
What have you got, besides snark? Anything?
You’re all over the place. Saying the MSM isn’t objective doesn’t excuse you from objective standards; in fact, that argument is the soul of relativism. I’ve been reading VDH long enough to know he probably hates having you defend him.
The rest of your post is just too many misreadings, irrelevancies, and non sequiturs to deal with individually.
Varian says “you’re all over the place” so he doesn’t have to really respond to any of the points….
Actually I responded to the main, relevant point about objective standards.
No, actually you didn’t. Your response wasn’t “responsive”, it was just silly.
So what? Don’t bother responding if you’re going to essentially claim in a puerile fashion “your post is beneath my level of response.” That’s what you did, you “true conservative,” you!
” Misreadings?” “Irrelevancies?” “Non-sequiturs?” Sorry, but your post is nonsensical, and your refusal to make any other specific points to refute mine is just lazy. Or you’re not capable of doing that. Either way, your lack is obvious.
You are one good Leftie. You state your conclusion and then you state premises that are identical to your conclusion.
Trump’s most successful tweet and the one that will have the most lasting effect is his “Wrestlemania” tweet. There is nothing vicious in that tweet. It makes the perfectly correct point that CNN is in Trump’s face constantly, like an opponent in a WWE match, and that CNN’s is no less fake than professional wrestling. In so doing, it introduces something that is totally foreign to the Left, namely, humor. Trump even pokes fun at himself in that he is reduced to wrestling with CNN.
Trump’s tweet is a brilliant example of branding. Trump supporters and the many people paying attention to that tweet have been given a wonderful brand for CNN, as fake as wrestling, and a wonderful memory in the image of Trump pinning CNN.
I’m not a Leftie, so I didn’t bother to read the rest of it. But you’re free to start over.
You just proved yourself a Leftie and a dummy.
Look at my other comments here to see who’s the dummy.
You are self-absorbed. You don’t need to post. Just talk to yourself.
No more responses to you.
Only 2.5% of Trump’s June tweets were about his policy agenda. The rest were about Himself. That’s self-absorbed.
What are the vicious personal attacks that trump has made? So far, everything seems to be fairly common, as far as the media goes, maybe not tasteful, but not actually vicious.
If I thought that a gratuitous reference to some woman’s bloody facelift was only “not tasteful,” I wouldn’t broadcast that opinion.
You are 100 percent correct and I agree. So, do you want him impeached for being distasteful. Maybe we should only elect people who are nice. That certainly leaves Hillary and Obama out of the running. Probably most people have said or done things which shows they are not living up to 100% Christian ethical lifestyles, so we need to elect the Pope next time.
So what do you want? Especially since the last President was trying to be nice, President Bush, got hammered by these people 24/7 and did not pay for it in the least. Maybe Trump sees what happened to him and decided he needed to play the other side.
Being a successful president isn’t about whether or not you’re nice. If Trump were nicer to his opposition he would still be a brazenly unprincipled populist demogogue. My quarrel is with those who think that beating the Left requires no more thought and effort than putting down a schoolyard bully. The Left dominates entertainment, the media, and academia, stealing the next generation’s minds while we pay the tuition. It’s obvious that situation calls for a multi-front ideological war, one that Trump is ill-equipped to lead. I’m disappointed that VDH would encourage anyone to think that any less is required.
VDH agrees with you, that was the actual basis of his article. He disapproved and disagreed with how President Trump has been handling this. The upshot is that you nor I nor VDH has ever been truly successful as an entertainer in the modern media conglomerate, Trump has. Trump has been very successful. And VDH’s thesis is that maybe we are all wrong about how to beat the left. Maybe Trump knows what really hurts them and has been hitting them where they need or hate being hit.
That’s absurd. Jonah Goldberg points out that any one can attract negative attention by mooning someone or pouring hot soup in their lap. A publicity hound like Trump needs someone to tell him that’s not “winning.” The ratings of CNN and the rest are rising, his own job approval and favorability ratings are in the toilet, and his success as an “entertainer” is beside the point. His opposition has always been happy to call him a clown and a carnival barker. A successful president is altogether different, starting with being someone everyone takes seriously.
Where does it say that Conservatives have to take the excrement sandwiches and personal attacks issued incessantly by the press? General Jack Pershing once said the “enemy dictates the rules of engagement”, so the way I see it, the press is merely dictating the rules of engagment.
It seems to be a characteristic of Trump supporters to mistake pointless passing contests for the “war,” and to think attracting negative attention of the sort you could get by mooning someone or pouring hot soup in your lap is “winning.” Says a lot about how Trump came to be president.
So what are you doing to support true conservative candidates for 2018? Anything besides spending way too much time posting on meaningless subjects…?
I’ve been called narcissistic and self-absorbed too many times on just this thread (maybe by the same person) to talk as if this were about me. Trying to get people to focus on what really counts in politics is not a meaningless subject. If you’re really interested I’d be happy to make suggestions about what we can all do to improve things including supporting good candidates. For example, I suggest supporting libertarians and limited government conservatives of the sort that made up the coalition of constitutional conservatives that populated the TEA Party. I have no idea what you mean by true conservative. But that’s probably more than you wanted to hear from me, anyway.
On the contrary, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear from you. Rather than excoriating someone as brilliant and clear-headed as VDH (and waste time like the left on incredibly stupid tweets), I totally agree we need to recruit and support libertarians & tea party conservatives (like Bill Whittle, my political guru, I’m a “conservatarian.” I don’t demand ideological purity from candidates, which is why I at least feel like I understand the torturous process in Congress over healthcare reform. Republicans have principles, and they have constituencies to answer to, and they have different ideas and timetables on how and when to do what. So it bothers me that so many on the right who condemn them as RINOS and worse. I DO NOT want to be like the left that’s focusing on stupid subjects (like Trump’s insane and destructive tweets) or out-and-out lies like the Russian collusion. Here in CA, we just had a terrific guy announce he’s running for governor (Travis Allen), and we have a terrific black woman running against “Mad Max”ine Waters. Those candidates need all the support, money and time we can give them.
And that’s probably a lot more than you wanted to hear from me!
I don’t think VDH is above criticism for encouraging those who think Trump’s Twitter war is effective combat against the Left or that big government liberal losers like Bush “lost” because they were too nice. VDH is selling short the role played by intellectuals like himself. Trump’s war with the media is sucking all the oxygen out of the air, leaving little room for reasoned discussions of real issues.
Name the Trump policy(s) that have gotten your panties in a wad, or is it that he’s horrible because he isn’t Hillary? I have yet to read a coherent case made by anyone on the left for bowing down to the altar of govt. (the god of the left)
Can’t help you there. I’m a libertarian.
I usually agree with you, VDH, but not this time.
The farmer/scholar/sage never fails to hit the nail on the head. God Bless Dr. Hanson. He gets it.
A home run today, Victor. Bravo.
Great article. Trump is bring back the idea of speaking your mind without fear of consequences. I was shocked when I first saw the wrestling GIF, but a moment’s reflection persuaded me that in a sane, free world, it would be received as classically American and absolutely full of fun and natural joy.
From your lips to God’s ear …
Great point. Trump is fun and raucous. Show me a fun Democrat. They are angry and indignant. Not a trace of humor.
“…no one has calibrated quite the nation’s deep antipathy toward the coastal media-university-political-cultural nexus, most specifically its utter hypocrisy.”
Not really VDH. Hypocrisy is but one gnat of the left..it is their transparent war on the heart and soul of all that is good about America.
Preference cascade, anyone?
I’m inclined to wonder:
What if Obama had tweeted as much?
Then I realize, that, with Obama’s incessant stuttering, tweeting to him would result in nothing but a lot of comma’s, and incomplete sentences.
Yet, I’m sure the Democrat media conglomerate would rave about the unappreciated brilliance in his every tweet.
PRESIDENT TRUMP continues to exhibit his desire to keep in touch with his fans, whom the media are relentlessly trying to alienate with outright terrorism.
Driving the media apoplectic, is an added benefit.
The media is attempting to deal with an intellect far beyond their acquisition and comprehension of complexity.
If someone does not like Trump’s tweets, don’t follow him on Twitter. The Corp media chooses to broadcast some of his tweets, I presume, because they believe the notoriety will hurt Trump or so they can mouth off as usual. They could certainly choose to not cover his tweets as they have chosen to not cover many topics much more important to the American people. Trump takes only a few seconds to send his tweets to his followers. The media is responsible for the explosion on the tweets. Don’t blame Trump for his informing his Twitter followers what is on his mind. It is his right to do.
It would be great if it were that simple. Trump’s twitter wars so dominate all the network coverage that, as Rob Tracinski noted, Trump is becoming increasingly boring. Apparently, the true Trumpkins are endlessly entertained by this repetitive pro-wrestling type brawl, but the rest of us could stand some real news.
Trump is fighting back against the media using the simplest and most direct means. Look at how effective removing cameras from Whitehouse briefings has been. Simple and devastating.
I think Trump is a genius at this stuff. But let’s remember how lame and masochistic were previous republican presidents. They never even tried to fight back.
Previous Presidents did need to cloak their actions and misdeeds. The fight back is exposed as alternate facts, or lies.
Trump trolls the trolls.
And their heads explode.
The Troll Presidency, Hail the great leader, reviled by everyone, Hail Hair Twitler the King of Con, the man with a distaste of Pink Showers. Troll On
And here we have an example of why marijuana should not be legalized.
Let’s not blame an innocuous weed for the character of those that smoke it.
Exactly. Guns don’t kill people…..
Actually, we’re about to find out how much Obama and his flunkies did that we don’t know about, and I don’t think it’s gonna make him look good.
Drink the Kool Aid much? Every administration has misdeeds.
I remember when the White House press corps fretted that President GW Bush was going to cut them out of the Administration’s press relations.
What else are you so wrong about, Pus?
Thanks so much for the refreshing and factual assessment. So tired of the sanctimonious braying from the left and even the right. We needed a fighter against the PC which was unwinding us from reality. Go Trump!
You are right. President Trump is smarter than you are.
Too bad Harry Truman didn’t have Twitter:
–From Wikipedia.
Imagine if President Trump had written “. . . perhaps a supporter below!”
/L. E. Joiner – https://walkingcreekworld.wordpress.com
“Too bad Harry Truman didn’t have Twitter:”–MrLynn
I’m OK with an alternate history in which Dewey did win in 1948.
President not-Hillary Trump is who he is. He don’t take nuttin’ from nobody. Good.
He may be the most energetic President since Theodore Roosevelt. He can take the fight to the Enemedia and still do all the office requires.
Finally, I suspect POTUS has read Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” particularly #13: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off
the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after
people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
Do you know how refreshing it is to hear an opinion writer say “perhaps he knows something I don’t”? Water in the desert.
Glad to see V.D.H. having second thoughts. I had always respected his opinions until his subtle put-downs of Trump. At least he has the nature to investigate his own bias. Unlike the -Never Trump- wimps at many, supposedly, conservative outlets that get off on the smell of their own decaying intransigent egos.
I think he now sees what we saw earlier. Jonah Goldberg and some others haven’t come around yet and they have invested so much negative energy on the President, I don’t think they can come back with any credibility. That said, it wouldn’t hurt if they would admit they were wrong, just like VDH did. It would be a good first step.
Too late for Jonah and Kevin. Why won’t they turn? Because they were paid to say exactly what they said, were chosen for it by Bush uni-party elements. They cannot deviate because of the past writings. What will happen to them? Personally, I will help them down to the curb. heh-heh.
I admire Goldberg’s integrity as well as his intelligence. A lot of Trump supporters could learn from him things like how to ask just what you’re “winning” by gaining negative attention of the sort you can get by mooning someone or pouring hot soup in your lap. The ratings of CNN and the rest are rising while Trump’s poll numbers are in the toilet. If you’re an inveterate publicity hound with a co-dependent relationship with the media, this can seem like winning if no one tells you otherwise.
Wonder if Mr. Hanson ever thought that writing about tweets was below the dignity of his past writings?
