AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Countless articles have been written and thousands of quotables from notables have issued on the need for our political discourse to be more civil. “Civility is an essential component of our American system of Democracy,” says a piece at NBCNews.com. Indeed, it seems that politics in America has hit a disheartening low.
So what happened?
I think I have the answer. Donald Trump happened. If Donald Trump had flamed out early in the primaries – to the laughter and amusement of establishment types on the left and the right – the political seas today would be much calmer. Failing that, if he’d had the good grace to lose to Hillary Clinton, as nearly everyone agreed he was certain — nay, obligated — to do, today’s political temperature would be much cooler.
But Trump won.
This unimaginable event had the effect of exposing the excesses of deep state bureaucrats and high-ranking Obama era officials. Secure in the knowledge that Hillary Clinton was going to win, the big cheeses at the FBI, the Department of Justice and in the intelligence agencies behaved in ways they wouldn’t have had they believed that a Republican administration could one day hold them to account. If Trump hadn’t won the election, none of us would know the names of Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, et. al. James Comey would likely still be FBI director.
Exposed as this crowd is now, their only real safety lies in a coup. Thus the attempt to end or severely cripple Donald Trump’s presidency by whatever means necessary.
But Trump not only won, he compounded the felony by keeping his campaign promises. That’s apostasy in politics no matter one’s party. In the case of Republicans, it’s perfectly OK to promise to reduce federal regulation during the campaign. But actually doing it? And having it make a material impact on the economy? It just isn’t done.
Worse yet, Trump’s economy started taking off. After being told for eight years that the U.S. economy would never grow at three percent again, we see it blow past that benchmark toward four percent and beyond. Unemployment is at historic lows. Food stamp dependency is falling. Success that can be felt by ordinary Americans in their checking account balances exposes Democrats as flatly wrong and establishment Republicans as serially ineffectual. Unforgivable!
Then there’s foreign policy. Trump was supposed to make a hash of it. Instead, ISIS-inspired terror events have essentially stopped. Rockets are no longer taking off from North Korea. NATO signatories are starting to pony up while the Israelis and the Saudis are getting along. All the while, Donald Trump actually fights back against the media, in direct contravention of the Bush/Romney model of gentlemanly acquiescence.
None of this was supposed to happen, but it has and it’s deeply threatening to essentially every Dem and far too many Republicans. So the shrieking and foaming at the mouth gets worse. And so long as Trump keeps succeeding, civility will be in very short supply.
Get used to it.
Oh, so true, so true. Not since Ronald Reagan have we had a president who fights for we the people, making good on promises, unlike past Democrat AND Republican presidents. I have no fear for our nation so long as Donald Trump remains president. But after eight years he will step down to be replaced by a Democrat/Republican president who almost certainly will return us to the failed policies and lies of the past.
Paul, you KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK with this essay. Thanks for your clarity and straightforward writing.
Prominent on Trump’s rap sheet is also his propensity for exposing the malpractice of big media. It is embarrassing and outrageous that he would have the nerve after so many decades of journalism by liberal consensus. Before the 2016 election many of us had to weigh Mr. Trump’s apparent moral deficiencies, as indicated by his past, against the prospect that it was going to take a street fighter, and not a fastidious toady, to actually confront the bullies who have been looting the culture. With regard to the role of the POTUS, that decision that so many of us made back then has for me been vindicated. Pray for our president. It looks like he is God’s man for the hour.
Finally, after 8 years of appalling Obama, a worthy role model for our children!
From my post of March 19, 2015:
Thus my great lament of the Obama presidency. Young black men who would dismiss a white man president as irrelevant can scarcely ignore Barack Obama. That Obama did not seize the moment and proactively lift up to the millions of young black men and women who still celebrate his election — at a time when it is most needed — the example he represents as a husband and father, is one of the greatest wasted opportunities in the history of the American presidency.
Rather than seize that opportunity, Obama never failed to avail himself of any opportunity to further divide the nation. From calling the Cambridge police stupid for properly responding to a disturbance call to reaching a conclusion regarding Ferguson, Missouri before the facts were in, Barack Obama undid in eight years what the country had accomplished on the subject of race in the previous 40.
All the while, those on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder — as always — suffered the most from a flaccid economy that was unable to produce job opportunities and wage growth.
The best possible thing we can do “for our children” is to create an environment in which families prosper from the fruits of a good job and growing financial freedom. Families that pay for their food with money they’ve earned rather than a handout from the government will raise children that are much more likely to avail themselves of opportunity and succeed on their own.
We were not on that path in the eight years of the Obama presidency.
Not to mention the example we’re setting for “our children” by alternately being totally sanguine regarding sexual assault (ex. Bill Clinton) or righteously outraged by it, even if there is scant evidence that it happened (ex. Brett Kavanaugh), all depending upon one’s political point of view.
What example does that set for “our children?”
One simple thing the 44th President could have done that he did not do was AT LEAST be a cheerleader for The United States of America and all our people. Instead, he was “down” on America, apologizing for our country abroad as if our grand nation HAD something to apologize for–but we did not. The U.S.A. has been and is STILL the greatest positive force for GOOD in the world, more so than any other nation bar none. Why couldn’t he have been like a Jim Brown or a Jesse Owens, being PROUD of our nation and inspiration to all our youth, especially our black youth? An opportunity surely and sadly missed. But the 45th President is making up for those “lost 8 years” by leaps and bounds, and We The People–ALL THE PEOPLE of The United States of America, from all walks of life can see it!
Cue the harmonica.