Celebrities, academics, and journalists have publicly threatened or imagined decapitating Donald Trump, blowing him up in the White House, shooting him, hanging him, clubbing him, and battering his face. They have compared him to Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. And some have variously accused him of incestuous relations with his daughter and committing sex acts with Vladimir Putin, while engaging in some sort urination-sex in a hotel in Moscow.
Yet all this and more is often alleged to be the singular dividend of Trump’s own crudity, as if his own punching back at critics created the proverbial progressive “climate of fear” or “climate of hate” that prompted such uncharacteristic venom.
In truth we are back to 2004-2008, when the Left did to George W. Bush what it is now doing to Donald Trump.
Assassination? Alfred A. Knopf published Nicholson Baker’s novel, Checkpoint, about characters fantasizing how to kill Bush. A guest columnist in the Guardian, Charlie Brooker, wrote to his British readers on the eve of the election fearing that if Bush were reelected, there would be no assassin to shoot him: “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr.—where are you now that we need you?”
Do we remember filmmaker Gabriel Range’s “Death of a President,” the docudrama about Bush’s assassination that was a favorite at the Toronto Film Festival? Cindy Sheehan wrote she wished to go back into time to kill a younger Bush before he could be president.
Trump as Hitler or Mussolini is a Bush retread. Well before Trump, everyone got into the fascist/Nazi act, from Sens. Robert Byrd and John Glenn to celebrities like Linda Ronstadt and Garrison Keillor.
Hate? Jonathan’s Chait infamous New Republic article began: “I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it.”
Do we remember the delusions of Howard Dean, who foamed, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for”?
Even decapitation chic is not new. After Bush left office, his detached head appeared on a stake in an episode of “Game of Thrones”; had they tried the same with Barack Obama, the hit show would have gone off the air.
Yet there is one difference. The Bush Administration, to paraphrase Michelle Obama, went high as progressives went low, and thus chose not to respond in kind. The result in part was that a battered Bush accordingly left office demonized, with a scant 34 percent approval rating.
The difference with Trump hatred is not some unique intensity or prior provocation, but rather Trump’s singular counter-punching. It may not be traditionally presidential, but the Trump mode is to nuke those who first attacked him, in an effort to create a sort of deterrence. CNN, to take one example, or Barack Obama to take another, at least knows that their smug, chic Trump putdowns will receive a reply in a manner that is neither smug nor chic. Trump in Samson fashion is quite willing to pull the temple down on top of himself, if it means his enemies perish first.
Is Trump Pushing an Extremist Agenda?
Trump’s agenda so far is an encapsulation of various conservative initiatives of prior presidents. Remember, Trump did not promise to make “America great” but rather “American great again.”
His emphases on drilling and energy development hark back to the Nixon-Ford-Carter dream of “energy independence.” Long before Barack Obama’s precious “We can’t just drill our way out of the problem,” there were presidential efforts to promote fossil fuel autonomy; Trump, however, may become the first president to see it actually occur.
His efforts to close the border and end illegal immigration are similar to what Bill and Hillary Clinton used to promise in their respective campaigns. Americans then and now approve of ending illegal immigration and deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes or ignored past requests for court appearances.
What was radical was not Trump’s immigration agenda but Obama’s earlier efforts to nullify federal immigration law while promoting sanctuary cities that openly defied the federal government in the antebellum nullification style of 19th-century South Carolina.
Trump is trying to resurrect Reagan’s radical tax cuts and deregulation, albeit in a dangerous age in which his predecessor had doubled the debt in just eight years and left us $20 trillion in the hole. When traditional liberal stimuli—huge annual deficits, near-zero interest, and massive federal spending—fail to achieve 3 percent economic growth, it is time to try free-market alternatives rather than more of the same.
In matters of race, sex, and religion, the old liberal idea was to encourage assimilation, integration, and intermarriage—the melting pot idea of Martin Luther King, Jr., who emphasized the irrelevance of skin color in comparison to the content of our characters. Again, what is radical is the Democratic veer to the hard left, and its mantra that Americans supposedly owe allegiance to their particular tribe first, and second, if at all, to the shared commonwealth.
Trump is a traditionalist as well as a conservative. He is hated not because he is proposing radical new solutions, but because he believes that the last eight years were deviant and not characteristic of the American experiment. Praising the idea of the traditional West in Poland is presidential; praising underappreciated Western debts to Islam while in Cairo is un-presidential.
Is Trump for the Wealthy and the Elite?
Democrats, as is their wont, have tried to taint Trump as callous and indifferent to the plight of the underclass in his attempts to reform a failed Obamacare that raised rates and premiums and often lowered the quality of coverage.
So far, the typical Democratic gambit of painting Republicans as out-of-touch rich people (remember John McCain’s various homes and Mitt Romney’s elevator) has not worked because Trump has marketed himself as a populist intent on restoring small-town, rural, inner-city, and forgotten America. No Democratic politician has used the plural possessive in reference to constituencies—“our miners, our farmers, our vets, or ever talked of fair trade in terms of the individual in need of a job and respect rather than big-time unions and donors to the Democratic Party.
Trump may be a Manhattan billionaire, but he connects with the lower middle-classes in a far more natural fashion than did either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton—or any of the presumed future Democratic candidates. Trump can be vicious to elites, but it is difficult to imagine him writing off millions of Americans as hopelessly irredeemable and deplorable or pathetic clingers to their guns and religion.
Some criticize Trump’s renegotiation of trade deals as protectionist, or his efforts not to get in another ground war in the Middle East as isolationist, or his promise to close the border and make immigration strictly a legal and meritocratic enterprise as restrictionist or nativist; but they cannot argue that such proposals were aimed at elite interests rather than crafted to help American workers, or that they do not have majority public support.
It will be harder to demonize Trump as a callous Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney, largely because his entire message is aimed at the old base of the Democratic Party, the working classes of the red states in between the affluent coastal blue corridors.
Have We Had a Cruder President?
Trump is certainly blunt and sometimes crude. But so far that excess is a matter of rhetoric not behavior. He is not John F. Kennedy seducing teenagers in the White House swimming pool. He is not Bill Clinton performing sex acts in the Oval Office bathroom with a 22-year subordinate intern—and then when caught trying simultaneously to lie about it and ruin her.
Trump can be blunt, but then so was Barack Obama when he called for supporters to get in the faces of opponents, to punish “enemies” at the polls, and to take guns to knife fights—while lecturing Americans about their laziness and high-horse Christianity or blinkered efforts to cling to their guns and religion. So far Trump has not joked, as did Obama, about using drones to assassinate would-be suitors of his kids or ridiculed the Tea Party with the homophobic slur “tea-baggers.”
Isn’t Trump Doomed to Fail?
Not so fast. Almost every Trump initiative so far—more energy development, tax reform, deregulation, an end to illegal immigration, luring capital and jobs back into the United States, renegotiating trade deals, realist deterrence abroad, and mockery of political correctness—earns wide public approval.
Trump isn’t running in a vacuum. He is competing against two quite unpopular entities—the media and the new progressive Democratic Party.
Obama has ushered in a disastrous McGovern-like hard left deviance from the Democratic Party. And the medicine—a Bill Clinton like centrism—is now seen as worse than the illness of losing over 1,000 elections during the Obama tenure. The Democrat nominee in 2020 may make the selection of John Kerry in 2004 against a supposedly doomed George W. Bush look inspired.
The problem with the Democratic Party can be summed up in the strange odyssey of Bernie Sanders. Formerly a weird, hard-Left socialist outlier, Sanders became iconic of the new party by his assault on inequality and his calls for massive government intervention to share the wealth.
But if a self-acclaimed socialist can earn a $1 million a year while on the government payroll, own three tony homes, and have his wife under FBI investigation for mismanaging and bankrupting a college and leaving with a lucrative golden parachute (and perhaps on the way out, evicting the disabled from her college’s new digs), then no progressive is immune from the new Democratic stereotype of talking socialist while living hyper-capitalist.
Figures like Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, and other Silicon Valley and Wall Street grandees are the not the Democratic pathway to rebuilding the blue wall. So far Trump has so positioned himself that most attacks on his agenda reflect the parochial concerns of privileged progressives rather than those of hoi polloi. Every time a MSNBC talking head, a NeverTrump New York pundit, an identity politics functionary, a Hollywood celebrity, a campus Pajama Boy, a Silicon Valley master of the universe, or a Democrat functionary attacks Trump, he ends up sounding either snobbish, hypocritical, or parochial—and thereby energizes the Trump populist message.
For now, Democrats are running against Trump the messenger who supposedly has lowered the bar on presidential behavior; they cannot run against his message, largely because they have none of their own, and the Trump agenda is both popular and seen as a return to what used to be the normal way Americans governed themselves.
Separate Trump the president from Trump the media ogre, and then most of his policies seem traditionally conservative, logical, popular, a return to normality, and a much needed corrective to the past eight years, which is the true lost era.
What is weird is not Trump the ex-reality TV star and tabloid sensation, but his critics who cannot separate the man from message—much less concede that just possibly Trump might succeed because, not despite, who he is.
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Why has the Dem Left melted down? They thought Obama got them in the end zone, and Rodham would do the touchdown dance, ensuring their power and supremacy forever and ever. When the voter said no, they threw a hissy fit.
Those who disdain the working American have revealed themselves, if there was any doubt before. And the media have shown themselves to be propagandists for the America-hating Left.
Right on, friend.
Exactly. They knew they had it all; a permanent majority at the polls due to massive immigrant voting, a compliant judiciary that would wipe out the First and Second Amendments, and all that goes along with One-Party Rule.
They had it, they knew it’s taste from having it in their mouths, and Trump yanked it back out.Of course they’ve gone insane.
The insanity of many on Left has been there for a long time. It wasn’t until the GOP took control of the legislative and executive branches of government that the lunacy of the Left became so obvious…especially in the media. One does not need to read many Discus comments to see how many Americans become completely unhinged when the subject of Donald Trump arises.
Come on, Ed! Do you actually believe the GOP has done anything worthwhile with their congressional majority, not to mention the time since djt entered office? They have spent more time fighting among themselves than actually legislating. The whole discussion around the healthcare bill has proven that they ranted and raved for almost a decade without developing a realistic plan. Enter the most unprepared president in history and he adds nothing worthwhile to the mix, unless you consider drunken-like early morning tweets a contribution.