Pre-twitter, adding another side of Clinton-hypocrisy, not a felony: the Clintons return the furniture they ‘removed’ from the White House on Moving Out Day in 2000: “A kitchen table and four chairs valued at $3,650 from Lee Ficks of Cincinnati, Ohio; a $1,000 needlepoint rug from David Martinous of Little Rock, Ark.; two sofas, an easy chair and an
ottoman worth $19,900 from Steve Mittman of New York; lamps valued at $1,170 from Stuart Shiller of Hialeah, Fla.; and a $2,843 sofa from Brad Noe, a businessman from California.”
“Clintons Return White House Furniture” By ABC News
·W A S H I N G T O N, Feb. 8, 2002
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121856&page=1
Really, though, felony theft probably wasn’t even the worst crime Bill and Hill committed that day.
DJT knows many things you don’t know VDH. Leftist outrage is a double standard in action and you yourself note that the Tweets are in substance correct. In 6 months people remember: he got them mad and he was correct. The Tweets are strategic on a PR timeline and on that timeline very tactically intelligent.
Dear Leader is modern presidential.
Wow, well said.
The war on the media will fail. Trump will be judged by is actions, not by conservatives, but everyone. The evidence is mounting.
You mean “evidence” like this???
A partial list of President Trump’s glorious accomplishments to-date:
Abortion funding – eliminated internationally, on the chopping block domestically
Border Wall – under construction
CAFE standards – going, going, going
Coal – a friend in the White House, what more does one need
Countries refusing to take back their criminals – at the lowest level in the past decade
Cuba’s dictatorship – back in the box, no reward for you
Dakota Access – pumping oil, now, today, and for many decades to come
Diseased illegal aliens – bye bye, being deported, don’t go away mad, just go away
Dodd-Franks – that boot is gone from the neck of American small businesses
Economic Confidence – at historic highs
FBI – incompetent Director “fired”, a “law enforcement” officer nominated
Federal Judges – a slew of conservative Judges nominated, confirmations inevitable
Guantanamo Bay – open for business and ready for new ‘guests’
Government – the swamp is being drained, but it’s a big swamp with lots of nasty critters
Gun control – dying the ugly death it deserves, gun sales climbing
H1B visas – going, going, going … hire American, buy American
Industry – bringing their factories back to the US
Invading hordes of diseased illegal aliens – at the lowest level in 17 years
Islamic leaders – met with more on his first trip than Obama did in eight years
Jobs (“real jobs”) – roaring back … Bayer, Carrier, Ford, Hyundai, Sprint/Softbank, etc
Leakers – one arrested, many more under investigation, including the 6’8” pajama boy
Military micromanagement – no more leftist prepubescent weenies telling Generals how to wage war
Mining industry – profitable!!!
Muslim terrorists – being denied entry and hunted down
NAFTA – under renegotiation
News media – is it Fake News or Very Fake News
ObamaDeathCare – repealed and replaced in the House, on to the Senate
Otto Wambier – B. Hussein Obama left him in North Korea, Trump got him home
Paris Climate Accord – deader than environuts remaining two brain cells
Red lines in the sand – we don’t need no stinking red lines, we got Tomahawks
Regulations – two eliminated for every new one added
Relations with Muslims – the ONLY President to be feted by 50 of the largest Muslim nations
Religious freedom – ended the America-hating Democrats war on religion
Sanctuary cities – being defunded, sanctuary supporting politicians likely to be jailed
SCOTUS – originalist confirmed, three more tee’d up and ready to go
Taxes – being cut
TPP – deader than Lying Crooked Hillary’s political future
Unemployment claims – at the lowest level in decades
Veterans care – no longer being wait-listed to death, able to see real, outside doctors
Wookie lunches – gone, gone, gone to the pigs
XL – approved for construction using American steel
Democrats and Entitlement Monkeys – in utter disarray and wee-wee’ing themselves daily!
Please explain what are Entitlement Monkeys, machoboy.
It’s easier to show you: Look in the mirror.
First: anything that takes down the MSM is a good thing.
Second: the notion that Trump’s cruder tweets step on his message is problematic. If the media isn’t bashing him for his tweets they’re babbling about Russia or bashing his policy successes. He’s only going to get negative coverage from them. If his tweeting hastens their demise that’s simply one more service to our country.
RUSSIA!!!
Everyone take a drink.
Putin has taken the place of Bush and Palin, living rent-free in liberals’ heads.
Absolutely, the media’s method here is; he’s a crack whore, he’s a crack whore, he’s a crack whore. Run popularity poll. He’s a crack whore, he’s a crack whore, he’s a crack whore. Run popularity poll. Et cetera…
How to counter this? Hide and watch.
http://www.talklikeatexan.com/definitions/just-hide-and-watch/
Latest ratings show Trump has only helped CNN and the rest.
Varian:
Jan existing home sales 5.7 million — highest level since 2007
Illegal immigration down 60%
Consumer confidence at a 18 year high
Direction of country poll positive for first time in 9 years
Job participation rate at highest level since Sept 2013 after 4 straight monthly gains.
Manufacturing jobs up 140% more than forecast
Stock market at all time high.
Nat Fed of Ind Business’ small bus optimism index hit a 12-year high in Jan
Keystone pipeline
Dakota access
TPP withdrawal
Fed hiring freeze
US made steel in pipelines
Expediting of enviromenal reviews
Streamlining permitting burdens of US manufacturing
Reducing regulatory burden on US manufacturing
Border security and immigration enforcement improvements
Implementation of review to rebuild US military
5 yr ban on lobbying for foreign gov’s
lifetime ban on Admin member lobbying for foreign govs
Executive order reducing regulations and costs of Regs
Airforce 1 cost reduction
GM job relocation to US
Ford job relocation to US
Carrier plant to US
Europe increasing defense outlays as % of GDP
Ban on Fed funding for foreign abortions
Tillerson to SOS
Mattis to SOD
Sessions to AG
Price to HHS
Devos to SOE
Kelly to SHS
Coats to DNI
Executive order rolling back ACA
Executive order targeting sanctuary cities
10,000 additional immigration officers
Greenlit construction on a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico
Ended “catch and release”
Withdrew Obamas motion allowing trannnies into women’s bathrooms
Ordered FedAgencies To Cut 2 Regs For Every New 1 They Propose
Neil Gorsuch For The Supreme Court
227,000 employment gain in Jan
235,000 employment gain in Feb
298,000 private sector employment gain in Feb
mining employment up 8,000 after straight 25 month of drops
305K full time jobs in Trumps 1st full month. Took Obama 7 yrs to net 300K fulltime jobs.
H.R.
375 – An Act to designate the Federal building and United States
courthouse located at 719 Church Street in Nashville, Tennessee, as the
“Fred D. Thompson Federal Building and United States Courthouse”.
Signed on June 6, 2017
H.R. 366 – DHS Stop Asset and Vehicle Excess Act or the DHS SAVE Act
Signed on June 2, 2017
S. 583 – American Law Enforcement Heroes Act of 2017
Signed on June 2, 2017
S. 419 – Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Improvement Act of 2017
Signed on May 17, 2017
H.J.Res.
66 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department
of Labor relating to savings arrangements established by States for
non-governmental employees.
Signed on May 16, 2017
H.R. 274 – Modernizing Government Travel Act
Signed on May 12, 2017
S.
496 -An Act to repeal the rule issued by the Federal Highway
Administration and the Federal Transit Administration entitled
“Metropolitan Planning Organization Coordination and Planning Area
Reform”.
Signed on May 8, 2017
H.R. 534 – U.S. Wants to Compete for a World Expo Act
Signed on May 5, 2017
H.R. 244 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017
Signed on April 28, 2017
H.J.Res. 99 – Joint Resolution making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2017, and for other purposes.
Signed on April 19, 2017
S.J.Res.
36 – Joint Resolution providing for the appointment of Roger W.
Ferguson as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian
Institution.
Signed on April 19, 2017
S.J.Res. 35 – Joint
Resolution providing for the appointment of Michael Govan as a citizen
regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
Signed on April 19, 2017
S.J.Res.
30 – Joint Resolution providing for the reappointment of Steve Case as a
citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
Signed on April 19, 2017
S.
544 – An Act to amend the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability
Act of 2014 to modify the termination date for the Veterans Choice
Program, and for other purposes.
Signed on April 18, 2017
H.R. 353 – Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017
Signed on April 13, 2017
H.J.Res.
67 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department
of Labor relating to savings arrangements established by qualified
State political subdivisions for non-governmental employees.
Signed on April 13, 2017
H.J.Res.
43 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under
chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the final rule submitted by
Secretary of Health and Human Services relating to compliance with
title X requirements by project…
Signed on April 3, 2017
S.J.Res.
34 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under
chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the
Federal Communications Commission relating to “Protecting the Privacy of
Customers of Broadband…
Signed on April 3, 2017
H.R. 1228 – An
Act to provide for the appointment of members of the Board of Directors
of the Office of Compliance to replace members whose terms expire during
2017, and for other purposes.
Signed on April 3, 2017
H.J.Res.
83, which nullifies the Department of Labor’s rule titled Clarification
of Employer’s Continuing Obligation to Make and Maintain an Accurate
Record of Each Recordable Injury and Illness; and
Signed on April 3, 2017
H.J.Res.
69, which nullifies the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife
Service’s final rule relating to non-subsistence takings of wildlife on
National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska
Signed on March 31, 2017
S.J.Res.1
– Joint Resolution approving the location of a memorial to commemorate
and honor the members of the Armed Forces who served on active duty in
support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.
Signed on March 31, 2017
H.R.1362
– An Act to name the Department of Veterans Affairs community-based
outpatient clinic in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the Faleomavaega Eni
Fa’aua’a Hunkin VA Clinic.
Signed on March 31, 2017
H.J.Res.42 –
Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of
Labor relating to drug testing of unemployment compensation applicants.
Signed on March 28, 2017
S. 305 – Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017
Signed on March 27, 2017
H.J.Res.57
– Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5,
United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education
relating to accountability and State plans under the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965.
Signed on March 27, 2017
H.J.
Res. 58 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under
chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the
Department of Education relating to teacher preparation issues.
Signed on March 27, 2017
H.J.
Res. 44 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the
Department of the Interior relating to Bureau of Land Management
regulations that establish the procedures used to prepare, revise, or
amend land use plans pursuant to the Federal Land
Signed on March 27, 2017
H.J.
Res. 37 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the
Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration relating to the Federal
Acquisition Regulation.
Signed on March 21, 2017
S.442 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017
Signed on March 13, 2017
H.R.609
– To designate the Department of Veterans Affairs health care center in
Center Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, as the “Abie Abraham VA
Clinic”.
Signed on February 28, 2017
H.R. 321 – Inspiring the Next Space Pioneers, Innovators, Researchers, and Explorers (INSPIRE) Women Act
Signed on February 28, 2017
H.R. 255 – Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act
Signed on February 28, 2017
H.J.Res.
40 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under
chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the
Social Security Administration relating to Implementation of the NICS
Improvement Amendments Act of 2007.
Signed on February 16, 2017
H.J.Res.38 – Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule.
Signed on February 14, 2017
H.J.Res.41
– Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5,
United States Code, of a rule submitted by the Securities and Exchange
Commission relating to “Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction
Issuers”.
Signed on January 31, 2017
H.R.72 – GAO Access and Oversight Act of 2017
Signed on January 20, 2017
S.84
– A bill to provide for an exception to a limitation against
appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of
relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed
Forces.
NOTE: Thanks “steven” for the above info. I hope you don’t mind me passing it on to others.
That is spot on. The notion that the MSM is ever going to give The Donald a fair shake is fallacy. Trump either knew this or knows it now and is delivering his message accordingly. Screw the MSM and their collective sense of propriety. They suck.
I’m in the same boat. Trump forces you to roll your eyes when he goes after the media types….but it gives me joy to know he is speaking truth to power. Carry on!
Right, Mika Brzezinski is “power”. I sure hope he keeps up that speaking truth to power – maybe time to turn the truth-ray on some animated characters and post a gif smacking Moana around a bit.
