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It’s finally over.
The investigation that consumed American politics for two years—one that tore the nation apart, influenced foreign policy, inspired countless hours of cringe-inducing late-night entertainment, sent devoted members of #TheResistance out into the streets chanting “Protect Mueller” and burning prayer candles in supplication to a George W. Bush appointee, and that was supposed to end with the Orange Man’s impeachment and imprisonment—turned out to be a big, fat nothing.
Because of this nonsense, President Trump is locked in a war that has clouded his presidency from day one. His victory interrupted the dynastic line of succession. The anointed one was denied the crown! And so the Left attempted a coup, leveraging the power of the media and the deep state to sabotage a sitting president.
This war of succession has dragged on for longer than two years now. With Trump’s vindication, the media thoroughly discredited, and the impeachment case in tatters, is Trump finally winning?
Certainly, Trump has been proven right in the most spectacular fashion imaginable. The very people who accused him of treason have been exposed as the real seditionists. The Democrats have suffered a great defeat, and to Trump’s supporters, it’s like election night all over again.
But even though Trump scored a big win, his war with the seditious faction that tried to overturn the election is far from over.
The forces that attempted to take Trump down may be wounded, but they aren’t giving up, and they still wield great power. While Trump certainly has a right to gloat, the malefactors who peddled this hoax from the glossy newsrooms are not sorry one bit—and despite calls for a reckoning, they’re probably going to get away with it.
They are already working on sending this national disgrace down the memory hole, shifting the goalposts from collusion to obstruction, speculating with as much fevered malice as ever as they scramble to pick up the pieces of their shattered delusions to continue their inquisition against the president.
A Hollow Victory
Call me skeptical but the same media class that perpetrated the Covington Catholic High School debacle, Brett Kavanaugh’s disastrous confirmation hearings, and now Russiagate is unlikely now to finally get their comeuppance. Nor will the deep state actors who played a role in this election coup.
Consider the following: the media convinced millions of people that the president of the United States was some kind of Russian agent and for two years peddled this story without a shred of evidence. The investigation into Trump began under shadowy circumstances that remain obscure even to the most vigilant observers.
The fact that this even happened kind of dilutes the victory. While the intelligence “community” and the media have suffered a great blow to their credibility, they nevertheless were able to inflict profound harm on the country as they pursued a partisan coup. The power they wield, and the damage they have done using it, cannot be overstated.
Countless hours of hostile news coverage left millions of Americans deceived, with millions of dollars wasted, millions of dollars unjustly earned, and innocent people ruined—all as a result of spurious charges and media slander. People wrote books about this nonsense and profited. MSNBC and CNN reaped a rich reward from the public discord that they sowed.
It’s hard to comprehend the mass delusion these institutions were able to create. With the Woke Priesthood of late-night entertainment mobilizing into action, Trump’s impending demise became the joke.
The secular clergy of Stephen Colbert and “Saturday Night Live” helped develop and embed into the public consciousness a cultish, messianic obsession with a high-ranking bureaucrat who they promised would bring deliverance from the evil Drumpf. Prostrating before Mueller became its own weird liturgy, as devotees of #TheResistance paid homage to the Chosen One who would “save our democracy.”
Serious Consequences at Home and Abroad
The great irony is that this hoax undermined democracy. Somehow, corporate talking heads and intelligence bureaucrats were able to destroy the faith of millions of Americans in our elections.
Through it all, the public was lied to, poisoned with misinformation, and driven apart. Neighbors were turned against one another by lies. A bitter political divide grew deeper and more bitter.
It affected foreign policy, too. Vladimir Putin acquired titanic, outsized influence on the international stage. His fingerprints were suddenly to be found everywhere! Very serious, important Washington “experts”—many of them the same frauds who pushed the Iraq War—assured the public that America must craft its foreign policy around the suspicion that Putin is a James Bond movie villain with secret tapes of prostitutes peeing on the president. Armed with this blackmail, Putin was, we were told, secretly pulling the strings in our government.
With the media and official Washington in control, millions responded with choreographed outrage when Trump failed to “stand up to Putin” in Helsinki, or when Trump said he would withdraw from foreign wars in regions where Putin has influence. The Democratic Party became full-blown Russia hawks, pushing for conflict with a foreign power based on a lie, just like the neocons who came before them.
This hoax has seeped into the American mind. It has left the country a more mistrustful, more angry, more broken place than it was. It was all ridiculous from the start, and yet its pushers managed to impact the United States on a profound level. The damage done is proof of their unaccountable power.
While the media has totally blown up their credibility, hopes of a great backlash causing them to lose influence seem misplaced. It was never about facts. The media’s job was always to stage a political attack. Those who wanted it to succeed won’t stop now. Don’t be surprised when the Dump Trump army begins to parrot the next round of MSNBC talking points.
No doubt the left’s disgraceful behavior will energize Trump’s base and give him a Kavanaugh-like bump in 2020, and any further investigations the Democrats pursue can only hurt them. But they didn’t need to pursue impeachment, or even have any evidence of collusion, to cast a dark cloud around his presidency for the entire first half of his first term.
The Administrative State Remains Intact and Powerful
The president is in a stronger position politically than he has ever been in his presidency, and that is no small thing. But a wide institutional power gap abides. While the Democrats will suffer, the institutions that support them will not, and the Democrats will continue to draw power from those institutions.
This same establishment has already succeeded in frustrating Trump’s agenda from the inside. Two years into office, there has been next to no progress on the wall or ending wars in the Middle East.
Here is what should happen: Every journalist who breathlessly promoted this nonsense should be fired and publicly shamed, and the Democrats who peddled this hoax should resign. The DOJ/FBI/CIA hacks who made a killing on the networks and on their book tours should withdraw from public life in utter disgrace. Trump should declassify everything and pursue those responsible.
But they’re probably going to get away with it. I mean, John Bolton works in the White House for crying out loud.
Trump’s war of succession is far from over. He has earned his victory lap, but the heady rush of vindication shouldn’t distract from the bigger picture.
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