Jason, in my memory the in-fighting in the past was between parties. The options were on the table and argued over until compromise was reached. Today the Dems are refusing to sit down and so the debate is left to the Repubs alone. At the end of this, bills will be passed and legislation will be signed. You won’t like the result.
Jack, were you in the country about 7 years ago when GOP memebers of Congress pledged to prevent Obama from having a second term (link below). Afterwards they obstructed and obstructed and shutdown the govt and obstructed and obstructed and obstructed until they got the majority, with which they have done absolutely nothing. I would love to see activity out of congress but if I were you I would not hold my breath. The GOP is not a victim. Please refrain from cherry-picking history.
http://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311
Honesty, I agree with you. McConnell played a hard game and set the sense for our current Congress. I was really commenting on the constant stream of opinion pieces blasting the Repub for infighting. Seems like legislating to me. What’s the old line about watching sausage being made?
Jason, the Politico article is incomplete. Only the sentence from McConnell about a one term presidency for BHO is reported, here and nearly anywhere else.
However, what McConnell actually said was, if Obama comes to talk with us and and work together, we will work together. But if he comes in and says it all going to be my way then we will work to make sure his is a one term presidency. Obama, Reid and Pelosi, while they had a majority, never cooperated or compromised. Do you remember ‘Elections have consequences, We won, Get over it.’?
John trying to convince me of the idea that the Repubs wanted to work with the Dems at that time are just as ridiculous trying to convince me that the Dems currently want to work with the Repubs. After Pres Obama got in office the GOP made their position very clear. If Pres Obama was in favor of blue the GOP would want red, if he was in favor of up the GOP would want down. Now the Dems are doing the same thing except they are being more subtle about it, as far as their speech is concerned but the result is the same. Lets not be naive the overall problem in Washington is neither Dem or GOP but ineffective self-interested politicians, ignorant voters and the ability of money to determine governmental policy. Lastly, you are correct elections have consequences. We are introduced to that harsh reality more and more as djt goes further into is time in office.
I’m not trying to convince you of anything other than the quote you cite is inaccurate. In my opinion, the inaccuracy is deliberate and oft repeated. Of course, the R’s opposed the Obama agenda. When one is headed in the wrong direction the only to make progress is to reverse course. R’s didn’t want red just because D’s wanted blue. Even the WaPo, which frequently repeats the misleading quote, acknowledges this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/11/when-did-mitch-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/?utm_term=.2be505c789a4
Regardless of how you hear it (alone or in the context) the plan was the same…to oppose and stifle Pres. Obama in an attempt to prevent him from being re-elected. The GOP did obstruct him, Pres Obama still got re-elected but the effort and intent were obvious. Also the consequences of the obstruction was a stagnant gov’t for several years, which continues til today. My original point stands. The Dems and Repubs are going tit for tat, which is not healthy and set the stage for djt to be in office. Thankfully now that djt jr has provided evidence that 1) the djt campaign was willing to get help from the Russians against Hilary and 2) the djt campaign believed the Russians to be in their political corner, we should have to worry about djt getting a second term.
What I remember is “XXxx-’em. We have the votes.”
You rarely get the privilege of voting for your leaders, you are reduced to voting against the candidate who will do the most damage to the Constitution and therefore to your country Bill Bartlett
Jason, my comment had nothing to do with the accomplishments (or lack of) by the GOP or Trump. The subject was the behavior of many on the Left, which frankly is often rude and disgusting to civilized people, which doesn’t help achieve the long-term goals of progressives.
Ed… How can you write so well and be so clear with your thoughts while trapped in Oregon, the world’s most beautiful intellectual wasteland?
I try to stay at least 200 miles away from Portland, Eugene and Salem at all times!
Baker has lousy winters
My daughter is moving to La Grande….no better.
Ed, that is funny considering I could ask the same of you. djt is the bully-and-chief so anyone that supports him would have to be ok with name calling. Right? Even the author of this article admitted djt can be “crude”, so if one can be crude and still be elected leader of the free world then being crude must be acceptable. What is the saying about glass houses and throwing rocks? Once you vote for and defend djt you tremendously undermine your ability to reprimand others regarding language.
I didn’t vote for Trump and I don’t defend rude behavior. I agree that being hypocritical is wrong. However, it is possible to support an elected official and not agree with everything they do, isn’t it? A person could support Bill Clinton and not agree with adultery. A person could support Barack Obama and disagree with his golfing priorities. It’s always been that way.
The premise of your initial comment was that the GOP is more sensible and civil than Dems and that their congressional majority is a positive thing. Subsequently you went on to talk about how Dem’s are “rude and disgusting to civilized people”. That shows that, in your opinion, the behavior of Dems is more egregious than Repubs, otherwise you would have been equal-handed with your critique. By extension that also means that you consider djt to be more civil than Dems, otherwise you would have put that caveat into your comments. That shows that you are in fact defending rude behavior by omission. Lastly, you can support an elected official and not agree with everything they do; however, that does not mean that you fail to call them on their bs. We can talk about Bill’s adultery or Obama’s golfing (which is a weak challenge in my opinion) but that does not excuse djt from criticism or accountability for HIS words or deeds. As you said “It’s always been that way.” The person at the top gets all of the credit and the blame. Given recent events, (regardless of what some have thought) djt’s chickens will come home to roost very soon, then it will be Pence’s turn.
While I hadn’t planned to vote for PRESIDENT TRUMP until I saw the total derangement from the Democrats AND the elites of the GOP, that reaction sealed the deal for me. If our President does NOTHING but be the “UN-HILLARY” He’s doing exactly what we need. BUT he’s doing more than that… Mr. Hanson has listed his plans and accomplishments clearly, and he’s already saved us from the Democrats and their tragic plans for the SCOTUS. President Trump is literally saving our Country, and the derangement from the left proves that he’s correct every day.
The elites, relaxed in their oak-paneled smoking room, are sipping 100-year-old Spanish port and puffing away (albeit reservedly) on their Upmanns. Suddenly the door bursts open, and a wild-eyed man with a striking shock of golden hair shouts, “The building is on fire!”
The dean of this pharaonic group, ensconced most comfortably in his overstuffed, Moroccan-leather Chesterfield wingback chair, looks up slowly from his brandy snifter and fixes the bumptious interloper with an icy stare: “Perhaps so. But tell me, sir, do you know which fork to use with the fish course?”
And, if they wouldn’t have murdered so many of their children in the womb for their own convenience, they might have just. pulled. it. off. Alas, it was not to be.
Threw is past tense, Ham; the Left is still throwing their hissy fit. Otherwise, on the money.
Thank God for America’s Founders who bequeathed us a representative republic where tiny states like conservative Montana, for example, could have just as much clout as the progressive hellhole known as California.
In the Senate, yes. In the House….not so much.
Specifically, thank Roger Sherman, who brokered the Connecticut Compromise that made the current set up possible.
California-land of fruits and nuts. Enough said.
Painful. I’m originally from SoCal, and apart from the weather and my Dodgers, I despise my home state. The progressives have ruined it. I recently moved to Florida (from the almost equally as bad Illinois), and can finally say I’m where I’m supposed to be. Makes me sad, but that’s what progressive do, ruin everything they touch.
Good that you left CA you were not wanted anyway.
You aren’t either. How about Caracas?
How can anybody in their right mind want to live in that sh!thole?
Its my home state and Im sorry I had to leave but I was tired of the govt in all my business affairs every month with some agency coming in to audit, I left in 2000 moved to ID and the State of ID never once audited me for anything.
This all does remind me of Super Bowl LI.
Dems though they had it sown up only to have their arse handed to them.
Dems = Falcon fans.
Congressional Repubs need to heed coach Belichick: DO YOUR JOB!
What Does the Worldwide Leftist Movement have in common with the Worldwide Jihad Movement ?
One Picture Equals 1000 Words……
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The pathetic, parasitic Dims hate America with great passion. May California & New York slide into the ocean.
100% correct sir!!
“How Did Trump Earn an Unprecedented Progressive Backlash?”
They’re “haters”, and it’s what they do because it’s what they are.
President Trump is the cure for the liberal disease and mess they have left the country in after eight years of barack hussien obama, our first muslim president.
The key to this article and to the Republican party of the future is the fighting back. Trump fights back and we Deplorables love it.
The progressive left or liberals etc… all have one thing in common. They all hate religion. After 8-9 years of debating/arguing with a plethora of leftists looney tunes, religion hating seems to be the one core value that holds them all together.
That’s odd. It in no way explains the apparent lefty need to coddle the muslims.
Is it a, the enemy of my enemy is my friend thing?
Probably, Old, and the Left also thinks that they can use the Muslims to ride to power permanently and then dispense with them. The trouble with that idea is that this is what the Iranian left thought about the Ayatollah Khomeini, which is why what’s left of the Iranian left lives in Los Angeles now.
In my book islam is not a religion. islam is a political ideology meant to garner power and control.
Indeed, Sir. Agreed.
Maybe it’s that both entities (the Left and the Islamic Extremists) see each other as Joe Stalin’s Useful Idiots who can be dispensed with after the Revolution…
Exactly.
I wish that were true, but it’s not. There are a lot of religious progs, or hybrid progs. Their religion and their anti-capitalism sort of loop round and meet each other. If you add in the politics of envy, which does seem to affect the religious quite as much as anyone else, unfortunately, you get anti-capitalist Catholics who hate the rich (hatred’s a sin but not as bad being rich apparently).
What REALLY drives them insane, is being told We can manage very well WITHOUT THEM!
They actually believe they can just make something up and make it apply to their enemies, which they are proud to announce, is every single American Patriot.
Democrats and their media are no less dangerous than ISIS, N. Korea, or Nazi’s.
And they have the gall to claim We should be afraid of Vladimir Putin?
With the Democrats and their suicidal kabuki, Putin can sit back and enjoy the self inflicted carnage.
Yes. Illusion and deception were the only methods to perpetrate the fraud and the mediocrities know Trump won’t play ball.
According to the lefties, occasionally (or frequently) obnoxious Democrats are: plain-spoken, humble, frank, acerbic, witty, deal-makers, negotiators, fighters, hard-bargainers, down-to-earth, have the common touch, men of the people, roll their sleeves up, know that politics ain’t beanbag, etc. etc.
Any Republicans who speak their minds (or speak for millions not working in media, academia or not on the dole) are: hatemongers, fearmongers, plutocrats, brutes, bullies, mean-spirited, confrontational, warmongers, fascists, red-meat merchants, rabble rousers, and, of course, Nazis.