Your eyes are open, but you’re blind. When 89% of the MSM are declared Democrats…that’s the power I’m referring to. Mika can keep her panties on. She pimped herself out a long time ago and is not a sympathetic figure at all. Nobody cares about Mika, and therein lies the MSM’s problem. They think Trump is going after Joe or Mika. He’s not. He’s going after the MSM establishment….and because you’re camping out behind that #RESIST banner….you can’t see what’s really happening.
Sure, he’s cleverly attacking the MSM establishment by making juvenile remarks about somebody “nobody cares about”. Not an irascible thin-skinned egoist who watches far too much television. And I’m the one who can’t see what’s really happening.
And you didn’t think Obama was an egotist? Come on…don’t sell out your intellectual integrity so quick. If Trump stops tweeting…the media will bury him just like they buried Bush and Romney. Trump is having none of it.
I don’t like the guy personally and supported Rubio through the primaries…but if yo’re going to go out back and prune the big old oak tree of all it’s overgrown branches…it doesn’t help if you only trim 1/2 the tree.
The other thing he’s doing is boosting MSNBC’s a.m. Ratings…knowing that 50% of the rating audience the remainder of the day is whatever channel was left on in the morning.
He intends to put CNN out of business…or at least become an honest observer to what’s actually being achieved in this administration.
Instead of leading great stories about “what happens if 20% of the federal government is removed?”…they harp on the petty stuff.
People are getting tired of it..and in spite of your best shot…Trump is not going to be impeached.
That oak tree the Emperor is going to chop down wouldn’t happen to be the Tree of Liberty by any chance, would it, comrade?
1) “half the country” ??? Uh, no, more like almost everybody except a few hundred thousand self proclaiming elites and millions of illiterates who have no idea what’s going on and merely hate because they’re told to hate.
2) If you want to understand trump’s tweets better, start by reading
Installing Drains in the Washington Swamp (winface.com/amtg/ideas.html ). Sample:
History shows that it doesn’t take a machiavellian social scientist to affect behavioral change among echoists, all it takes is courage and perseverance. Basically, if a few leaders change their behavior by only a little bit the herd will take immediate umbrage, but the continuation of that change will cause a gradual re-alignment of social and behavioral forces until the entire herd suddenly and unexpectedly thunders off in a new direction.
Oh, whew…I held my breath right to the end, afraid that Hanson might actually criticise the President. But no, all is right with the world.
It is refreshing that one of our ‘betters’ acknowledged that they were wrong about something and that someone they don’t much care for might be a bit smarter than them
Sometimes, those Tweets “about nothings” distract the legacy media, so POTUS can buy time, until real news intrudes. Did more people tune into Morning Joe on Monday, and hear this?:
“WaPo’s Ignatius: Fighters in Syria cheer at mention of Trump name”
“On a morning when you would have expected the Morning Joe panel to be all about Trump’s CNN wrestling tweet, a Washington Post editor/columnist painted an amazingly positive portrait of the president’s actions in Syria.
WaPo’s David Ignatius has just returned from a week in Syria. He was almost apologetic in prefacing his remarks: “I’m going to say something that in some ways is sympathetic to Trump.”
He then proceeded to say that he was told by top US commanders that “the most daring and decisive” attack in the battle of Raqqa would not have happened if it hadn’t been for President Trump’s decision to delegate authority to commanders in the field. …”
Posted by Mark Finkelstein Monday, July 3, 2017 at 8:30am
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/07/wapos-ignatius-fighters-in-syria-cheer-at-mention-of-trump-name/#more-219018
That’s a wrap on David Ignatius career at the WAPO.
I would not make that bet. Ignatius does not need WaPo, but they need him, if only to sustain a shred of credibility.
Brilliant.
This guy gets it: “Trump’s Twitter Is the Most Influential Media Outlet in the World”
“…along came business genius, branding wizard Donald J. Trump, who realized that you don’t need to spend capital making ads, then hoping the ads get swift-boated. All you have to do is craft a 140-character, newsworthy tweet. In February of 2015, I wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun that said presidential candidates should rule Twitter the way Kim Kardashian does.”
http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/trumps-twitter-is-the-most-influential-media-outlet-in-the-world/
……
VDH admits he was wrong about the tweets. You should too!
I disagree that’s what Hansen says. He analyzes use and effect of tweets, then says he thinks Trump would be better off reducing them, but says he’s been wrong before and Trump right, so he defers to Trump. I am disagreeing. I analyze the use and effects, and feel Trump is hurting himself and should reduce/alter his use a little. I give you a reason why I think Trump’s judgment is off on this. And it’s not a binary thing, which most people (not VDH) treats it as. I don’t want him to stop altogether- not even the remarks/tweets about himself/feuds/enemies. I want him to speak/tweet extensively on his agenda and REDUCE THE BARRAGE of the other remarks/tweets and stay away from legal jeopardy and unhinged.
How do you counter my argument he is unnecessarily driving away support? Why is it good to drive away support? Tell me what he achieved with the bleeding face lift tweet. It didn’t hurt Bzrezinski – it is widely assumed every female on TV and half the males have had face work. Heck, you can see it in looking at Bzrezenski’s face. It did, though, make Trump seem sort of creepy.Blood again???? Like Kelly?
I stand by my opinion. And remember, I support Trump, want him to succeed.
I think after all the Mika/Joe pearl clutching over the President’s tweets,it’ll be hard for Mika/Joe to resume their really nasty personal attacks against him.It’ll destroy their credibility.Mr Trump has them boxed in.What’ll be their hook going forward?He’s defanged them of any edginess and they’ll be back to being boring.Talk about thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else.Kovfeffe!!
Agreed. But Morning Joe has a audience of less than a million people Way less. Now millions of people know about them and Trump has made himself somewhat creepy. I don’t think Trump won anything.
we’ll see how it plays out in the weeks ahead.I doubt their audience will grow and their ugly Trump bashing has been cut off. President Trump is a hero to millions of Americans,not creepy like Scarborough and most of the Dems.
“In comparison, Joe and Mika are less than fluff.”
Reduced to pocket lint.
Trump understood the lesson emanating from the failure of GW Bush, McCain, and Romney to fight against vilification – that the failure to fight is suicide. Trump understood that to beat the Democrats you have to fight like a Democrat using the Alinsky techniques of identification, personalization, vilification. The Democrats do this to Trump daily with abandon throwing all manners of mud at him hoping for something to stick. Where Trump tops them is that through intellect or gut he singles out an opponent, generates an insult that exactly fits their weakness and cuts them to the quick, puts it out with warrior relish, and leaves them wounded – different insults for different people all calculated to highlight their biggest weakness – crooked Hillary or lying Ted or little Marco etc.
Fighting back against vilification by ignoring it is suicide. Fighting back by refutation is also a losing strategy – if you are explaining you are losing. Fighting back by destroying the opponent of the day by highlighting their biggest weakness (most recently the vacuous vanity and falseness of Mika) is the way to go. This is not a matter of fighting fair. It is a matter of doing what is necessary to win. Trump is fighting the fight for the real America, the people who work hard, do their best, live honestly, people our military and live and vote the principles of Classical Liberalism in their lives against the enemies of America – rebranded Marxists (AKA transnational Progressives). It is important for Trump to win that fight at all levels from the gutter up. Meanwhile in the important world of substance the balance has been restored to the Supreme Court, the regulatory overreach of the EPA and other agencies has been reversed, Illegal immigration is down 80% with the two most important pieces of immigration legislation in a generation recently past, the military have been empowered to support our proxies in annihilating ISIS and the unravelling of ISIS proceeds apace, the US has withdrawn from utterly stupid treaties like the Paris Accord and has enabled our growing energy industry to expand, long term unemployment if finally lessening as the Labor Force Participation rate finally stabilized from Obama decline and is improving, short term unemployment is also down, the economy has begun to grow and the stock market is booming as capital formation and new company startups soar. All good.
Shhhh. Let the press continue to chase the shiny object.
The funny thing is… Trump tells ’em to their face and they still can’t resist. He’s making fools of them all and waking up a lot of people to the game the press and Democrats play. Unprecedented. We are witnessing political hardball genius.
Kind of like flashing your straight flush and they still stay in with two pairs.
the best might have two pairs the rest only have a handfuls of jokers, and in this game nothing is wild
Well stated. My sentiments exactly.
“Where Trump tops them is that through intellect or gut he singles out an
opponent, generates an insult that exactly fits their weakness and cuts
them to the quick, puts it out with warrior relish, and leaves them
wounded…”
Trump also reaches more people through his free social than they do through their sky-high overhead operations. When you count all of the alternative media figures who support him, Trump is like the media equivalent of a guerilla leader, turning ever alley and farm road into a battlefield.
“Where Trump tops them is that through intellect or gut he singles out an opponent, generates an insult that exactly fits their weakness and cuts them to the quick”
Perhaps a little “Alinsky” for libs?
I agree with you, but I do think there was a part of trump who thought, after the free pub he got during the primary, that maybe his left lean in social issues would get him a little slack from the media. Boy was he wrong.
Warrior relish. Yes.
Yes, this.
Finally, you catch on. The president does know more than you do. Tweet, tweet, tweet, Mister President.
Another great article, Dr. Hanson. One minor quibble, though: the Mainstream Media consistently poll below used car salesmen but somewhat above the Plague. A lot more than half the country dislikes them, with good reason.
A lot more.
You are missing the fact that Barack Obama, who if not a Muslim might as well be, who is the greatest enemy that Israel ever had, and who is trying to destroy this nation from within, was elected TWICE due to this media. This nation has a lot of stupid and gullible people who are easily fooled by these horrible slugs. Women are easily fooled by the media, and then there are the young who are a lost generation, practically all not only un-American but anti-American due to the lies of the media as well as the Marxists in academia and the sorry soul-deadening dismal immoral liberal pop culture. And the media easily fools minorities by constantly telling them what victims they are and inculcating racial hatred with all the “white privilege” stuff from the left.
Trump’s election does indicate that the mask of this dishonest hypocritical media has slipped down some, revealing to many who were previously fooled by them just how evil and anti-American they actually are. But this is a fight to the death, either this media is destroyed or they will destroy the nation. Our young people have already been destroyed, a lost generation, and it is a question of whether this can be reversed.
I didn’t miss that at all.
So why are not Trump’s polling numbers so dreadfully low?
Great points. You might want to put on your military historian hat and take up an interesting idea—comparing and contrasting Trump with Gen. George Patton. They not only look alike, they seem to have quite similar personalities, including making occasional, outrageous remarks.
and too. outrageous in real time… but with purpose and tactile in retrospect. We’re witnessing history and I love it.
This is what you do to fight the corrupt, dishonest democratic operatives that infest the media.
“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you
have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people.
“Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.
“Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in
confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of
anyone.
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is
that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them
with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s
irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to
force the enemy into concessions.
“A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it
without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and
will even suggest better ones.
“Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep
the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit
them from the flank with something new.
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any
activist.
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that
will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this
unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition
that are essential for the success of the campaign.
“If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become
a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your
side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
“The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a
solution to the problem.
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut
off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after
people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
And the one thing PRESIDENT TRUMP needs to be aware of.
“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
Trump’s going after the small fry instead of concentrating on the big targets may seem erratic, but there may be some method in his madness. Taking out the occassional jackal instead attacking the lions might scare off the jackals and leave the lions standing alone. Which would you rather face? An army of hardened veterans packed up with massive reserves of mercenaries and conscripts or just the army? That’s enough metaphor mixing for one day.
Besides it’s sooooo much fun to watch. Especially the part where some arrogant Lefties head explodes at the latest tweet.
Well,it was once said of the Sex Pistols that they “stuck a safety pin through Her Majesty’s nose,and turned Fleet St. into an armed camp”…Trump has managed to pull off the Yankee equivalent in a little less than 6 moths
“… burning time “? The critics of President Trump are so unable to comprehend that ‘some’ people can do a full day of work, and still have time to return fire to the bobble-heads in the media.
Most of the old slugs in Congress who slam him, are not able to do ONE job under 6 months time, let alone work several issues and FINISH most in short time. Maybe, it’s because President Trump puts in about an 18 hour day, rather than the 2 – 4 that the old bench-warmers do.
I think the guy has this right, ” ..perhaps the president knows something I don’t.” I reckon he knows that far too many ‘low-information’ voters will swallow the ‘glamour-pusses’ accusations in prime time TV, unless they are hit with a rebuttal, right off the bat – in good time. That’s not “burning time”. More likely, “burning the midnight oil”.
Consider the thought that Trump’s tweets about the media are a form of “broken windows policing” of the public square. Joe and Mika are the virtual “squeegee men” of public discourse.
And note that the truth is out, “She did have a little skin under her chin tweaked, but this was hardly a state secret. Her mother suggested she do so, and all those around her were aware of this mundane fact.”
It boils down to one important thing: Trump is not a politician. .
“Those declarations are not a change of course, but a confession of what the media have been doing from the election of
Barack ObamaRichard Nixon”Fixed it.
The Left plays smashmouth and has for a long, long time, while the Right tried Marquess of Queensbury rules that got them nowhere. Civility is preferred, but the elite on both sides wouldn’t know how to be civil. In the meantime, Trump can be Trump. I like him.
President Trump knows exactly what he’s doing – keeping the media stirred up so they can’t keep putting out the fake news they’ve become so famous for. The average American never sees a New York Times or Washington Post but they might come into contact with MSNBC, NBC, CBS or Commie News Network. Trump may not have served in the military but he had a military education and he’s another George Patton in some respects. That’s right, George S. Patton Jr. Patton took crap off of no one, including his former West Point graduates who knew very little about warfare and were all caught up in politics. Oh, by the way, Patton had a ten-year affair with his wife’s niece that started when the girl was sixteen and ended the day he died – and she took her own life when she got the news of his death. History is not made by namby-pambies playing by Marquis de Queensberry rules. Running a country is not a game.
I’ve said since the beginning, the only thing about Trump that I like is his enemies. And lord almighty, is his enemies list a golden one for the ages. Every lying, sycophantic, hypocritical stain on the human race is out there bashing Trump every single day. How can you not root for the man?
“Trump’s High-Stakes Tweeting”
Well, it’s not THAT “High-Stakes”, after all, he’s living rent free in their heads and beating them like red-headed step-children … metaphorically, of course, don’t want them wee-wee’ing themselves more than they already are, do we.
In fact, I’d bet serious money that, in large part, President Trump tweets just to see them covfefe themselves!!!
I will back him 100%. He fights.
I believe it was the late, great Murray Kempton who said (I must paraphrase) that, should it come to it, he could execute the leadership of the Chinese Communist party with respect and dignity but he would gun down the editors of Time magazine with unseemly glee. The mainstream media has be dreadful for at least 40 years, Trump is giving them no more than they richly deserve.
And anyone that can’t laugh along at that silly CNN wrestling mashup is a humorless prig.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Just watch. President Trump’s visit to Poland will be yuge. I mean… there will be ramifications. Poland and the Polish people detested the way Obama and Hillary treated them…. and the LOVE Trump. Then on to the G8… and his first face to face with Vladimir. Epic melt-down of our MSM by Friday. I guarantee it.
G-20 is in Hamburg, July 7-8. Then Paris Bastille Day July 14, at Macron’s invitation, no word yet on POTUS’ schedule in-between.
Oh, heh… G-20.. I know he hits Poland on the 6th or 7th? So we have ten days of awesomeness to witness. I can’t wait.
G-8 kicked Putin out, and the G-7 meet was in Brussels in May. Poland is July 5-6, G-20 July 7-8. There was a rumor POTUS wanted to golf in Scotland, tying in a visit with PM May, but currently WH denying it.
FLOTUS will be in Poland & Hamburg – and I am certain she is most welcome for Bastille Day. That was a very recent invitation, so maybe they can have a family vacay in Slovenia, to save on jet fuel… :)
It shall be an interesting trip.
“Bill Clinton redefined presidential behavior when he had sexual relations with a 22-year-old, unpaid intern (so much for power imbalances as sexual harassment) in the presidential bathroom off the Oval Office, lied about his recklessness to his family and the country, smeared Monica Lewinsky, and then wheeled out to the Rose Garden feminist cabinet officers like Madeline Albright and Donna Shalala to deny and defend his unsavory predatory behavior. After that sordid episode, the apologetic Left lost all credibility as an arbiter of presidential norms.”
I agree. Bill Clinton should have remained a pariah to the left, instead of a celebrated figure, but that begs the question:
Why did the GOP (and the evangelical community) rally around a candidate whose moral depravity puts even Bill Clinton to shame? Trump is an adulterer, is on video telling ten year old girls he’ll be dating them, brags about using his power to assault women, attacks POW’s and disabled people, and on and on. And yet this is the person the GOP wanted. Seems like you guys have your own Bill Clinton now.
Steve: your value system is severely warped. Clinton is a rapist; there is no suggestion that Trump is in that category at all. Adulterer? What the f*ck is Clinton? We have a class act compared to your guy. You should be ashamed of your shallow analysis.
“Donald Trump caught saying he will date 10-year-old girl ‘in ten years’ in new video”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-girl-dating-comments-sexual-assault-claims-republican-party-a7358686.html
While I certainly don’t condone rape (which was alleged, never proven), I have serious problems with men who talk to little girls this way. Don’t you?
Sure, I think that’s off. I suppose it’s a way of telling young girl she’s a beauty. But, it isn’t sexually predatory; just out of left field. You will note, despite all the “pussy hats” and so forth resulting from that one tape of Trump boasting about grabbing women, there hasn’t been a single incident of anyone pressing a case against him for such action. However, there’s a lineup of women pressing their cases against Clinton.
” I suppose it’s a way of telling young girl she’s a beauty”
And yet, if a strange man said that to your ten-year old daughter, why do I think you wouldn’t take it that way? Probably because I have kids of my own, and know how I would react.
I’m no fan of Clinton. I think he should be breaking rocks in a jail somewhere. And I know the GOP hates Clinton, which makes their choice of Trump all the more bizarre.
I had a ten-year old daughter, and she was (and is still) a beauty. If some man had said that, even some high and mighty, I would have had words with him. But that is where it most likely would have ended, unless somehow he persisted. Pretty girls attract much attention, much to fathers’ concern since time began, I suppose. It’s a real pain in the ass.
What he said was that they would LET him grab…he was bragging about being attractive to gold diggers, not bragging about raping people.
He’s guilty of being crude and sexist. Just like many, many Democrats.
His real crime is that he won when they’d pinned all their hopes & dreams on some fantasy that Obama would lead them into permanent one-party-majority-for-ever status.
Could you imagine if we lined up Trump and, say, Newt Gingrich, on the one hand, and Clinton and, say, Ted Kennedy, on the other, and switched their worst scandals around?
Imagine the heads popping if Newt had left a woman to die in a car and Trump had the massive string of Clinton scandals.
I note that below he offers up a statement that Trump is saying he will date a 10 year old when she’s 20. These are the same people who can justify away Hillary Clinton actually smearing a real life child rape victim, when she worked for that rape victim’s rapist. This is the standard they use. It’s like cognitive dissonance on steroids.
His moral depravity does not put Bill Clinton to shame.
I do not like Trump and I darned near cried when he won the primary – I mourned that the one fellow I could not vote for in good conscience was the nominee.
But there is not any evidence – not one shred – that he is guilty of some of the things we know the Clintons to be guilty of. You can say that nobody has ever proved Bill Clinton to be guilty of a felony of the sort that puts people in jail – the burden of proof is rightfully high on that – but there is no question that Clinton has done things that the average Democrat would never forgive if the media weren’t there leading them away from their own critical thinking skills.
Ditto Hillary “What Difference, At This Point, Does It Make?” Clinton, who smeared his many rape victims.
It is amazing. Serious things are afoot, and the MSM can’t stop their anus-gazing to even acknowledge that there is news outside of Trump’s attack on THEM. I think everyone is beginning to realize what a namby-pamby, narcissistic clique they are. Everyday, President Trump leads them on another diversion from reality. Peter Pan was fantasy fun; these people are real, whining, unsympathetic bores.
“The logical media progression from eerie Obama worship was to creepy Trump hatred.”
That’s about the best I’ve heard it said.
I so much agree with you and your conclusion: “I have been mostly wrong about the downsides of his twitter invective for just as long, perhaps the president knows something I don’t.”
I’m pretty sure it’s like Lincoln’s support for hard drinking’ Grant — “He fights”. The blatantly hypocritical Democrats and their policies are providing lots of ammo for the future.
What I suspect Trump knows is that when the media hate is against him, personally and somewhat impotently, this distracts from fear-mongering about the policy changes, so more Republican (conservative?) policies can actually become law with less media-frenzy lies about the policy. It’s the fluffy distraction, like a magician, while the real trick is getting better policy.
How to drain the swamp, tho? I wish Trump God-speed.
I think he’s making more progress on the swamp than people realize. They’ve been dumping all their ammo at him, but he’s still standing. I keep thinking of a duel, where the first to shoot had better make sure to kill, because otherwise you’re left standing there with no ammo while the other fellow takes his time taking aim.
Or, to switch metaphors for a moment, they’re taking lots of rope and he’s letting them have as much as they think they need.
They don’t seem to realize how much they’re exposing – of themselves, their assumptions, their true beliefs, their actual behavior. Including crimes.
Meanwhile, Trump is getting almost zero media attention on what he is actually accomplishing…which maybe demoralizes people who want to see him succeed, but it also enables him to avoid pushback.
And as his self-proclaimed political opposites, they reveal how horribly they would govern if they got out from under the protection of the first amendment and ran for office.
Every time Trump tweets I shudder. And then…and then…I just smile!
Trump was not my Presidential candidate, and I still don’t trust him, but was not unhappy with his election.
At this point, conservative, patriot, US Constitution and rule-of-law defending Americans have two options in response to the Marxist-Progressive onslaught against American freedom and liberty: Trump, or “just burn it all down” (1860.v2).
Right now, I prefer Trump.
However, I’m a hair trigger from supporting other options, in response to the wholesale violation of both the Constitution and rule of law that the progressives have GLORIED in. They smirk and smile, about the Benghazi abandonment of Americans in the field under fire, the IRS political persecution of conservative and tea party groups, about the “Fast and Furious” charade that Obama tried to use to justify reversing 2nd Amendment rights for American citizens, about the use SINCE AT LEAST 2011 of NSA surveillance for political purposes via “unmasking” (say, do ya think Obama had anything on USSC Justice Roberts about his illegal adoption of his kids, that might have swayed his vote on Obamacare at the last minute, enraging Scalia and Thomas?), and they just laugh and laugh. It’s not about “right or wrong”, “legal or illegal”, “did it happen or not” for most progressives. It’s about winning, and getting away with the crime. They laugh the hardest, because they feel they are untouchable, which is why LOSING so badly in 2016 is just driving them nuts. What’s the use of “getting away with the crime” if they can’t capitalize on it, gathering power, making money, and RULING? Hence, #RESIST.
Right now, I prefer Trump, but hey, I’m just about OK with 1860.v2. I see the progressives are now buying guns, they’re ANTIFA, they’re #RESIST (resist constitutional authority), they’re really “ready to rumble”. They are self-righteous enough to decided right-or-wrong for the entire world, and certainly, to put justice to the “little fascist common folk” who dare oppose them.
Hey, prog’s, be all you can be, by all means. I’m up for the game.
But for now, we’ll see what Trump can do. Maybe America can survive another century without a civil war. Then again, maybe the progressives can “elect” another Obama-style “transformation” Democrat President. Or, stop the current President from exercising Constitutional authority, via one of their thousands of progressive Federal judges (or prosecutors), who can seemingly stop any Presidential order or action in it’s tracks for three to six months, with the mere stroke of a pen. Pity, at this rate, some of those “judges” may not survive the initial skirmishes (tree; meet rope).
Yeah, I support Trump, for now.