The double standard is so long-lasting and pervasive that these lists could be extended tenfold.
Dems are slow learners. This may be caused by their religious beliefs. Maybe forty years in the desert will clear their heads?
America does not have forty years.
President Trump needs to shatter the groupthink echo chambers, which continue to know no boundaries in tainting the “wisdom of crowds”. Every time I think self-awareness will return to enough media/celebrity voices who fuel the false narratives, e.g. Ignatius on Syria, or the Ossof loss to Handel in GA CD-6, the echo chamber regenerates like Terminator T-1000.
Since the Handel win, google changed their news format, making it much harder to find real news on actual important stories, harder to see the echo chamber array of headers and ledes.
A majority of Americans may support his actual policies, but a majority can not (yet) see how to “Separate Trump the president from Trump the media ogre, and then most of his policies seem traditionally conservative, logical, popular, a return to normality, and a much needed corrective to the past eight years, which is the true lost era.”
The credentialed version of my spontaneous opinion was posted March 10, 2017:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-really-was-a-liberal-media-bubble/
The media T-1000 came back stronger in March. Perhaps the Trumps on the barricades with the Macrons in Paris on Bastille Day will work. Cameos by Ben Sasse and John McCain would definitely help.
“Americans then and now approve of ending illegal immigration and deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes or ignored past requests for court appearances.”
“Requests”? I’ll have to keep that in mind the next time I have a court date; It’s just a “request”.
You hear and read more talk that the only way the Democrats can save themselves is to move to the middle or at least appear to move to the middle and then after getting elected throw some bones to the left. Others opine that the Progressives just won’t let that happen. They’ve invested to much capital in their current Dogma to just give it up. They are in a tight spot with no real leader to bring them to their senses. Most of America doesn’t want what they’re selling and I think that number is growing. We’ll find out in the midterms. If the economy recovers to something over a three percent GDP, The Donald will win in a rout. It’s possible that a new Democratic party will emerge that is based on the Bernie movement but with someone more electable than old Bernie himself. Time will tell..
Bernie and wife are currently feeling the burn.
I’ve thought for a while now that one more ass-kicking and the Dems are toast as they are currently constituted. The only true option will be a hard hard left progressive/green/socialist party centered on the coasts.
Democrats thought they had reached the tipping point, and that, I think, is what drives the vitriol. Illegal immigration, outlawing voter ID, suppression of conservative voices on college campuses were just some of the strategies that were supposed to have put progressives in power and keep them there for decades. It all fell apart with the election of The Donald. Progressives are apoplectic. It’s a thing of beauty.
OH YEAH. Well stated.
Not to mention the support of criminals and the mentally ill.
Trump winning was a fluke, even he didnt expect to win.
It’s easy to beat the worthless snowflakes. Not tough at all.
It is beautiful!
Great article, as always, Prof. Hanson. He’s competing with THREE unpopular entities – the media, the new progressive Democratic Party AND that spineless bunch of weasels known as the RINOS.
Yes, the Rinos are the enemy within the party.
True enough.
The reason that we have Justice Gorsuch is because Republicans voted for him, and there weren’t enough Democrats/Progressives to outvote them …
Remember, not a single solitary RINO voted for final passage of Obamacare … *every* Yes vote for its passage was a Democrat/Progressive voting …
Congressional Review Act legislation has been passed and signed into law because those whom you call RINO voted for passage … each person that you choose to label as RINO prevented a Democrat/Progressive from being in Congress …
So – quit pretending to care about conservatism – the existence of what *you* disparage as RINOs shows the breadth and strength of the Republican Party … if you truly think you can do better, RUN FOR OFFICE and show us !
Hitler claimed to also be concerned about “income inequality”. His policy was the FINAL SOLUTION.
We are missing the main point! They aren’t attacking Trump, they are defending Hillary.
Hillary and her team are corrupt, very corrupt and were sloppy trying to cover it up. They knew they would win and assumed that they would finish the detail work after the election. They didn’t and the evidence is still out there. Thus, Hillary’s team is spending millions and attacking Trump as a diversion.
The Clinton Foundations and it’s spin offs have billions to spend and are paying key leftist journolisters (as they had pre-election) to keep the pressure on Trump. Payments are cash and the promise of access and non-media jobs.
Interesting take on the situation.
“It may not be traditionally presidential, but the Trump mode is to nuke those who first attacked him, in an effort to create a sort of deterrence. CNN, to take one example, or Barack Obama to take another, at least knows that their smug, chic Trump putdowns will receive a reply in a manner that is neither smug nor chic.”
My big beef with Trump is not that he responds in kind, but as you say, in a rather crude manner that simply allows his opponents to roll their eyes, smirk and say “I told you so.” I think what he needs to do is simply find a good writer for his tweets who can do so in a manner that is just as smug as that of his critics. That would really get them going ballistic.
A particularly sharp, particularly lucid VDH piece.
VDH hits another one out of the park!
Trump, for all his bluster, thinks like an American. I may disagree with him but I voted for him. The Republican party would do well to start paying attention. The Democratic party might survive if they remembered that voters are people. Our nation is the work of all of us.
“The Democratic party might survive if they remembered that voters are people”
They don’t so they won’t, which is a good thing for America.
Liberalism is not sustainable, even if it worked.
Trump is not a conservative, but he will do more to promote conservatism than even Reagan.
I too view Trump as centrist, which, over time allow him to succeed in many, many aspects. He is only labelled Conservative because our national media believes anyone to the right of Chairman Mao is a Fascist.
Yep. The middle of the field is on the 30 yd. line. Probably a fair enough reason why they have lost so badly: They keep giving up field position by the deplorables, clingers, and flyover comments.
Exactly. To be a current real-deal Dim you have to have an IQ of a Gerbil.
“How Did Trump Earn an Unprecedented Progressive Backlash?”
By preventing Bill Clinton’e wife (what’s her name) from ascending to her preordained Presidency, since we all know that it was “Her Turn”.
Progressives, aka Liberals, aka the Democratic Party only ventured out of their ‘safe spaces’ to moan in frustration.
Nothing like a heaping dose of their own medicine: via a backhoe bucket instead of a shovel!
Some criticize Trump’s renegotiation of trade deals as protectionist, or his efforts not to get in another ground war in the Middle East as isolationist, or his promise to close the border and make immigration strictly a legal and meritocratic enterprise as restrictionist or nativist; but they cannot argue that such proposals were aimed at elite interests rather than crafted to help American workers, or that they do not have majority public support.
Each of these positions is contrary to the conventional wisdom of our corrupted Administrative State and the democratically elected puppets who serve it. Yet even that doesn’t explain the depth of Establishment disgust at Trump. The biggest knock they have on Trump is he doesn’t respect our “elites” who, unfortunately, tend to be utter mediocrities with ludicrously overblown senses of self-importance. A president who doesn’t participate in the deception that they are worthy mandarins represents an existential threat. A president with open contempt for them, who laughs along with the masses at these inept, comical Pharisees, has to be destroyed lest they be hooted off the stage.
.
Bush was properly supine (his acquiescence to the current mob totally is in character). Our subpar nomenklatura realizes Trump is different and has to be subjected to a scorn, coup or assassination, the ready standbys of all juntas; he will not be run off. The ongoing coup has failed and we need to pray for our Secret Service to be competent in its protection of our president from these forces of raw evil.
Excellent analysis as always, professor. A minor quibble, though: the unprecedented backlash runs a wider gambit than the usual progressive suspects. The fraud Trump upended knew no partisan bounds.
Outstanding comment! Easily worthy of a thousand upvotes!
Thanks!
Wow….EXTREMELY well stated Jack Dobson!!
The difference between the left’s hatred of George Bush and its hatred and fear of Donald Trump is that the left knows that while George Bush talked the game, Donald Trump is committed not only to playing the game, but winning the game.
The left is already seeing that Trump intends to keep his promises on immigration, reducing the bureaucracy, creating jobs, appointing constitutionalists as judges, de-funding abortion, etc.
That’s no difference!
Bush kept his promises to lower taxes for the wealthy while sending poor people to war, and to lower regulation on big banks and business so that they could crash the economy like a casino going out of business.
What promise did bush not keep?
Democrats are angry because trump is promising to double down on bush’s mistakes…specifically trying to undo the cleanup of the economy that obama was forced to do.
Why wouldn’t we be upset that the same bankrupt ideas are being heralded again?
With zero lessons learned?
DIPSTICK, Bush lowered taxes for EVERYONE. Who benefitted the most? The poor (who actually pay no income tax at all). What “regulation on big banks and business” did Bush lower?
You’re another ignorant Democrat who hasn’t a clue.
Speaking of bankrupt ideas, you Democrats take the cake. GTFO.
Hahahahaha.
The majority of bush’s tax breaks went to the one percent. The walmart heirs and Hollywood stars had their tax rate fall from 39.6 to 35 percent. This was a huge windfall for them.
The poor had a token tax break.
You’re so busy telling me I don’t have a clue you don’t notice all that you do not know.
Note: the CBO estimated in June 2012 that the Bush tax cuts (EGTRRA and JGTRRA) added about $1.6 trillion to the debt between 2001 and 2011, excluding interest.
stoopid turd
the CBO?! the CBO has ZERO credibility
they are so clueless they forecast obamacare would lower mthe deficit!!!
how stoopid can you be?
Really? So who has more credibility than the CBO?
Your butt?
Bullbagels. Source it.
If I source it, you will call it fake news. I’ve been down this rabbit trail.
So I will source it three ways.
1. Take a calculator and figure out the tax savings of someone earning five million per year. EARNING. Not their net worth. From 39.6 percent tax rate to 35 percent tax rate.
What number do you see?
2. Mitt Romney’s taxes were released in 2012. He paid a lower income tax than many middle class earners. Why was this? The legacy of a lower tax rate for investment income than work income. Do you think that’s fair?
Here is Wikipedia as a source.
“As of 2017, a major legacy of President Bush’s economic policy were his tax cuts, which were extended indefinitely by President Obama for roughly the bottom 99% of taxpayers, or about 80% of the value of the tax cuts.”
Use your calculator. 20 percent of bush’s tax cuts went to the 1 percent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_George_W._Bush_administration
3. Washington post using CBO numbers:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/02/the-legacy-of-the-bush-tax-cuts-in-four-charts/?utm_term=.3ebd4df75d14
If you want to refute all of these numbers and sources, bring me a source that I can trust that proves me wrong.