Polite conservatives fail to understand that progressives have been literally destroying the America that became great since the 1960s and are counting the years until America becomes a minority white country so that we “imperialists” can get what’s coming to us.
It’s literally life or death for our children and grand children.
Can you believe a court over-ruled Trump’s executive order over-ruling Obama’s executive order? The courts are completely out of control. acting unconstitutionally, backing up progressives that control the media and universities.
These people must be destroyed politically, and those supporting sanctuary cities and states treated as the South in 1861, and crushed as utterly as the slaveholding society was.
It’s really that serious. Go Trump, go.
Gotta preserve our white majority. Racist pig.
In desperate response to President Trump, the democrats are now hanging their hats on impeachment and mental unfitness for office. It’s reminiscent of the Jill Stein vote recount nonsense and the electoral college vote change gamut. Gave the leftists hope and a thrill down their collective leg but again and again their antics were Trumped. The loss of four special elections has also added to their bewilderment as to why America has abandoned their anti-American march to a glorious socialist society living free off the backs of the rich and greedy corporations.
I disagree with VDH. I don’t think any tweet is too small. If the president chooses to shine the spotlight on seeming nobodies, remember how many follow his feed and how he shifts focus to their behavior.
Has Trump tweeted anything unseemly about a pol, journalist, or pundit who disagrees with him on policy?
His tweets could actually help return civility.
I never watch their show, but I suspect that Joe and Mika disagree with Trump about policy.
And how are his tweets going to return civility? Is anyone going to stop criticizing Trump because he might tweet about them? Probably just the opposite.
There’s no return to civility with the left.
Appeasement doesn’t work with bullies.
True, but the more serious among them already recognize their movement is in a death spiral, and if they want political power back, they’ll have to moderate their views and begin engaging ideas again.
What does that have to do with Trump’s tweets? Nothing.
It has everything to do with Trump’s tweets. He does not attack people for disagreeing with him on policy. He counterattacks people who attack him personally. Trump’s tweets are reactions to incivility. What sosumi idk is saying (and I agree) is that the left has no civility.
Because Trump is such a gentleman. Got it.
But Trump’s tweets are completely ineffective. People are laughing at his inane untrue comments about Mika Brzezinski.
I have yet to see Trump lash out at someone who was polite to him. Have you?
“…Trump’s tweets are completely ineffective.”
Then why are we having this conversation?
You’re having some difficulty.
This isn’t the conversation Trump wants.
How do you know?
You’re right. Maybe Trump DOES like being a laughingstock.
You are aware we Trump supporters love it when he trashes the likes of Mika and Joe on twitter.
We love it.
Yes his supporters love it so I suppose you have a point. But Mika and Joe get higher ratings so they love it too. It is a win-win.
Yes his supporters love it so I suppose you have a point. But Mika and Joe get higher ratings so they love it too. It is a win-win.
There is an old saying: he who laughs last, laughs best.
Trump is letting people laugh at him, but he is also doing a good job of persuading leftists to laugh at him in a way that is shocking to people who did not realize how nasty the left really was, how biased the news really is, or how full of hate the left really is toward ordinary Americans.
Their behavior is hurting them more than it is hurting Trump.
I think he’s the Hysterical Bill Kristol.
Thanks for the compliment, but no I am not Bill Kristol.
Sure your not.
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Thanks for the compliment, but no I am not Bill Kristol.
Yeah, I totally hope that when Trump is done reclaiming Washington from the savages, President Scott Walker cleans everything up & send everyone bad to jail.
Because I liked Walker the best all along, but a genuinely civil person couldn’t win in the atmosphere we had in 2016. Maybe Trump is literally “making the world (or at least the USA_ safe for democracy”, eh?”
No, what is happening is that half the Democratic party is realizing that the leftward fringe is truly insane, and needs to be put down like Old Yeller.
Except Old Yeller was nice once.
You are completely missing the point. How is sending out inane tweets somehow the opposite of appeasement? And I would hardly call the hosts of a low rated cable TV show that no one watches “bullies”.
Right. He should be gentlemanly, the way Mitt Romney was, the way G W Bush was, because the Left saw that and said, “Look how civil they are! Let us reciprocate!”
Except the Left didn’t do that. They thought movies imagining the assassination of GW Bush were hilarious – assassination p-rn didn’t start with Trump.
The left exempt themselves from everything they demand from others – ethics, socialization, civility, reciprocity. There is no reasoning with them. They do not honor agreements and they see nothing wrong with behaving like animals if it furthers their cause. As leftism has failed as a policy over the past century, it has increasingly become more and more propped up by its adherents using bully tactics; legitimacy and due process have become obstacles leftism needs to work around somehow, not something the left can use themselves.
It is not their disagreements on policy that evoked Trump’s ire, it was their personal attacks. They made it personal, and Trump responded in kind.
Certainly not everyone, but those people who wish to be taken seriously may think twice before hitting POTUS below the belt.
Who cares about civility?
The Left has never had it and the Right until Trump just said “rise above it.”
That got us Trannies in Bathrooms and a DC Politburo.
“Conservatism” didn’t conserve anything which is why “The Conservative Movement” was crushed by Trump.
And look at them now. The likes of Bill Kristol, George Will, Jonah Goldberg and friends have devolved int a bunch of women griping about and trashing their ex-husbands.
“Trump’s strongest supporters are sometimes the most anxious critics of his tweeting…”
Fools look a gift horse in the mouth. Trump saved the Supreme Court for us, and thus the 2nd Amendment.
“Bill Clinton redefined presidential behavior when he had sexual relations with a 22-year-old, unpaid intern…”
Bill Clinton really redefined presidential behavior when he committed perjury in his Paula Jones deposition.
I wonder if Mr. Hanson will ever thank me for occasionally bringing him back to earth.
Trump saved the Supreme Court – as if any of the other GOP candidates would not have appointed a conservative justice to the court. Trump was not a “gift horse” by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah, John Roberts has worked out so well for us.
Yes he did.
If you think the government forcing people to buy insurance is conservative then I can’t help you.
Probably none of other republican candidates would have beaten the Hillary thing. That certainly was the expectation of the republican primary voters. FU where it hurts, never-Trumper or lbtrd (same thing).
The most compelling statistic I have seen says it all: CNN viewers = 1.2 million; Trump Twitter followers = 32 million. Pretty clear who is winning.
But, whereas almost all the 1.2 million CNN supporters are Trump haters, there is a good chance that among Trump’s 32 million followers are millions of curious Trump haters also.
I have been really enjoying VDH’s essays lately. He’s on a roll.
The media can’t help itself. Too stupid and vainglorious to understand that Trump is just a lot smarter than they are.
Brilliant analysis by Dr. Hanson. This should be picked up by every fair minded news outlet in the western world. It not only does the great service of explaining the fight that is in this President, it puts in perspective the game-changing cultural forces that are behind his agenda. The Stupid Party’s leadership in Congress would do well to ponder this essay very carefully.
So it’s “uncouth” to promise during the campaign that you’ll make sure the government spends whatever it takes to provide all Americans access to “terrific” health care, and then come out as President in support of legislation that actually strips insurance from tens of millions of your supporters and raises costs for millions more.
Silly me, I thought that was called “breaking your word” rather than “uncouth”.
And it’s merely “uncouth” to say that you were against the Iraq War when there’s abundant documentation of you saying the precise opposite years ago, or claiming that your bill covers pre-existing conditions as well or better than the ACA when the legislation explicitly weakens the ACA’s protections in that regard.
Silly me, I thought that was called “lying” rather than just “uncouth”. Certainly if my son did it, that’s what it would be called.
Professor Hanson claims to be a classicist but may have forgotten the meaning of the old Latin term “integritas”. An obvious lack of it in our new Chief Executive is the principal reason more than half of American voters disapprove of his performance in office so far – “boorishness” or “uncouthness” are side points.
I sense a bitter loser.
You wouldn’t happen to be Bill Kristol would?
Or Jonah Goldberg or George Will or…..you know what I’m saying.
Nah, just an ordinary American who happens not to share your political orientation. Which, together with the other 55% of the country, makes me part of the “elites” (LOL) that folks like you and Professor Hanson feel deserve no place in your new moral utopia.
But I’m old enough at this point to realize that what goes around comes around, and that the right’s renewed claim to an all-encompassing moral righteousness also falls into the category of things that will eventually pass.
I suspect the US is done as a functional sociocultural entity although the actual disintegration will probably take another generation or two. It’s fine, when political arrangements stop working well they need to either be fixed or discarded, preferably peaceably. In the meantime I’ll just putter along taking care of my wife and kids the way I always have.
Now I sense a Very Bitter Loser.
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Yeah, gotta be Kristol.
When unable to refute – deflect?
Moral righteousness? My Lord, that’s the home of the Democrats.
Moral utopia? The only groups that live there are Democrats. When people lose their jobs because of what they think, that’s a system built on intolerance.
Too much projection.
But when people lose their insurance because they’re poor or old, it’s a system built on righteousness, LOL.
Ask Obama. I believe he’s the one that made promises about health care, like saving 2,600 a year in health costs, and keeping your doctor?
So how does that justify Mr. Trump doing the same thing?
So you have no answer, right? Thanks for playing.
I asked the first question, and you answered with a question rather than an answer.
Go back and check. Read carefully.
“Go back and check. Read carefully.”
Go away and choke. D!e quickly.
“There’s no answer to eight-year-olds other than “It’s your bedtime now”.”
You’re much less than that.
You’re just a “clump of cells” in utero.
There’s no answer to you and yours other than:
Go abort yourself, in the name of “choice” and “women’s access to health care”.
Tw@t.
What pessimism I have about the country’s future comes from the hold the increasingly demented Left has on entertainment, academia, and the media. I agree with David French that no one should even have to explain why we codemn the vicious, personal tweets of the petty, crass boor in the White House. But my concern over the number of people who support Trump’s nonsense is nothing compared to the dread engendered by the Left. For example, while Trump is failing to broker a deal among members of his own party to repeal or replace Obamacare, Democrats are cheerfully name-calling and scare-mongering about what the Reublicans are doing–happily fiddling while Obamacare burns to the ground, holding out for a chance to further destroy healthcare and the country’s finances with single payer. Even The People’s Republic of California recently choked at the prospect of a version of single payer, as obviously destructive as it is, but among the Left it’s one of those things that won’t die.
Progeny?
You spawned a retard.
Take care of your own, tw@t.
Right or left fails when they have to use the sins of the other side to justify the sins of their side. Man up lefties and righties. Take responsibility for your own actions.
President Trump please never stop your weaponized Tweets.
What I like(d) about Trump is that he took on the well known (and previously very effective) Clinton slime/attack machine and beat them at their own game. For every shovel full of dirt they threw at him, they got a dump tuck load back.
VDH has it perfectly right . . . Two things I know about Trump: He won’t back down and he can’t be bought. No wonder the proggies hate him. Just wondering, though, if Trump actually authors all those tweets, or if his trusted advisors (family?) submits ideas for his approval? That would negate the “he’s wasting valuable time!” canard.
It takes him five minutes to tweet. He doesn’t need focus groups or advice to hone his message. He is a genius at persuasion.
Perhaps Trump’s genius here is exposing the farce–the utter joke–of the media’s faux outrage at his tweets, given their own far greater outrages. Or, as he put it: “I’m the President…and they’re not.” When you’re a multi-billionaire who created a top television franchise, and then went on to defeat the GOP establishment and the Clinton and Obama machines….it’s hard to accept that you don’t know what you’re doing. Romney did choke. Trump did not.
Trump did it again!
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The first rule of Trump’s communication doctrine is that a message no one sees is worthless. Some Tweets convey Trump’s message, some Tweets get a bigger audience, and together the Trump Era begins.
We hired him because he fights. We initially liked Chris Christie because he fought too. However, he just doesn’t have what it takes and has fallen off the radar. Main Stream Republicans will have to adopt the fighting standard if they are to get any traction in a national election. We deplorables will not vote for another Bush type who will not fight back. When you need a lawyer you want the smartest meanest one you can find. It’s the same thing with a President or a Congressman…
Trump knows that the media will lie about him no matter what. So rather than have them lie about his policies, diplomacy and other efforts he has them chase the squirrel. Since the deplorable half of the country understands the joke, we are totally entertained by the other half of the country going crazy chasing Russia, Collusion, coveffe, (un)presidential tweets or whatever else he decides to distract them with. It’s like watching a cat chase a laser pointer but never quite figuring it out. Brilliant.
Bravo – the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth….again – thank you Mr. Hanson! Happy Fourth!
Wonderful column, Professor! As an emeritus myself, I especially appreciated”the supposedly in the know campus bullies picking on the vulnerable while shelling out a quarter-million dollars for a mediocre education”
As always, Professor Hanson has a masterful macro-view on the political landscape. Republican voters elected a brawler, one who wouldn’t back down to an opposition that will never back down and have been rewarded with the unmasking of a press and culture that talks about fairness out of both sides of their mouth. Well done.
Actually Trump has accomplished nothing in six months that can’t be easily changed back by the next administration.
So far, so good.
All Americans have to do is keep Trump on the ropes…he clearly can’t handle it.
Yeah, he really looks challenged. *snicker*
When he body-slammed CNN to the floor in that video he was outside the ropes and fighting dirty. You just don’t get it, do you?
This is simply the best column I’ve read in ages.
rationalizing the irrational
Trump’s attack on CNN where he superimposed “CNN” on the head of a wrestling villain Vince McMahon and body slammed him to the floor was brilliant. The message was clear: these people reporting the news, the elite opinionators who rarely venture outside the cocoon of New York and Washington (and when they do are pampered), are—like pro-wrestlers— nothing more than vulgar entertainers putting on a show for the overly mis-educated, secular elite. Same phony plot-lines; same fake melodrama. The only difference is that for costumes they dress up in suits and have assistants slather on the pancake cosmetics and make their hair look big.
I wrote about this when Trump was first emerging as a viable candidate. I was struck how he was turning every disagreement into a pro wrestling match. I was dismissive of his supporters back then, assuming most of them watched pro-wrestling and believed it was real. But there was clearly a method to Trump’s madness and he continues to rely on that method. And his supporters clearly are much more sophisticated and numerous than was apparent at that time.
I am very certain that Kim Jung-Un is saying exactly the same thing about Trump’s tweeting: ‘Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?’ Both narcissits and egotistical maniacs.
When President Trump reacts to outrageous attacks by being outrageous it only illustrates and highlights the outrageousness of his attackers. It doesn’t debase him at all.
He has been a flamboyant personality always. He is who he has always been. Those who support him applaud his audacious behaviors. It’s about time someone smacked back!
Trump must deal with a tsunami of lies and cynical political challenges from those who hope to depose him: the Democrat base, Hollywood, academia, and—most of all—the legacy media. The onslaught is so ferocious that his base would weaken and crumble if he simply tried to be reasonable and dignified like an establishment Republican. He has got to fight back, and tweeting gives him the tool to do so. His base, which feels (and is) disrespected by the aforementioned blue hordes, loves him for it and will stick with him. It’s a political strategy, and it’s working.
Mitt Romney was absolutely right when he said electing Trump would lead to trickle down racism and misogyny. So sad to see people such as the author of this piece who see this happening in real time and still support it. History will look unkindly upon them.
What is the alternative? To let these creepy liars prevail? The experiences of GW Bush and Mitt Romney due to the biased smearing of these people belies that as a viable strategy. Barack Obama’s election had disastrous consequences for this nation, and he would never have been elected either time without this dishonest biased media.
Mike Pence is the alternative. Congressional Republicans hold all the power over Trump as he has few true allies in Congress. He should be read the riot act publicly by them and warned that if his behavior does not change impeachment is on the table. Trump is on his way to being a great stain on American history, a president Pence would eliminate that threat.
While the media is obviously biased it is hard to say they are liars. They just report all of the nonsense that Trump says and does. Then they let the justified outrage take its course.
If Pence’s mild-mannered, so-called “presidential” approach is the alternative, why’d McCain and Romney get beat like drums?
Doesn’t matter if Pence could get elected, he is President if Trump is forced out.
The thinking that Trump won and McCain and Romney lost because Trump is a “fighter” and McCain and Romney were “mild-mannered” is wildly off the mark. Trump got to run against Hillary Clinton. She even admitted she was a bad campaigner. McCain and Romney had to run against Barack Obama who is probably the best political talent since Reagan.
Lol. If it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna start ignoring your tin-foil hat, Obama-worshipping dumbassery now, m’kay? ;-)
It is not hard at all to say that the leftist media is a bunch of liars and seditionists. What they did to GW Bush and Mitt Romney and the fact that they got away with it tells you that DJT is just what is needed to point out that these people are liars and are indeed the Enemy of the Nation. If Pence became president the Democrat networks would immediately start demonizing him. This nation’s biggest enemy is the enemy within, those who are weak-minded or those who manipulate the weak-minded – or the Democratic Party. They are, as VDH wrote, re-branded Marxists, and they seek to destroy the nation from within and without. The “without” part is using the massive welfare program of the left to lure voters who just want to live off of other people and could care about this as a nation, as well as those who want to destroy the nation (Muslims).
It is not possible to have a bigger “stain” on this nation than that of Barack Obama, and the Democrat networks are responsible for that.
The Coastal Party has lost 1,000 seats since the Community Organizer. Americans are tired of being called racists, misogynists, homophobes, and xenophobes for having a contrary opinion to the enlightened liberal elites!
Trump has decided to participate in the media vilification storm, instead of being a mere target , like the Bushes. He has formed his own Anti-Defecation League and will sling “it” with enemies.
Spot on. During the election, I employed the logic of ‘focus on what they do and not what they say’ for Trump and Clinton – Clinton said she stood for women but enabled a predator husband and betrayed our country for a buck. Trump was crude but had no history of abusing women and was a measured person in his personal life. I continue this today and find that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises and the media is proving its bias/true self daily. The day Trump tweeted about Mika and Joe, the travel ban went into effect and the House passed two pieces of immigration legislation – the news only talked about the tweet! Trump is crazy like a fox in diverting the rabid media and making liberal heads explode.
Bravo, Dr. Hanson. You, sir, are a class act.
I believe Trump is strategically using the Tweets as the proverbial “bright shiny object” waved in the air to distract attention when he is doing something else – much like a magician drawing your attention to one hand while he hides the card in his pocket with the other. That being said, he probably gets a little loose with it at times and needs to harness it more.
Of course, it could be that he makes the “bad” tweets to obscure that fact, to make it seem they are ALL uncontrolled tweets without purpose. I tend to think sometimes he just reacts while he is seeing something on TV, while others are more thought out and strategic, but who knows? It could all be a grand strategy to keep the media off balance and in the cross hairs.
But overall it is an asset and he has used it well.
ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL! LET FREEDOM RING!
The Left has come out into the open using their standard playbook of violence, lies and smears to achieve their goals of a socialistic takeover of America. Not responding to their tactics only allows them to achieve their goals quicker and with more influence on the public. George W. Bush didn’t respond and paid the price. The only thing the Left respects is power and when used against them, they can’t handle it. Mr. Trump is fighting back against the Left and whether its his method of social media or his political policies, the Left will continue to attack him. The bottom line is that whether he responds or doesn’t respond he will be attacked by those who are intent in bringing a constitutional America to it’s knees.
Yup, root hog or die!
“considering that I have been urging just such pruning of tweets as a matter of strategy for Trump for a long time … perhaps the president knows something I don’t.”
Last week while the fake news media was endlessly gnashing its teeth over the Mika tweets, the House quietly passed Kate’s Law and Medical Tort Reform and Trump’s travel ban was quietly put into effect. All without the overamplified sturm und drang of the fake news media crying “Racism!” and “They’re throwing granny off the cliff!” that otherwise would have given spineless House Republicans afraid of their own shadows and constantly wavering, navel-gazing Republican-appointed SCOTUS justices like Roberts and Kennedy pause in doing the right thing as pathetic prelude to caving like they always do.
The fake news media will attack Trump relentlessly no matter what. If the discussion is about matters of substance, that’s what they’ll relentlessly attack him on. So Trump instead chooses inconsequential things for them to attack him on and thereby provides much-needed cover for the weak Republican troops he needs to enact his agenda.
That’s what Trump knows that Hanson doesn’t.
Like you, Hanson is actually downplaying the role played by intelligent opinion leaders like himself in moving the country in the right direction and countering the Left. You’re claiming that Trump needs to distract the Left while he sneaks his policies into effect, as if our republic flourishes in smoke and mirrors. Have you no confidence in the ability of Trump and others to win a straight-up argument against the demented Left? Frankly, any reference to Trump’s “strategy” is a cover for his lack of self-control, especially as to the more vicious personal tweets. He’s always been a thin-skinned, narcissistic, publicity hound who couldn’t ignore bad press if he tried. His hypocritical claim that he doesn’t watch Morning Joe just shows that he knows he shouldn’t.
I didn’t make the world, I just have to live in it. Unlike you, I choose to see the world as it is, not as I wish it to be.
You see the world as a place where the Left must ultimately win unless we can sneak something past them? How sad for you. And if you’re reconciled to Republicans being unilaterally stuck on stupid as to healthcare, with no help from the Left, you really have no hope.
No, I see the world as Machiavelli saw it. A world where mastering realpolitick is what ultimately wins the day, not hopelessly wishing for knight-in-shining-armor conditions that only exist in fairy tales.
Perhaps in your world Bush didn’t see his entire 2nd term agenda go down in flames over his refusal to fight back against the “lying, war-mongering murderer” charges that were relentlessly hurled against him.
Perhaps in your world McCain didn’t lose ignominiously over his refusal to let Sarah Palin loose after she electrified the world with her convention speech and instead watched her get destroyed by the fake news media merely because McCain refused to fight back.
Perhaps in your world John Roberts didn’t manufacture a reason to declare Obamacare constitutional in the face of withering attacks on his humanity from the fake news media.
Perhaps in your world Romney didn’t watch his presidential hopes go down in flames and Obama and Hillary get off scot-free over Romney’s refusal to make an issue out of the horrific events in Benghazi.
Again, I see the world as it is, not as I wish it to be.
Don’t blame Machiavelli for your nonsense. You think you should abandon reason in politics–again, in favor of what?–because you don’t always get your way and your candidates don’t always win. And you propose to correct that defect in the world by proclaiming a crude publicity hound to be a “genius.”
I did get a kick out of your reference to Sarah Palin, which reminded me of a Federalist article by Rob Tracinski called, “Donald Trump Is The Price We Pay For Sarah Palin”.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/01/20/donald-trump-is-the-price-we-pay-for-sarah-palin/
You shou,d read it. Palin is the same kind of ideologically empty “piss ’em off” media celebrity that Trump is–the REASON she caught hell.
What is your definition of “reason”? Apparently it’s losing but feeling good about yourself in the process. While I get that, the uncompromising “principles” thing (which is also why you’re upset to the point of disparaging my views and even Machiavelli as “nonsense” and straw-manning my views into a tritely simplistic “the left will win” scenario, but whatever), I also get that it’s not the one and only way to look at things reasonably. Doing what’s necessary to win, including beating the other side at its own game, is another wholly legitimate way of reasoning things out whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
As far as your link, sorry but I don’t chase links because I find it incredibly boring and a waste of time. But let me take a wild stab in the dark here: Never-Trumper Robert Tracinski’s views on this subject … wait for it … wait for it … just happen to agree with yours! So presto! No need for me to chase your link, right? ;-)
By “reason” I mean identifying your own values and seeking to persuade the majority of people, who are not hardcore Leftists, to agree with you. Hard to see what you can “win” by trading insults with Leftist idiots. That doesn’t mean failing to respond appropriately to relevant accusations and arguments. I see a lack of principle not only in the vicious attacks, but also a lack of political principles worth fighting for, if your primary focus is just pissing someone off. You need to be FOR something, not just against those who’ve insulted you, and thereby define you–especially if you let them set your standards.