And no, Breitbart is not a trustworthy source.
Thanks.
Meaningless, especially seeing as the bottom bracket doesn’t really pay tax. You don’t seem to understand how people pay taxes, or why. Romney’s lower tax rate (and the Oracle of Omaha as well) was largely due to their NOT EARNING much and paying a lower tax rate on dividends. If you don’t like it, feel free to pay more.
The top one percent pays 46% OF ALL income taxes, according to the IRS in 2014 (last year available). So, if 20% of tax cuts went to people who pay 46% of all taxes, they’re getting ripped off and the leeches who pay nothing got a huge break.
Feel free to take courses in macro and microeconomics. They’re available at nearly all junior colleges and most of those are open admission.
Wow. Sources?
I’m guessing you’re one of those leaches. Living in a trailer and arguing for twenty percent of tax cuts should go to the top one percent. And that someone earning five million per year in investment income should have a lower tax rate than someone taking home a paycheck.
Pathetic little jealous leftist. Don’t blame me for your failures in life. Hahahahahahahahaha
Psssst, there’s someone over there waiting for their coffee. Back to work, snowflake.
So, “oops” on your part.
Says the blithering idiot who voted for the lying machine…..Hillary Clinton.
Right on the money, as usual, VDH!
Their ‘Climate of Fear’ is caused by their knowing that the conservative republicans have finally gained some wisdom and know fully well that everything the Marxist Communist democrats and RINO’s are doing is leading America down the road to the UN’s One World Government of Super Marxist Communism and Super capitalism where everyone is controlled by Big Marxist Communist Government.
“The last eight years were deviant and not characteristic it the American experiment”. You will never get progressives to admit that. It’s why they lost.
Well, maybe we should give Obozo some credit. Due to him….
The Dims have suffered monster sized losses at all levels of government since Obozo was inaugurated in 2009 including…..
1. 69 House Seats
2. 13 Senate Seats
3. 901 State Legislative Seats
4. 30 State Legislative Chambers
5. 12 Governorships.
Lost them all to Republicans.
Now add Trump.
Then add 0 for 5 for the Marxist pigs after Trump beat lying, thieving Hillary.
I agreed with normalizing relations with Cuba. Otherwise, total fail, especially the bitter klinger comment and the 2009 Magical Apology Tour
The RNC-approved Republicrats, like the lowlifes at National Review and Weakly Standard, are little or no better. A plague upon them all.
Hehe. The real plague is consuming you Lefties.
“lefties”??? Are you kidding? I thought Reagan was too liberal and too pro-union. Where do you get this “you Lefties” scheiss??
Seriously, the “Conservatism Inc.” types, like the RNC schmucks, the George Will, Rich Lowry, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, Kevin Williamson, Charles Krauthammer, the Bushies and the gang of thieves around them, all the “Rockefeller Republicans”, ……. well, you get the picture, are as bad as the screamers of the DNC, the “antifa” creeps, the Bernie-bots, the bunch of them. (Quite a lot of them, aren’t there?) Worse in some respects, as the enemy sticking a knife in your back is worse than the one waving a spear in front of you.
ALL of them are TWANLOC.
The GOP has my permission to crawl off somewhere and die, the corpse has been a smelly mess since Coolidge left office.
Not sure how you manage to conclude that someone who thought Ronald Reagan to be too liberal and too pro-union qualifies as a “lefty”. But believe what you wish.
What made Trump counter punch at disabled Americans?
And is it extreme that he wants to radically chop their Medicaid which they depend on to live independently?
Which women hurt trump so badly he has to refer to their menstrual blood? Or grab them by the P**sy?
Abusers always claim they were provoked.
Bullies feel entitled to bully. And the Republican Party is set up to cheer this bullying entitlement as just and fair.
So he’s a bully. He’s not a criminal.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIM, RUN A BETTER CANDIDATE NEXT TIME (like my guy, Ted Cruz).
A criminal is someone who breaks the law.
Trump is therefore, potentially, a criminal.
What did he do to BREAK THE LAW? Oh yeah, NOTHING.
Get over it. YOU LOST. As I said, next time run a better candidate.
Perhaps Trump should, in Sun Tzu like fashion, deliver a speech to our allies and citizens to the effect that he does not enjoy the support of our citizenry and so is unable to provide any military support. Our allies would go apesquat as would a good share of our citizenry, though for different reasons. America could become truly isolationist but with the capability of destroying any nation on earth at will for any or no reason. This notion certainly raises possibilities.
I will confess to being no fan of W Bush. Everything was fine until they started beating the drums for the Iraq invasion. I knew we were being misled if not lied to, and I knew that the chances of catastrophe were huge. I knew very few people who felt the way I did at that time. Once the Iraq effort went totally downhill, half the country turned on him.
I felt I had good reason for my anger at W Bush. But the people today on the left with their blind hatred toward Trump have absolutely no good reason for that hatred. Trump hasn’t really done anything. They simply hate everything about him on a personal level. I think that so much of that is due to how the left media is portraying him. They are creating a fictional Trump monster in their editing suites with their AVID systems or whatever it is they use now. They take little slices of reality and then put them together to tell a story that has so much to do with political agenda and so little to do with truth.
It is worrying and I appreciate Trump’s efforts to confront it.
This post is hilarious. Seriously. Comparing trump’s utter vulgarity and criminal activity to obama in any way is desperate. Trump is not a conservative; that’s laughable. Curious to hear more details on what he has accomplished so far. Anyone?
DJT never performed deviant sexual acts in a bathhouse for money.
What criminal activity? Source it.
Mind you, I’m not even a Trump fan.
So far he’s managed to reduce the number of illegal aliens, sent ICE after more of them, gotten Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. That’s a start that even conservatives like.
Tillerson at State; Mattis at Defense; Gorsuch on the Supreme Court; US out of TPP; US out of Paris Accords, which, BTW you can still support as an individual or even on a statewide basis; unprecedented rollback of odious regulations. Shall I continue?
I am fortunate to not have personally experienced any of this lunatic outrage at Trump’s Presidency.
I do look forward though to it happening anyway so that the first arsehole with a bike lock that comes my way will end up with said bike lock lodged in his posterior.
Oh For God’s sake, Mr Hanson, your arguments are pure rationalization and make no sense at all. And I have news for you, it isn’t just “progressives” who want Trump removed, it is decent moral people of all political persuasions, including, in fact, especially, actual conservatives.
It is a shame to see a man as educated and brilliant as you fall to the spell of this terrible terrible man. Any questions about what happened in Germany, Russia and Venezuela?
DJT never performed deviant sexual acts in a bathhouse for money.
” Any questions about what happened in Germany, Russia and Venezuela?” No question. The Democrat’s fellow travelers in those countries got the effective one-party state that the Democrats thought they were getting with a hand-off to Hillary. It destroyed those countries, some faster than others. This is what President Trump and his supporters are fighting to prevent.
What’s amazing is the irony of you picking 3 socialist failures as some kind of warning about Trump.
It’s ironic all right I am well aware that Venezuela is a left wing socialist dictatorship. Pointing that out is hardly an excuse for the right wing facism of Donald Trump. Look to Russia for what I am talking about. Of course, you LOVE Russia, so it’s not a problem for you
Haha……exactly!
I consider myself a decent, moral person. I can’t figure out what Trump has done to get him removed from office. I get that you don’t like him, but that is not grounds for impeachment. Suck it up and support a better candidate next time.
Hanson is right on the money. It’s you who need a different perspective.
Please link to your comments regarding BJ Clinton using an intern’s lady parts to ‘flavor’ his cigar while having her service him with a blow job in the Oval Office.
.
Otherwise you’re a scummy, colossal hypocrite siding with a battering rapist and the wife who tried to destroy his victims over a guy who said some crude things.
JustData…So as long as you can point to someone that has done wrong, djt is not accountable for his behavior?
The OP used hypobolic terms about a guy who SAID crude and derogatory things.
I’m asking for documentation of the OP’s outrage over BJ Clinton raping and battering Juanita Broaddrick, pressuring an intern (workplace sexual harassment) to service him with a blow job in the Oval Office and also using the intern’s lady parts to ‘flavor’ his cigar still in the Oval Office.
.
Surely such moral fury over some crude and/or derogatory comments (spoken words, after all) would necessitate massive, colossal, near galactic outrage over BJ’s pattern and practice of actual violent and criminal ACTIONS, especially as BJ’s wife helped him smear and demean his victims.
.
I’m just asking to see the OP’s nonpartisan moral outrage as applied to actions totally worthy of that outrage. Morals apply to both parties, so if the outrage and fury are moral then show me the rants against Dems who did tons worse. If raping, battering, sexually harassing in the workplace, and emotionally abusing the victims to this day didn’t ignite your outrage, then spare me the whining about crude language now.
In this country, you can scream rape, battery, sexual assault or anything else but without criminal conviction IT DOES NOT MATTER. Pres. Clinton has denied it all and criminal charges were not levied or proven, so the documentation you are looking for is moot. What we think and feel are not admissible in court not matter how vile we believe the defendant to be. Also, the behavior of someone 20 years ago can not be used to rationalize the current day behavior of another. djt is a 70 year old man and the pres of the US, so I have no problem expecting him to do better.
None of that provides any evidence of the OP’s moral outrage at BJ Clinton for old BJ using the lady parts of a young intern to flavor his cigars after he’d sexually harassed her into servicing him with a blow job in the Oval Office. We have the DNA splattered all over her blue dress and Clinton surrendered his law license when he confessed to lying under oath.
Where is the OP’s moral outrage over that or over BJ Clinton’s admissions regarding Paula Jones that he paid so much money to hide when he settled that lawsuit?
Either that OP wrote plenty harshly in expressing colossal moral outrage or the OP is the wrong end of a horse.
What’s wrong with your reading comprehension? Are you retarded?
Looking back, I think Trump was actually the only Republican who could have beaten Rodham-Clinton. All of the others would have accepted their demonization and whatever October Surprise awaited them, and would have been beaten. Trump wasn’t my first choice but I am more glad every day that I voted for him. Actions speak louder than words.
I still think Ted would have mauled her good.
The MSMDNC would have owned Ted. Important because they are the people who got Obama elected twice.
That’s the problem. I agree with Bruiser in Houston that Ted would have mauled Hillary – but this was a tag-team match, Hillary and the MSM against the Republican nominee, and Ted doesn’t win that fight (bshirt’s “Lying Ted” would be the gentlest of the memes the MSM would try to plant).
Several of the Republicans running could likely have beaten Hillary one-on-one, but Trump was likely the only one who could take on both and win.
Lying Ted? I highly doubt it…….
Trump was the only Republican who could have beaten HRC? That is complete nonsense. But I guess in accordance with the “big lie” theory, if you Trump trolls repeat it often enough then some people will start to believe it.
FantasyLand only exists in Disneyland. In the real world, Dave, you play the hand as dealt. Trump beat 16 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Big lie has nothing to do with it. Basically creifather in right.
Ha, ha, ha, … enough Trump trolls to elect Trump!
Suck it up buttercup.
I see that you think we are all “deplorable”
Dave, at this point the people who have 100% supported djt are too deep in to turn around. No matter what he does they will support it and scream “Well what about Obama or Clinton something or other?!?!” djt is the great white hope and we should be thankful that he in is divine grace decided to bless us with his unmatched leadership.
Classic projection.
“No matter what (s)he does they will support it and scream ”
Duality.
I suppose your elevator only goes up.
And Trump beats the queen of the pathetic Dims…….lying, thieving Hillary loses (again)!
Hmm. Troll is one of the nicer things I’ve been called. Wish you Lefties could post something without immediately resorting to Ad Hominem attacks, but I guess it’s in your DNA. Anyway, to your point: Trump didn’t (and doesn’t) fit the normal Republican mold. Keep in mind that until a few years ago Trump was a Democrat and he is very familiar with bashing tactics – and he doesn’t hesitate to use them. Trump, unlike Jeb, Ted, Marco, and the others, is a street fighter pure and simple. It’s why he hasn’t gone down yet. Doesn’t mean that he won’t go down in the future, but the others wouldn’t have gotten nearly this far.
Trump did us all an enormous favor in Warsaw: He drew out the Left’s true (and very ugly) colors: anti-American, anti-Judaeo-Christian, anti-West. The barbarians are not simply at the gates; they are inside trying to run the show.
If the Islamists ever have the means, the “progressives” shall be first in line to “feel the blade”.
It seems so stupid that the “progressives” don’t understand that if and when the Islamists infiltrate government, their Utopian vision will crumble. They fear and hate their own countrymen more than the stranger.
They’ll be shocked when the Muslims start beheading Dims.
No, unfortunately they won’t. Look at Sweden.
Girls who were sexually assaulted blamed themselves. Didn’t want to be a ‘racist’.
Leftists will blame the ‘bigots’ on the Right for inflaming the Muslims to behead Leftists.
About the author: whatever reputation he ever had is in cinders. That’s what happens to people who’re still pimping for Trump.
Says the snowflake who voted for lying, thieving Hillary.
Is that really the best you can do, you pathetic low-class dunce? Because don’t look now, but you did not refute one single thing I said. Not that you could, but you’re too witless to even try.
Great VDH article as usual. Love the line “Trump in Samson fashion is quite willing to pull the temple down on top of himself, if it means his enemies perish first.”
Victor, tax cuts are different than tax credits. Tax cuts allow the citizens to keep more of their earned income. Tax credits cause redistribution of wealth.
And why is it that we who criticize Trump’s renegotiation of trade deals cannot argue that such proposals were aimed at elite interests?
It is time to try free-market alternatives rather than more of the same.
Hegel described the dialectic of opposites posed against one another as a productive process that leads to the actualized person and state.
Rediscovering Americanism and the Tyranny of Progressivism
by Mark R. Levin
page 100
he ran a racist campaign
he is an anti-union casino mob boss
he is against any and all forms of civility
his baloney about being a “christian” was far too convenient to cover for his appeal to the reactionary right
and those are only the surface items
and, he colluded with Russia
In your post, change the word “mob” to “Chicago” and the word “right” to “left” and you have perfectly described President Barrack Obama. Lowering the bar has consequences.
Overtaken by events, it appears.
Yes, the Democrat party is. And yet since 2010 it should have been obvious that they were being relegated to irrelevancy.
Agree that the progressives were just as vile to Bush, with one exception. Bush was pretty much a creature of the establishment, whereas Trump most definitely is not. The establishment acquiesced to all the crap the progressives did to Bush because they were (and are) Democrats. They never really piled on, they just cheered on the progs from the sidelines.
However, because Trump is an outsider they are afraid for their power and position. (Dems, GOP, everybody agreed Comey should have been fired, but to actually DO it- terrible!) In fear of losing their power and position, the establishment has actively joined “the #resistance” against Trump.
Coward is word to describe those who can’t or won’t.
Trump represents accountability and that’s a big problem for all creatures that participate in the swamp that is D.C.
Would be nice if he were held accountable for keeping his own promises – on health care, for instance.
His track record has been to do just that. To deny that is willful blindness. Congress has an important role in this and it it one that Trump has and should allow to occur. Fortunately for Trump, Ocare will collapse under its own weight so repeal, one way or another, will eventualy happen. Therefore promise kept.
It’s nice enough not having lying, thieving Hillary as president.
Gee, could you at least give him a year? After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day and some things take time.
Unfortunately, there is no “magic pen” for which to keep that promise. He needs his party behind him and that, it seems, is long overdue. He is trying but it’s like herding cats, many with fangs and claws.
Trumps strange concept that Government should work for the citizens that elected them is something that very few Politicians in either party have done or will agree with.
For too many years the hard working, law abiding, citizens that paid the taxes, that fought the wars and built this Nation have been nothing but objects to make fun and scorn by the elites and their bought politicians, while robbing them and giving their hard dollars to citizens of other nations!
The politicians thought citizens should be content with their food stamps and welfare while the politicians and elites outsourced their jobs and where that was not possible importing millions of uneducated welfare loving aliens to take the remaining jobs and make the citizens provide free medical, schooling and welfare for the invaders.
Yes, Black_Saint, exactly right. That’s worthy of a million upvotes and should be tattooed on every Dem pol’s forehead!
Absolutely 100% correct!
Prosperity happens when property rights are respected. The whole struggle of social forces is between those who produce goods and services and those who don’t produce but want to monopolize the consumption of what others produce. In the short run these consumption thieves may get the upper hand, and even ruin a country for generations, as in North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. But in the long term the little people, the people who produce the wealth, will win. “Oft evil will shall evil mar.” — King Théoden in Lord of the Rings.
WE are the movement, Trump is just the vehicle. We may need to primary out a bunch of rinos next year to get the GOP moving more quickly.
Trump IS a RINO. How can he be a vehicle for your movement, whatever it is?
Says the pathetic, losing snowflake.
More important to get rid of as many elected Democrats/Progressives as possible … and then and only then worry about purity of thought in the GOP … it is much better to have an elected RINO than an elected Democrat/Progressive – each RINO managed to prevent a Democrat/Progressive from succeeding in Congress …
Of course without Trump the media ogre there would be no Trump the president; the extremist #fakeNews media would make sure of that; and then there would be no policies that “seem traditionally conservative, logical, popular, [representing] a return to normality”.
As usual, Dr. Hanson nails it. Republicans and conservatives are going to be called racist, sexists, homphobic, nazis, etc. etc. because IT WORKS.
Even now you have a bunch of National Review types and never-trumpers buying into that crap. Shame on them.
The most concerning aspect of this entire debate is the extraordinary effort djt supporters put into normalizing djt’s words and actions. The plain simple truth is that THIS IS NOT NORMAL. I am not talking about politics. Most politicians truly need a wake up call. I am talking about respect, humility, honesty, intellect, decency, etc. The things you learn in Kindergarten and Sunday School. djt is not a counter puncher he is a bully and he endeavors to impose his will on anyone that he can not control. Pres. Obama and the Clintons are not perfect and I wouldn’t dare defend them 100% but they are not the spawn of satan. Hold djt to the same standard they were held. I say “were” because djt is now in office, so good or bad he has to own what comes out of Washington. Unfortunately from where I sit, it appears he and the GOP majority have yet to do anything of substance. Despite all of the GOP saber rattling, during the Obama admin, and djt’s campaign rhetoric, actually legislating (even with a congressional majority) is proving to be a much harder task then advertised. Americans need to keep their eyes on the ball, with the GOP in desperation mode we need to be ever more diligent to make sure that we hold them accountable. They go from one manufactured crisis to the next, all the while getting absolutely nothing done.
Your post is flat out delusional. There was nearly no pushback by the media on Obama siccing the IRS on Tea Partiers. Lying to the American people about Benghazi was no big deal. Pulling out of Iraq in 2011 to claim victory and to fulfill a campaign promise, against military advice, only led to the formation of ISIS, and to cause all who died there to die in vain. The media didn’t seem at all curious as to what Obama meant when he told Vlad to be patient and he’d have more flexibility after the election.
“Obama siccing the IRS on Tea Partiers.”
References or it did not happen. Stop with the sensationalizing. Obama did not orchestrate that.
“Pulling out of Iraq in 2011 to claim victory…”
Bush claimed victory in Iraq before Obama got in office.
Lastly, you obviously did not read my entire comment. I was not defending Pres. Obama or the Clintons. My comment was purely about djt. I know you want to point the finger at everyone except djt but that is (as you said) delusional.
The IRS thing happened on Obama’s watch. Result: Lerner got a golden parachute. Whether Obama picked up the phone one day and called Lerner personally and told her what to do, the fact that he did not see justice done was an impeachable offence, IMHO.
I know it happened but the comment was that Pres. Obama initiated the IRS to do what they did. No evidence, during the numerous hearings regarding the matter, showed Pres. Obama to initiate the IRS’s activities to target tea party groups. Let some people tell it the World was in complete harmony and everyone lived to 800 years old until Pres Obama got in office. Sheesh!!!
What a pathetic post filled with nothing but total horse-sh!t.
Wow… Victor… you are dropping like a rock in the respect of your peers.
You write:
“What is weird is not Trump the ex-reality TV star and tabloid sensation, but his critics who cannot separate the man from message—much less concede that just possibly Trump might succeed because, not despite, who he is.”
Clearly… YOU accept that the ends… justify the means.