The major idea of the near-prophetic Tracinski article is that Trump and Palin are both ideologically empty media celebrities, good only at offending people, which is inadequate to the job of keeping the country great. I suggested the article because anyone can see that he did an amazing job of foreseeing where we are now.
Let’s do a thought experiment, shall we? Suppose we had the ability to foresee the results of competing scenarios and if Trump tweets, the House passes Kate’s Law and Medical Tort Reform, but if Trump doesn’t tweet, the House caves under media pressure and scuttles the bills. What’s more important to you, passing the bills or having a president who doesn’t tweet?
Regarding Tracinski, you might find his writings “near-prophetic” (which, by the way, is the same thing as saying “not prophetic”) and fascinating, but I don’t. If you can tell me that back in 2008 he looked at Palin and then immediately penned an article saying Trump would be president in eight years, I’ll click that link. Otherwise it’s just an article you liked and I could easily start shooting links at you of articles I liked. As I said, a boring waste of time.
I don’t understand how Trump’s strategy works, but he does seem to have one, and offending the people who would otherwise be attacking him seems to be part of it.
At the very least, it seems to keep them focused on what he says, instead of what they’d like to say; he seems to be claiming the ground (“this and not that is what we are going to argue about today”). It may also involve a certain amount of “give someone enough rope and you’ll see if he hangs himself”, since the media does not react well to Trump’s refusal to accommodate himself to their expectations, and he appears to be exploiting that. Third guess: it might have to do with keeping the headlines focused on gossip column stuff (again, on his terms, not theirs) instead of on his latest executive order.
It could be all three of those things, or something else, or any combination.
Whatever it is he’s doing, he’s managed to remain standing while the entire left wing (and all the institutions it controls) throw everything they’ve got at him, and that’s no small thing.
Your “thought experiment” is a stupid false alternative. Trump’s tweets don’t influence the passage of anything. That’s magical thinking.
Because you didn’t look at the Tracinski article, you don’t understand in what way it was prescient: foreshadowing the pointless, verbal mud wrestling match we’re stuck watching.
Hence proffering it as a thought “experiment”. But I completely understand your intellectual fear of confronting it. Because the experiment has nothing to do with Trump, it has to do with you. The fact that you can’t make what for most folks whose primary interest is the good of the country would be an easy choice — pick the things that do good for America over what are at worst the mere misadventures of a single individual — says all that needs saying about where your true loyalties lie. To wit, you value your delicate sensibilities and hatred of Trump over the good of the entire country.
Are you really too dense to understand that presenting a false alternative is not a “thought experiment”? Maybe this will help: if Trump tweets, enraged terrorists take over the world, but if Trump doesn’t tweet, the pacified terrorists convert to being Amish. Choose.
Lol. Presenting not necessarily a false alternative but certainly an unknowable one is precisely what a thought experiment is. Lol again.
Look, I have you pegged now. Your hatred of Trump is blind. And very angry. Logic doesn’t stand a chance against it. It’s useless to even try to advance something so unemotional as logic in the face of such biting emotion.
Oh, and I choose “Trump doesn’t tweet and the pacified terrorists convert to being Amish.” Because, you know, the Amish aren’t trying to saw all our heads off with dull, rusty knives. Did you think I’d have a hard time choosing or something?
You are that dense.
Q.E.D. Bye now. ;-)
My favorite was Scott Walker, but I noticed that he didn’t do as well as either Palin or Trump at surviving the media onslaught (or the wrath of the so-called establishment GOP, who cannot stand the idea of “the base” having a say in who the candidate should be).
So maybe being able to survive and achieve real accomplishments (like winning an election, in Trump’s case) is more than just being an “empty media celebrity” – maybe it is good at more than “offending people”.
Heck, maybe the people who are offended are people we NEED to be offending.
Maybe people were right who said, “Trump is the only candidate Clinton could beat and Clinton was the only candidate Trump could beat.” The election came down to which one the public disliked the most. Nothing to brag about. A number of Republican candidates would have done better than Trump. Me, I blame primary voters in both parties for not giving us a better choice.
And yet Trump beat a whole bunch of Republican candidates.
Not because people didn’t vote, or didn’t care, but because he just plain outperformed them. (Not without help from the “establishment”).
Ultimately I don’t like Trump, but I do think he is getting done the job that needs doing, and that matters more than my likes or dislikes.
I think the media miscalculated in giving him a fortune in free publicity to campaign for the nomination of a party with too many voters impressed with his crude populism.
I think he won because he was the only guy who could stand up to (and manipulate) the left’s bullying.
Which seems to have become an issue in its own right, and an important one.
At any rate he came across with a strong winning message. That those who don’t like him continue to insist that his message amounts to no more than ‘crude populism’ is either cluelessness or sour grapes.
“Strong winning message”? Hillary barely beat him out in an unpopularity contest. …or, some of us can tell the difference between a brazenly unprincipled populist demogogue and a real leader with an effective ideology. The media is clearly appalled by its own role in electing him.
Given that the media attacked and demonized him 24/7, he did very well.
Most people are sheep and obey the media. Listen to how you echo talking points as if you thought of them yourself.
And your message is strictly original.
And your message is strictly original.
The Left abandoned reason when they couldn’t close the deal for the USSR. They adopted post-modern Marxism and began to pretend they could make no, yes; and yes, no. Your ‘straight argument’ won’t work there, and didn’t. Your argument is with the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and they are all feigning madness to win and defeat you, and they would have without the compensatory genius of someone like Trump.
Let’s see…Trump is president … and you are? Varian, of course commenting in a forum, right?
How pathetic! Because the Leftist minority isn’t reasonable, you think we should abandon reasoned argument altogether as to everyone and depend on the “compensatory genius” of Trump. To accomplish what by what means? Hint: the alternatives to reason in humans affairs are fraud and brute force, actually one and the same.
You may not begin to understand what has happened in America but it is neither here nor there. We will move ahead with solutions that work under the prevailing circumstances.
Meanwhile, Varian is a pretty bird! (pecks mirror), Varian is a pretty bird! (pecks mirror). Pathetic!
“Solutions that work”?? Tweeting pointless insults while failing to broker or negotiate a healthcare bill among your own party and while effectively unopposed? Calling your own party’s work product “mean”? Whining about the “watered down” travel ban executive order that you signed? That’s the kind of thing that used to be described as being unable find your own ass with both hands–but that didn’t sufficiently take into account “prevailing circumstances.”
I’m happy with ‘It works’, which is something we never heard from pearl clutchers like you. I won’t apologize for a world the left created, I won’t apologize for the techniques that actually are loosening the grip of Leftist ideology. If it doesn’t make sense to you, fine. Your prescriptions weren’t working. You need to stand up in the middle of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and pull the table cloth from under their precious tea set and thumb your nose at them. They’ll have you talking backwards if you don’t.
Trump’s tweets aren’t doing anything to loosen the grip of Leftist ideology. They are actually raising CNN’s ratings. The rest of it sounds like the Mad Hatter.
Murders and rapes by the Clintons mean that Trump can hire thugs to beat up reporters and nobody can complain. Trump’s superiority is evident in his chldren, whose excellence contrasts with doggie chelsea and the spoiled kenyan brats. We must never forget Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayres and Saul Alinsky. Meanwhile, every day, America is becoming great again.
Really good article and the top comments are spot on too!
We disagree. The Ds are a branch of the media. The media owners are America’s and Trump’s real enemies.
“Look, squirrel!” Well written piece.
I’m old enough (as is Dr. Hanson) to look over the `progression’ of our media spanning decades…
There is NO QUESTION that the `Media’s credibility fell off of a big cliff with Monica’s Blue Dress, in the same manner as the credibility of American Feminists (see Dr. Hanson’s Hillary Clinton bit above). And with the rise of Obama, the `Media’ took its final dive and gave up its claim to being the Fourth Estate. Feminists? They took their final dive by going after Sarah Palin!
However, American Media’s earliest sign (in my lifetime) of veering away from `We The People’, dates back to Walter Cronkite when declared the Vietnam War `lost’ when in fact, the N. Vietnamese had suffered a huge Tet Offensive defeat. I was a teenager and believed him! That was when Fake News was born!
And Cronkite’s disciple Rather who honed lying to a fine edge.
These tweets could be so much more effective if they weren’t so childish. Fight back, by all means, but have smart clever tweets targeting your opponents. The Joe and Mika nonsense just puts him on the same level and MSNBC, namely the gutter. Hanson may be right and I am in the minority hating all this childish behavior from Trump, the media and the left. Beginning to think I am. If Trumps tweets do lead to success in any sense, then this will be our level of discourse going forward forever. Makes me sad. Next election will be Trump vs. some really offensive progressive. Seriously, these will be our choices? We need a third party with a normal running to represent us normals, however dwindling our numbers may be.
“….however dwindling our numbers may be.”
Trump is essentially “a third party”, the “third party” you pine for is the remnants of the Pre-Trump GOP that gave us the McCain & Romney described by Dr. Hanson. The Trump “party” believes in WINNING by every means possible, but short of the actual/perpetual violence endemic to the Left….If you have never read Saul Alinsky’s (short) book Rules for Radicals, I’d highly recommend you doing so. The tactics of the Left are all spelled out there…..once read, you’ll understand why lying is part and parcel of what they must do to gain power.
His tweets invariably trigger the media – and he’s destroying CNN and the rest of fake news with them. He spends one minute on a 3 AM tweet because he knows CNN will spend the next forty eight hours making themselves look stupid talking about it. Meanwhile he gets back to work on MAGA.
“…..For all that, he [Obama] remains a progressive icon…..” I think if a politician the NYT liked [Obama] were depicted fighting his media opponent [Fox News] in a cartoonish, over-the-top video, the NYT would approve of the comic fun. Anyone who complained that the video encouraged violence would be deplored as not understanding humor and the difference between real and metaphorical fighting.
Precisely. We were SO disgusted by the weakness of the sissy boys McCain and Romney. As crude as he sometimes may be, when Trump hits back, we know that his opponents richly deserves it. My dear mother told me as a boy never to hit anybody bubuif someone hits me me first I should hit him right back. And so Trump keeps his opponemts honest. They know that they can’t get away with it as with the GW Bush administration which was a textbook example of how not responding to attacks lets the attacker win. GW Bush lost because of a failed PR strategy. No response is an admission of guilt. So when Trump fights he fights not only for himself but for us and we need a bold advocate. Thank you, Mr Trunp.
This is a truly pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible and confound readers with what Bernie Sanders’ wife is accused of, or suggesting we change a few words in a lying tweet to make it less of a lying tweet.
I challenge anyone reading to tell me they want there children, or anyone else’s children, to behave this way. Narcissistic, greedy, lying, uninformed, “you can grab them by the p—y” and get away with it, unstable, self centered. No normal child, let alone the leader of the free world, should behave like that. Pathetic and dangerous.
Must be hard to breathe way up there on the moral high ground.
Wow. You consider it moral high ground to not brag about sexual assault and to not taunt other people like a pathetic middle schooler? What standards do you have? Do you hold up Trump’s behavior as a model for your children?
First, his comment about “grabbing” was just that: a comment. No evidence he ever touched anyone without their permission. Second, I like knowing my President won’t be backed into a corner by dishonest media people and foreign despots. I did not vote for a Pope, I voted for President. My children know right from wrong and do not take their moral instruction from the White House. Thanks for looking out for them, though.
Character matters a lot. A man of this horrific character can not lead and should not lead. What Clinton did his intern was disgusting, but he overall showed evidence of morality and character through his presidency, GWB seems to me lazy intellectually and I disagreed with his decision, but he seems to have had morality and good character and intentions, whatever you think of Obama’s policies, other than some narcissism of his own, he had good character and could lead.
This man is an embarrassment to the entire country. Their is no defense for his low character and lack of values. He can not lead. Your children are watching and learning from the man you support.