I am ashamed of you. Principled Conservatives realize that sustained, ingrained, REAL Conservatism that becomes the culture of the land… will only be achieved by people of principle that mean what they say… and say what they mean. How many of trump’s promises has he walked away from? How will America ever set a high level of expectations for public officials… given that men like you fully accept a sleaze ball like trump? Indeed, acceptance of trump provides the means for required acceptance of sleazeballs like obama – there is no reason to not call obama a ‘good’ president… if good people like YOU claim that a ‘trump’ is a good president.
Shameful.
HB
Congratulations, you summed that up very nicely! The willingness of trump supporters to accept all of djt’s detestable behavior and at the same time demonize Obama for just being alive strikes me as the most ironic and scary aspect of our political discourse. Reading the other comments it seems that the two of us are in the minority but I’m glad to see I am not alone.
Broad brush strokes make for sloppy painting.
Most True Americans always stand for what is right – no matter what the ‘crowd’ says.
HB
Still peeing your pants over Trump. Nary a kind word ever leaves your lips. So much hatred, so much frustration. Well, you were in the tank for Hillary and now that your gal lost you just cannot let it go.
And your greatest hero……lying, thieving Hillary lost (again).
What passes for a liberal these days is a simple-minded fool repeating communal propaganda with all the reasoning skills of a turnip. Their is no common ground with irrational mental cases. The ‘education’ system has indoctrinated and retarded half the population under 30, i.e, liberal Democrats.
Excellent article lays it all out. As was written by someone else last week or so, the Left’s nightmare is NOT the Trump Presidency. It IS a successful Trump Presidency and the great thing about it is that they are doing their best to make sure he gets eight years to establish his Presidency as a most successful one. They have no message, no bench to look to and are lost.
I agree that the Dems have utterly failed to establish an adequate bench but djt is his own worst enemy. The only success djt and his admin have had thus far is to make their respective jobs unnecessarily harder.
Used to enjoy your ideas Professor Hanson. What has Trump done to earn your loyalty? He is an incompetent. Majorities in both houses, Republican governors in most states, control of most state legislatures, Supreme Court majority, etc., and nothing to show for it except SC justice and a few rules changed. Why are you defending this disgraceful clown?
Seems to be a virus which spread very quickly among denizens of Claremont and Hoover. But it has its vectors in the eastern thinktankery as well, F H Buckley being a notable casualty. There is hope for a vaccine, but so far nothing effective, so the disease may simply have to run its course.
Trump is incompetent and lying Hillary will win in a landslide!
Burning Man 2017 takes place August 27 – September 4, 2017. You know who they will burn this year.
Just a suggestion, Dr. Hanson. Please don’t call the evil left “progressives.” There’s nothing progressive about them. And don’t call them “liberal,” either. They’re as illiberal as it’s possible to be. And now even the Democrats don’t want to call them “Democrats,” because their ideology and behavior is so hateful. So just call them what they are–the left, or the far-left. That’s all. They’ve alienated themselves, and rightfully so, from everyone, and they’ve justly earned their ostracism from every formerly acceptable left-of-center name, except one–“the left.” Please just call them the left, left-wingers, or some variation of that. They don’t deserve to be called progressive or liberal.
What you said is all true, but the most applicable name for them is Democrats. Well, except for Joe Manchin and Jim Webb. All others are communists, fascists or the painfully ignorant.
Agree that Jim Webb is the exception.
How about “Neo-Puritans”? They base their ideology (Marxism) on faith with no proof and they have zero tolerance for those who may disagree with their worldview, and they love Scarlet Letters (only today we call it social media shaming).
I should have stopped reading at the citation of Bush’s approval rating at the end of his term. It wasn’t low because of anecdotal name-calling; it was because of a financial market in freefall and an economy which destroyed 2 million jobs in 2008.
I absolutely REVEL in the Left’s discomfort. Keep on crying, snowflakes, your incessant sniveling is music to my ears!
George W Bush HIMSELF is a NeverTrumper. That is why I think it ironic that VDH compares left wing excesses in their criticism of George Bush with criticism of Trump.
I have often said and wrote, what good did it do for W to take the high road. God, how I liked and respected the man. But even though I didn’t always agree with his policies, I was just so frustrated by W ignoring the attacks on him. McCain and Romney acted the same way.
Then along came Trump. Not my favorite during the nomination process, and yes his tweets are over the top sometimes, but he is a fighter; finally we have one after decades of the GOP bowing to the progressives.
After winning the first debate, Romney allowed the Democrats to use him as a punching bag for a month without responding, drove me absolutely crazy. At one point I actually thought he was trying to throw the election.
He probably was trying to throw the election. Look at how he treated our winner!
Good point sir!
Pres. Obama was berated and insulted for 8 years. Some even had the gall to insult his wife and daughters. Yet, he remained supremely dignified. Much more than I think the majority of his critics (including djt) deserved.
BHO was, and is, an arrogant jerk–worst ever replacing Jimmy Carter.
I bet you sleep with a life-size pillow of djt, sean hannity or alex jones.
Actually sleeping much better now with the Obamas removed from the WH.
I bet you sleep with a life-size pillow of lying, losing Hillary.
That was weak. Put in the effort to create your own comment not recycle someone else’s work. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Anyone willing to buy into what djt is selling must be cognitively challenged, so in the spirit of the special olympics I’ll applaud your attempt. Good Job!!
Obama is the most racist politician in US history.
Yeah, I am pretty sure the voices in your head are telling you that but that is what happens when you go off your meds.
Obozo was the worst president EVER.
It is soooooo refreshing!!
You lump millions of hard working Americans into left and right. The is no melt down because conservatives are a minority of the country. Trump received votes from only 31% of registered voters. Your believed illusions of grandeur will collapse with the implosion of Trumps reign. The eight year lie that the ACA was a job killer, the only solution is to repeal it. The public has come to realize it might not be that bad after all. You rallied against Obama and won loads of elections. But like in Kansas their policies fizzled. Federal voter suppression is your last chance, if it fails, I predict a Bigly backlash.
Exactly. Regardless of the Professor Hansin’s long-winded explanations, Obamacare is considerably more popular than the GOP’s proposed replacement right now. That’s not “elites” talking, Professor Hanson, that’s ordinary voters – including more than a few from the right.
Keep dreaming snowflake…..oh, and don’t forget…….keep losing too, ok?
This author lacks a grip on reality.
The author of your comment?
President Trump has been playing chess while the morons on the Left play checkers. I love the fact that he stands up to these creeps. They are too stupid and arrogant to realize they are yesterdays news.
His total vocabulary is about 200 words, not what he reads, but, off hand on the fly. He’s playing alt-chess.
Checkers?!? You spelled peek-a-boo wrong. Checkers is Waaaaay beyond their capacity.
America no longer exists as a country. It’s a low intensity race/civil war well on its way to becoming a high intensity killing field. We no longer have enough social cohesion and trust to sustain a functional society. Social cohesion and trust are the foundation of a society. We no longer have a foundation.
A severe economic downturn could, I believe, trigger a severe social breakdown. We are presently sailing along on momentum from the past. When that momentum is interrupted our lack of a foundation will become glaringly obvious.
Probably then we’ll experience increasingly severe social breakdown, race rioting and the formation of militia groups like they have in Iraq. God only knows where we’ll go from there.
I say this with all sincerity and concern as a fellow human. You may need to seek a counselor. That bleak of an outlook can not be healthy.
You could be right, of course. That’s the ending that many Americans a retrying to forestall with with their support of a different agenda, an agenda represented by Trump.
An agenda exemplified by the current GOP healthcare proposal, which less than 20% of the general public supports.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s going to work. Victor is looking for very complex reasons when actual answers to his question are quite simple and obvious. A majority of people on the left – not “elites”, but rather the ordinary but left-leaning half of the American electorate – don’t like what the right is peddling right now in terms of policies. Frankly, a lot of people on the right don’t seem to like those policies either, but folks like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell seem more than a bit obtuse.
Hard to say what the public disapproves of, if that poll number is correct, since we have no idea what the final bill will look like. Since the Obama admin left us with no other option than full-on single-payer socialized medicine, whatever the GOP bill looks like will be a better idea.
The left is hardly 50% of the country… otherwise Bernie Sanders would have been able to overcome Hillary’s dirty tricks. And frankly, why should the majority of center-right Americans care what the left thinks? When we questioned Obama’s policies, we were vilified as racists and troglodytes.
It’s become apparent to many that the left-right trappings are just window dressing for a uni-party perma-gov, one in which Ryan and McConnell are very happy to co-exist with other swamp creatures like Schumer and Pelosi. That is the reason Trump got elected. And despite what you may think, he’s actually getting things done.
No one gives a ufck what parasitic trash like you (and every other member of your filthy tribe) ‘think’.
Ucfk off and d!e, you twisted POS.
Comrade, we will not succumb to the Russian Mafia. In this country we can drive around and see your out look is hateful. Do they know in Russia ” The Golden Rule” those taught to all Christians and other religions. A call to violence is terrorism and stupid.
I like how the author asks “is Trump for the rich?” then doesn’t answer the question, instead saying he talks a good talk to the white working class, while entirely ignoring Trump’s actual policies. Evidently hoping no one is going to catch on to the big bait-and-switch he just pulled off there.
I think that an awful lot of people across the spectrum hate Donald Trump for mocking the disabled, dissing American POWs because they got caught, grabbing women he doesn’t know by their genitals beaches he thinks being rich and famous allows him that right, advocating killing not just our enemies but their entire families (until numerous Generals let him know the would never obey such an order because it’s a War Crime), and telling lies so fast one looses count (2 out of 3 people don’t trust their President to tell the Truth!).
As anyone with friends in DC know even the Republicans overwhelmingly find him disgusting, still many see him as important to getting some of their agenda done. I support tax reform, immigration reform and enforcement, pro-business oriented federal agencies- but none of that mitigates the fact that Trump is a revolting excuse for a human being, and except for his core 30% supporters pretty much everyone else in the world agrees with me (OK Poland and other nationalist/fascist aspiring states/parties like him, and of course PUTIN loves him).
Sums up my feelings about both sides perfectly. President Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a long time if he can get his agenda implemented and if congress stays in session long enough to pass some legislation!
I admire VDH very much, and read everything he writes, but I don’t think he really answered the question he poses in the title of this piece, which is why Trump incurred such intense animosity from the left.
He hints at it by accurately noting that Bush and Trump received similar treatment, which suggests it really isn’t all about Mr. Trump. I think the left’s real problem is that they hate the country, at least all of those parts of the country that vote against them. They see anyone outside of the elites of the urban/coastal enclaves, as well as the university/media elites, as being too ignorant to govern. Hillary called these outsiders “deplorable” and “irredeemable.” From this, they conclude that they are entitled to govern, and feel deeply resentful when the voters disagree with them, and elect someone who opposes them.
The Democrat mindset really is profoundly totalitarian, little different from the opinion of kings and tyrants that governing is their entitlement. They do not believe in the democratic give and take, the idea of compromise, which lies at the very center of democratic institutions. That is why we see them unwilling to work with Republicans on anything, to offer a single vote to reform Obamacare (or pass it originally), even though they know it’s collapsing.
Those who believe in democracy can accept periodic electoral losses, but totalitarians cannot. Republicans performed an in-depth analysis of their loss in the 2012 election, what they sometimes called their “autopsy.” The term is instructive, because it refers to a death. Republicans felt that, but got through the grieving process very quickly, moving to the fifth stage, “acceptance.” Incidentally, “acceptance” doesn’t mean agreement, just that you are adult enough to fully acknowledge that something happened. They moved on from there, and won in 2016.
The Democrats also saw their loss as a death, but have never moved away from the initial stages of the grieving process, “denial,” “anger,” “bargaining,” and “depression.” Until they do, and perform an honest analysis of why they lost, they will continue to lose.
That’s fine with me. Let the mindless, POS Dims keep losing……and losing……..and losing.
I think it’s mostly because he ruined the Shrillary Coronation that they had pinned their hopes on to continue the Obozo transformation.
Exactly.
I think the left’s problem is perhaps encapsulated in a statement a young liberal man made to me on the two parties. “Republicans want to win, Democrats want to make the world better.” Figuring out how to win in order to “make the world better” and making the painful changes necessary is hard work. Until Democrats perform the election autopsy and put on their big-party pants they’ll keep losing.
Great article as usual VDH! A couple of other things to add – The Left calls Trump a homophobe, even though he had openly gay folks speak and flew the LGBTQ flag at the RNC. The call him anti-Semitic, even though his son in law is an Orthodox Jew and his grand children are being raise in the Jewish tradition. They call him racist, even though he seeks to address inner city blight, and has many people of color in his administration. They call him sexist, even though he has many women is positions of power in his administration and campaign. This meltdown is sheer lunacy and you are so right for pointing it out.
An Email from nobody knows from who and that nobody can produce and read or publish. This is the big breakthrough. There are many Americans who have had it with the “Russians are coming” false accusations. That movie of 30 years ago had a great sense of humor and honesty of naivety and innocence of the average US citizen.
On a list of 100 concerns that American deserve attention to the “Russians coming” is number100. Democrats progressive claque are so out of touch with people outside of Washington DC that they might as well be on another planet. And I know a lot of sold US citizens who have had enough of this foolishness. Pretty soon they will go after Trumps wife, his daughters, and his young boy. At what point does Democrats turn it off and help this President do his job for all of us.
Average Democrat voters should get on board or get left behind. Their choice.
Who’s getting left behind on healthcare? The ACA is now more popular than your side’s proposed replacement, by a very wide margin.
The Obama presidency was nothing more than a hardcore leftist Negro minstrel show-well choreographed, well scripted and entertaining. But he will be remembered as the president who pushed his party to extremes on issues like marriage, transgender toilets, the undermining of religious freedom, the appointment of two of the most hardcore leftist judges ever appointed to the bench-the walking condominium Kagan and that dumb Hispanic Sotomayor who got her legal education by talking to Julio down by the schoolyard. The party is deeply hostile to the values of middle America, contemptuous of gun ownership, the traditional nuclear family, religious freedom, school choice, enforcement of voter ID and immigration laws and much else that is supported by most Americans. The party has become nothing more than a congeries of minorities and special interest groups that wallow in a perpetual state of grievance, entitlement, victimization, self pity and moral outrage. Their supporters-ignorant Negroes, self hating anti-American HARDCORE leftist Jews, homosexuals, feminists, corrupt public employee unions do not represent the views and values of most Americans; nor do it’s moronic supporters in Hollywood and the academy. The party is retrograde and intellectually and morally bankrupt. They can go to hell and take their ignorant constituencies with them.
You are no better than the former president who played the race card just like you.
If you were smart, if, which you are not, you would allow history to write the failures of the former president in stone tablets.
Instead, just like the morons McConnell and Limball you gift the former president an out by making a huge racist target of yourself.
Dumb.
And the worthless Dims just keep losing……gee, they’re so smart!!
Lol!!
The media act like the bullies they truly are: strike back and they cower and cry.
I work with many Vietnamese, Hispanics and Assyrians in Chicago. Is this a diverse workforce?
I don’t feel it is because I don’t feel they’re any different. These are not the children of immigrants either. Most grew up in places like Iraq under Saddam, Vietnam ( before and after it fell to the communists ) and Mexico. One Mexican friend told me that in his state in Mexico ( Guerrero) there are 20 drug cartels. It’s very poor and pretty much lawless.
Do I then feel my workplace is multicultural? I don’t because I know them quite well and I’ve never had a sense that they’re culturally different. If they were I’d sure know it by now.
If a place like this isn’t really diverse or multicultural then what exactly do these terms really mean? Actually they’re just terms invented by the left to justify group rights for their preferred groups.
I think the left is simply awful. I believe we’ll all pay dearly for their lies and their insanity. Time will tell what fate has in store for us.
Every time the progressives launch another diatribe against President Trump they actually cement another layer of probability to his re-election.
And even without the assists from leftist vermin President Trump actually controls his own fate, if he can (as he assures us he can) get his agenda passed I believe tax reform, health care reform, trade reform and immigration reform will give him an economy better than any of the last eight years.
Imagine the re-election commercials as video of obama and his anti-American leftist ilk assure the country that 3% growth is now and forever an impossibility (I guess they figure if obama cannot, no one can) followed by reports of the new post-obama economy growing at or above 3%.
And all it took was a crass and brave President who refuses to follow the boosh-mccain-romney example of laying down and stretching out their necks for the democratic socialists running the guillotine.
Hail Trump, Hail Pence, Hail Ryan, Hail McConnell!!! Give’m Hail
I do not trust or value McConnell or Ryan one iota, they do what they do ONLY because of President Trump. If not for President Trump they would be cowering under the leftist vermin who have owned them.
I live i a rural American town, I see nothing worth restoring there is nothing here to begin with.
Trump should follow what Lincoln did. Trump should declare that sanctuary cities and states have de facto seceded from the U.S., and as Lincoln did on his own without Congress, send in U.S. troops to force them back into the Union.
Because of dirty politics, Federal occupation of South lasted only 10 years, instead of needed 50, which condemned generations of blacks to lynchings and loss of civil rights by Democrat Party and Democrat-led KKK.
The Left is such a disalpointment to me. To be against freedom of speech in academia says it all. They want to be the thought police. People in rural Kentucky and Wisconsin are rotting away and all they seem to care about is preserving the legitimacy of buttfucking.
I think the main reason why the left hates Trump so much is because he was elected by people they despise.
I agree with those who say that what happened here is simply that the left traded class for race. Instead of groups like rich landowners being labeled as the source of evil in the world, as happened in Mao’s China, our leftists cast white people as the devil. You don’t have to read much from leftist sites to realize that they consider white people evil. They also consider themselves evil but feel they’re much better than average whites because they at least are willing to endlessly wallow in white guilt and to dedicate their lives to fighting whites who aren’t interested in such a pastime. The left is insane.
I recently read a book called “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa” by ILana Mercer. An excellent book. She also has some very good YouTube videos. I wish she was better known. She’s smart and articulate. She’s from South Africa so she understands race and the left quite well.
I recommend reading ILana Mercer’s book and watching her videos, reading up on Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China and encouraging others to never vote for the leftist democrats.
https://youtu.be/kG5XoHaOFac
Progressives hate Trump because he fights fearlessly for America and uses their own weapons against them. The Progressives are used to people like Bush who turn the other cheek or people like Romney or McCain so afraid of being vilified that they are immobilized and destroyed. Not only does Trump fight but he does so in the most effective Alinsky manner. Instead of vilifying people with false and stereotypes attacks – homophobic or Islamophobic or racist or trans-phobic or fascist or Nazi or Hitler – as the Democrats do, Trump instead with a genius of instinct focuses in on exactly the weak point of his opponent, brands them with their weakness, repeats the term until it is inescapable and destroys them – crooked Hillary capturing her corruption or Little Marco capturing his lightweight ness or low energy Jeb capturing his passionless lack of commitment. The Progressives hate him precisely because he is so good as an opponent, because he is so fearless, because he is tireless – continuing punching even when up against the ropes, never quitting, a Rocky figure, because people who do real jobs in the real world recognize Trump as an alpha male who left a comfortable life, spent his own money instead of being bought by donors, and took on the issues the Democrats, RINOs and Conservatives had ignored – the wipeout of the real economy underclass and working class by tens of millions of low wage illegals, the insanity of allowing immigration of potentially millions of Muslims from regions where vetting is impossible and popular opinions favor Sharia law, the Caliphate, the supremacy of Muslims over non-Muslims, the dominance of foolishly negotiated trade treaties that allow competing countries to export freely into America while American exports are blocked by myriad formal and informal barriers from being exported to their countries, the suffocating regulatory and tax environment driving real economy jobs overseas, the crippling of the American military by absurd rules of engagements that, like the myriad gossamer threads with which the Lilliputians bound Gulliver hamstring and obstruct the greatest military in human history.
Trump is a warrior champion for America, for the principles of classical liberalism that America was founded on – free enterprise, freedom of thought, speech and belief, low taxation, empowerment of the individual not the State, delegation of governmental function to the lowest level possible to permit the people to control them and in doing so their own fate. Trump fights against the rebranded Marxism that is progressivism, a parasitic mentality destroying the nation. Trump will win as Andrew Jackson won against the eastern elites – by fighting for the people. When he is criticized as vulgar let us remember that the word vulgar came from the Latin word vulgus meaning the common people. Personally educationally and functionally I am a member of the elites yet I support Trump because America made it possible for me to rise from a low status to a high status as America has always allowed talent to rise. I want America to continue being America. The people who hate or slur America should go to some country that they admire even as the people who came to America in the beginning came here and created a country based on liberty not conformity, on the individual not the state.