Thanks, again, for looking out for my children. One is a disabled veteran of the Iraq war (USMC) and the other a professional starting her own business. I have no concerns about Trump’s influence on them, other than to watch out for their financial futures. Character does matter, but as I have pointed out, the MSM has made it impossible for Mother Teresa or Pope JP II to survive an election in this country. We get leaders who can take the heat and fight back. You have two choices: 1) get behind this President; 2) stay angry.
Another choice is to point out to our kids that he’s a bad man.
The course of history is cyclical. You folks will not be in power forever, and indeed, this country will almost certainly not endure forever. It’s just a question of sooner rather than later.
“…this country will almost certainly not endure forever”
But it’ll last a lot longer without Leftist kkkunts like you tearing it down.
“It’s just a question of sooner rather than later.”
For the monumental a$$-kicking you and your Leftist cohort are going to get, the smart money is on the former.
Oh, cut it out with the pious sarcasm – as though your side demonstrates in its increasingly venomous comments that you care in any way about the personal lives, fortunes, or families of those of us who don’t happen to share your particular political convictions.
I wish your children well, honestly. I would hope that in this country of ours you would wish the same for mine, but the tone of your comments doesn’t encourage me, Virginia Mom.
Ufck off and d!e, mabele tw@t.
What’s the matter, dooosh bag?
You still have sand in your vagina?
BILL CLINTON!
Now, how about you shutthefuckup.
Idiot.
Well, it must be equally hard to breathe the stiflingly thick air way down there on the moral LOW ground.
All of us should know right from wrong, whether we’re on the right or the left. I suspext you do, to be honest – or maybe it’s better to say I HOPE you do given that you label yourself a “Mom” – but you seem so far gone in your hatred of anyone who doesn’t share your political ideology that you can’t admit it.
When are you going to do the world a favor and drop ufcking dead?
It takes very little time and almost no energy to type (or dictate) 140 characters in a Tweet. Trump’s investment of 20 or so seconds results in 24 hours or more of hysteria from the leftists in the Main Stream Media. BTW. the MSM created Donald Trump. With their obsession with destroying conservative candidates, they have driven good people out of public office and created a climate in which only a very tough street-fighter like Trump can survive. He is eating their lunch and leaving them hanging by their Fruit-of-the-Looms on their own lockers. Happy Fourth of July, best holiday of the Summer.
Indeed.
“Trump’s strongest supporters are sometimes the most anxious critics of his tweeting—not because his is a failing presidency bordering on caricature, but because it is adroitly unwinding the Obama transformation. But why, then, the need to go after failed media has-beens without an audience?”
Because Rove and Bush said nothing while they tarred Bush with LIES, over and over.
Ditto with McCain and Romney.
With Trump?
Thatshit stops NOW.
he is an American like Black Jack Pershing , (disdained by the architects of Verdun), Thomas Edison, ( the wizard that spat on the floor), Calvin Coolidge, ( who staved off a depression with quick action in the early 1920’s while FDR floundered for ten years until “saved” by a world war), or his own comparison wjth Andy Jackson , (our dueling take no nonsense fired our guns and the British kept acomin” but there wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago President, or he would be right at home in the rare company of US Marines that took down the Sultan of Morocco. Rejoice! Americans! I want him at my back rather than any lying, one world patriotism is wrong ,silly DNC pile of blank….. ,
Bush brought honor and dignity to the White House? With all due respect he was a disaster as President. He has kept a low profile because of that. Why is it thew only person featureed at GOP conventions since he left office was Condi Rice. Dr. Hanson seems to be coming closer to being Newt than an eloquent spokesamn for the right.
Why no comments from Dr. Hanson on the hate campaign conducted by Fox News, Breitbart, etc. against Obama and Hillary?
It doesn’t fit his narrative. Therefore, it is omitted, as are the 8 personal scandal free years of the Obama presidency.
You mean Sean Hannity posed with a picture of Obama’s severed head and I didn’t hear about this?
Kathy Griffin in no way speaks for anyone but herself. She’s basically ended her career (for now) because of that move, and rightfully so. Her greatest harm was giving Trump supporters the false equivalency that that somehow balances out all of his faults.
On the contrary: the list of left wing celebrities who speak openly of violence against Trump – and before him Bush – has grown long indeed.
Contrast that poor rodeo clown who got not only fired but blackballed for wearing the Obama mask (nobody minded when he wore a George W Bush mask before that).
You guys have been screaming about a “climate of hate” being “responsible” for violence ever since that communist shot JFK – most recently sermonizing about the need for civility after an apolitical schizophrenic shot Gabby Giffords & the left exploited the fact that Giffords is on the left to make the case once again that the right are all violent nutcases, but in reality it’s pure projection: all the really good “assassin p-rn” has been left wing, including not just the various celebrities who fantasize about harm to Trump but also the dramatizations of GW Bush’s assassinations. It’s what #RESIST is all about: it is the fantasy that violence is literally warranted against Republicans – that it is noble and heroic to shoot Scalise – because Republicans are literally on the same scale as Hitler. Literally. That is the message on the Left, that it is somehow “understandable” for Madonna to want to blow up the White House.
It was not noble and heroic to shoot Scalise. It was a crime and should be punished accordingly. Can I extrapolate White House invitee Ted Nugent talking about assassination to you too?
If Ted Nugent was talking about assassinating Obama, that would be comparable to what the Left was doing, and if anyone took him literally, then it would be comparable.
But it would still be just one man, as opposed to dozens of high-profile lefties.
Your very argument inadvertently highlights how far you have to reach to find a high-profile right winger who is comparable to your mainstream lefties. If Ted Nugent ever said anything suggesting we ought to assassinate Obama – that doing so would make the country better – I never heard it, probably because Nugent isn’t a very big celebrity and/or does not have the sort of media exposure that the Trump-bashers enjoy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/17/ted-nugent-once-said-obama-should-suck-on-my-machine-gun-now-he-wants-to-tone-down-the-hateful-rhetoric/?utm_term=.dc37f9d78b16
If there were a Mount Rushmore of RWNJ apologists, VDH could take all 4 spots. His false equivalencies and unsupportable spin put him in a class by himself. Because Bill Clinton stupidly, so wrongfully, did what he did, Trump gets a pass for anything? What is Obama supposed to do now? Join a monastery? RWNJ criticized him for wearing tan suits and asking for Dijon mustard on a hamburger. Why not criticism for vacationing in Tahiti after 8 years of abuse.
Nobody cares what Obama does now. He has no power here.
Then why is VDH criticizing him for a post presidency vacation in Tahiti?
To make the larger point of how double standards are the real reason why so many people mind the media’s behavior more than they mind Trump’s.
Former presidents aren’t supposed to take vacations? What about Trump’s criticism of Obama for playing golf, saying he’d never play golf while president. How’s that for a double standard, trivial as it in on the list of his other disasters.
What does Trump get a pass for? He hasn’t committed any crimes.
Which is the point, of course: that you’re okay with Clinton’s many scandals (several of which do raise real questions of probable actual crimes), but you think Trump saying something that sounds sorta like he’s saying he might do something that might be illegal means he’s literally a dictator.
Every statement he has made, every action he takes, every decision he makes, is seriously evaluated for whether it could be used to impeach. He is not the one who gets a free pass.
Has there been a politician that was more investigated than HRC? Do you think that if they could have found something on her after 7 Congressional inquiries which began with Benghazi and ended with the emails, and the FBI investigation, they wouldn’t have prosecuted? And no, not every statement is viewed toward impeachment. Just the comments he makes like, “I fired Comey because of the Russia thing.” What if Obama had fired Comey over the HRC email thing? How would you have reacted?
THIS is how Trump’s tweeting works, strategically.
Yes, by all means, let’s keep attention focused onto how fair it is that HRC was investigated, since obviously the fact that the Obama administration opted to drop all charges proves that she didn’t really break the law.
Because that is what “law” means to lefties: whatever they want it to mean. That Trump broke no law is irrelevant; that Hillary broke many is irrelevant. Obama is legit and can make Hillary be innocent; Trump is bad so he doesn’t actually need to break any laws in order to be evil and a dictator.
And lefties have no idea how much resentment the rest of America feels toward their “the law is whatever I say it is” mentality.
You’re not answering the question. No one needs to focus on HRC. DJT won the electoral college and is our POTUS. The focus is now on how DJT performs. Good luck with your perspective.
Answering the question? Your question has at least two bad-faith fallacies. First: question-begging: HRC was not over-investigated: unlike Trump, there is actually proof that she committed crimes. The second: it’s a red herring.
VDH is a national treasure that writes with clarity and veracity. And for that he is demonized and vilified by the hate-filled Left. Enemy flak gets thicker the closer you are to the target. Bombs away, good sir!!!!
Can’t you hear Trump’s violin?
Love VDH. He speaks such eloquent truths.
Best thing progressives can do is shut-up and let President Trump do what he does. Then at some future day, when we as a people again fail to remember what it takes to maintain a republic, they can get back to destroying freedom and individual rights.
Whooh man that is a lot of concentrated correctness in this article. Excellent. The only thing I would take tiny issue with is, I don’t think Trump wastes a lot of time at all whipping off these Tweets.
Great piece. No bombast or hyperbole but an honest, objective evaluation of the current media and political climate. Trump was elected as a protest candidate in my opinion, and he’s delivering on all fronts. Frankly, with the way he has been treated by media, the left, and many on the right, he owes nobody anything. These “institutions” are actively harming the nation, and Trump engages them on their level despite their denials. Hypocrisy is hideous in any form but especially from MSM and our so-called leadership. Trump’s Tweets will have little, if any, long term impact per se, but he illustrated that the MSM does not wag the dog.
great article!
thank you for your brillaint insight and wisdom victor davis hanson!
Brilliant post and a great read, Dr. Hanson. Thanks. Cannot disagree with a word that you wrote.
Well said, VDH…especially from someone who initially joined the anti-Trump jihad with along with his NRO buddies.
Welcome aboard the Trump train, glad to have you aboard. And BTW, a lot more than half the country despises thetrained seals in the Leftist media. The latest Gallup poll showed that only 25% believe anything they say…and Matt Drudge’s online poll had similar results.
Great great article. VDH is not wrong. Trump is walking a tightrope with his tweets. As a fervent Trump supporter, I was appalled by the CNN wrestling video tweet. Not by the content but by Trump’s questionable judgment in posting it himself. Let somebody else do it. Eventually he will go beyond the pale with his tweets, and starting losing votes in the 2020 campaign. Go Trump!! MAGA!! Just stop tweeting or slow it way down.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Very well written
I hope he keeps Trolling everyone!
The Tweets are the best part of his presidency.
The CNN Bodyslam tweet was hilarious. But the indignant reaction to it by the stuffed shirts at CNN was schadenfreude porn. More, please!
Trump is crazy like a fox, in his approach. That should be obvious to all but the most blinkered by now.
Trump is an embarrassment to our great country .Sad.
Well back to figuring out which version of the relief act for our health instance industry we need to pass. Or completely overlooking the doom poised by the rapidly rising rates of diabetes and non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
The Democrats are out of touch and Trump is exposing their lunacy by his use of tweets. Oh, oh. How awful those who present no real news are so unhinged by his retorts.
The left is beside themselves because Trump is redefining the rules of the game. He’s throwing their “standards” card back in their faces, instead of taking the traditional stance of those who actually possess such standards, which involves falling all over themselves trying to Turn The Other Cheek. It’s beautiful to watch.
Since he’s not a politician, political calculation is not something he feels is necessary – Obama and the Clinton’s were obsessed with it. All that matters to him is America winning and success. He’s indifferent to a 2nd term or even a personal legacy.
Outwardly crass/politically incorrect people are some of the most principled and honest individuals you’ll ever meet.
You don’t have to like him as a person. Likability, style and whether you’re “cool” is what attracts Leftists to their cult of personality. Conservatives care much more about substance and competence. Obama looked good in a suit, but it was empty.
He’s got their number, he’s in their heads, and they’re stumbling and bumbling while contriving their fake news that goes nowhere!
What the president knows, that you don’t (as you suggest at the end), is that they are going to smear him every day until he is out of office no matter what he does, tweet or not. No way he survives if he doesn’t keep reminding the people that the press is biased and out to get him.