I have an Assyrian friend at work in Chicago who once told me of an honor killing in his town near Baghdad when he was a boy ( He’s in his mid fifties and has been here for 33 years ). He said there was a family living a block away where the daughter was having an affair with a neighbor boy.
Both families were Muslim. The girl had an older brother who was a butcher. When this older brother found out about his sister’s affair he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of the house into the street.
The neighbors heard her screaming and when they went outside to see what was happening they saw the brother using a butcher knife to cut his sister’s throat. When she was dead he dipped both hands in her blood, went to her boyfriend’s house and smeared her blood all over their front door.
I asked my friend what the police did about this. He said the police considered it a family matter so they didn’t get involved. Trump says Muslims from cultures like this should be banned from coming here. Trump’s critics say he’s a racist. I think Trump’s critics are insane.
We must never forget that the majority of Americans did not vote for Trump, but for his opponent. Due to the vagaries of the Electoral College system, a few thousand votes in select states decided the election, not the totality of American voters. Thus, we are stuck with this clod and clown and conman in the White House with an approval rating that is the envy of no one. Trump is not a normal conservative, nor a normal human being. Although he has not yet proven himself to be the worst president in U.S. history, be is undoubtedly the worst person to ever become president.
What you call “vagaries of the Electoral College system,” the Americans call the Constitution of the United States of America. Your favored candidate of the oppressed, unwashed masses did have access to that document right? So she could have campaigned in states that she chose to take for granted, right? The loss is on your candidate and all of Senators and Congresscritters who failed to make their scare tactics work. Also, it didn’t hurt that more illegals voted for your side than ever before (https://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compasionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008216/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499834087&sr=1-11&keywords=charity+conservatives).
The problem we have here is that even if it’s true that Trump is a totally worthless person he’s still infinitely better than anything on the hate whitey left. I do not have the slightest particle of trust for the left.
Nor should you. They’ve been destroying America at one pace or another for the better part of 100 years.
I agree. They certainly are socially destructive. Leftists seem incapable of judging white people as individuals. If you’re white you’re always judged by the bad things white people have done. You’re not seen as an individual and you’re certainly never given credit for the good things.
Their contempt for Christianity is even more bizarre. When my sister was dying a nurse told my mother she’d taken a turn for the better and would live. My mother went outside, dropped to her knees and thanked God for saving her little girl’s life. When she went back in the hospital though a different nurse told her my sister had taken a turn for the worse and had just died.
My mother still believed in God and was always a devout Christian. Perhaps she had no choice but her faith certainly did give her a solid foundation in life as it has for many others so it always seems incredibly bizarre and perverse when leftists mock and sneer at Christianity. The left is simply awful. How they can think of themselves as being wonderfully fine human beings is sure a mystery to me.
Because they don’t believe in God, or any authority figure that can hold their behavior up to scrutiny, everything is judged (by them) as to whether it serves their purposes in the here and now.
What’s interesting about your comments is that Liberals do see white people as generally monolithic, but any other group’s members is to be judged individually. Meanwhile, you don’t see white people killing 30 black people every weekend in Chicago, or shooting cops in the head. You can find an instance of a white person murdering innocent children in Mosul. Or blowing themselves up outside of a concert where children and their parents are meeting (although it could be argued that the Croatians and Baltic state separatists are white).
I live in Chicago so I’m quite familiar with the every day shootings. As for Mosul, I was talking to an Assyrian friend a couple of days ago about Mosul and he said all of Iraq is ruined and things are so bad the people there really miss Saddam.
He said Saddam used to often give speeches where he’d tell the people that he was their protector and if he was gone there’d be endless chaos and destruction in Iraq. He said the people remember those speeches and realize Saddam was right so they really miss him. Pretty awful situation when someone like Saddam is missed.
As for God, generally on a mental level I’m an atheist but on an emotional level I’m a Christian. One of my cats died last week so I buried her in my back yard and put a small cross in the grave with her.
Mentally it seemed like a silly thing to do but emotionally I felt it would help her so I did it. Probably everyone goes through these cycles of belief/disbelief or even both at the same time which certainly is very strange.
Upvoted. My kid was there, the place is a wreck. Obama owns that mess, we should have let 10,000 troops in there for about a decade and let the place settle down. Now, it’s going to be a satellite for Iran, and a launching point for Kurdish terrorists for decades. Good going you stupid Kenyan (even if I believed he was from Hawaii, I think he should have his citizenship revoked).
We should have never invaded Iraq plus people are tired of soldiers being killed and maimed there plus it’s hugely expensive to keep troops there plus we’ve got our own ever more severe problems to deal with. It’d also be politically impossible to keep a lot of troops there.
A couple of weeks ago a black guy at work told me we should have the National Guard come to Chicago to fight the gangs. My God, just imagine urban warfare between the National Guard and black street gangs on the streets of Chicago. No one knows what to do about this though. Everybody talks about it all the time. We all wonder what’s going to happen here.
We broke it, we should have bought it. That said, it’s all over now.
Chicago should let non-combatants carry concealed weapons. If all of the drug-dealing gang members killed each other, it wouldn’t be something I shed any tears over.
100% correct sir!
NOBODY could be worse than Obozo. “Nobody”.
What is “Obozo”?
Your opinions are certainly not based in anything more than your hopes, dreams, and fantasies.
Actually, my opinion is based on the current nightmare this nation is trapped in. There are no hopes, dreams or fantasies for anyone. . . not any more.
You so lacking in self-awareness. There are millions of people who could say we were trapped in a nightmare for the last eight years. Why not try growing up and learning that fantasies of the type you adhere to never bring much happiness, let alone hopes and dreams.
Get a change of scenery, or stop watching the news for awhile. It isn’t as bad as it seems to you.
One major reason for the foot-dragging lack of cooperation with the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is the near-certain knowledge that HRC’s supposed margin of ~3M and then some was ALL by people unauthorized to cast votes.
America got President Trump because it got President Obama first. Think about it.
And while on the topic, BHO absolutely qualifies, and has no competition, to “…be the worst president in U.S. history, [and] the worst person to ever become president..”
“Withholding public records simply because you don’t like the president or because he is investigating election fraud sets a terrible precedent and is perhaps illegal.”
from “Voter records are public records” (www. denverpost. com/ 2017/07/10/ voter-records-are-public-records/)
“We must never forget that the majority of Americans did not vote for Trump, but for his opponent.”
The majority of Americans have either forgotten or never cared about your meaningless talking point. By virtue of her overwhelming win in CA did Hillary manage to garner the popular vote and many speculate these were votes cast by illegal immigrants, but this is a constitutional Republic with an electoral college that was designed to prevent the tyranny of the majority. Maybe you should focus on never forgetting that.
Your personal animus toward Trump is duly noted and your hyperbolic and juvenile smears aside there are millions who could and did say the same thing about the inept and anti-American failed former president Obama, that he was crude, arrogant, hateful, and a documented liar. With just six months into Trumps tenure as CIC he has not changed the outcome of the last poll on presidents and in that one Barack Obama was considered the worst president since WWII. Ponder that for awhile.
Very well reasoned.
Since the retirement of Thomas Sowell, VDH has become the author that most closely reflect true American values
The enemies of DJT really have no idea what will happen in America if they succeed at bringing him down by any other means than the ballot box and the Electoral College.
A lynch mob not-so-cleverly disguised as “journalists” and Democrats is still a lynch mob.
what a superb column! Professor Hanson is absolutely right, and right on. Some years ago, at a Thanksgiving dinner, a woman I was chatting with suddenly said, out of the blue, “I hate Republicans!” I responded that I work with a lot of Republicans and we can talk quite calmly and productively about political differences.
After 60 years as a registered Democrat, I changed my registration to Independent on January 21, 2017. I am so glad I did! The Democratic Party is responsible for the destruction of responsible and intelligent political discourse in the U.S. today..
Wow, the truth is hard to argue with. Now, if only Trump would start kicking out every single Obama appointee, I would feel so much better about him.
Has any single US President EVER had to endure anything like this from “The Other Side” in American History?
Lets face it, we honestly though the backlash from Bush-Gore 2000 was bad…. But, the reason for what we’ve observed since November is easy to understand if you look at things from THEIR perspectives….
They control the most News, Entertainment and Social Media in America and their polls showed that there was a greater probability of planet earth being struck by a passing asteroid than of Donald Trump actually winning in November….
“The Fix Was In” What happened was thought to be impossible: Hillary Clinton lost A RIGGED ELECTION!!!
The Astrophysicists on her campaign team told her that the “Rust-Belt” states were ‘locked-in’. So, they focused their efforts on Blacks, Hispanics, LGBTQ’s, Dead People Cartoon Characters and Unregistered Democrats….
For only the 1,000th time, REALITY failed to conform to their Utopian Projections and they’ve collectively gone insane!!
The Left may be rehashing its vehemence and bile at the president, and Trump may be a flawed president and certainly our second elected amateur in a row (although I would argue the last guy was an amateur and a poser to boot), however from where I sit the Left has gone completely nuts – literally insane, devoid of rational thought and full of words that sound like thoughts concocted of their own narrative, spin and often their own facts.
They’re insane on Trump, on this family, on campus, on bathrooms, on pronouns, on immigration, on race, on terrorism, on political correctness, on gun-shaped pop tarts, and gun control. They are in denial that they hold any culpability or accountability for inner city poverty, crime, joblessness, or government debt or the swollen, bloated bureaucracy or the massively entrenched corruption, fraud and waste in government today.
They point, and rail, and accuse, and sneer, and gasp, and denigrate – spittle flying day after day after day. Sure, the rest of us ain’t perfect. But man, they’ve lost any grip on common sense, humility or national pride (if they ever had any). It would be fun to watch if there weren’t so damn many of them in so many high places and so may people nodding along with unblinking wild eyes.
Does Trump make it harder on himself with the tweets and unfiltered remarks? Sure. But, I don’t think it would make a bit of difference if he didn’t.
This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read! My hat’s off to you!
No, the “Progressive Left” has always been FILTH of the lowest order. They have never been seriously challenged prior to Trump because Republicans and Conservatives are Pantywaists! Trump brings out their true nature!
The whole issue should be the collusion of the Trump administration and Russia. It is criminal to allow, and encourage another country to affect the outcome of an American election. It doesn’t matter how you feel about Trump one way or another, if proven that his administration has colluded with Russia, then he has committed a crime. Perhaps even treason. No other issues should even be considered until this fundamental issue is resolved.
We get it. You’re proud of your racist asshole POTUS.