Op-ed, Revisited

Like most things that are promoted by #Resistance and their allies in the main stream media, the hysteria associated with the New York Times anonymous op-ed has already begun to wain. But not before the Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd has used it as yet another reason for the overthrow of Donald Trump as president. In a noteworthy (and angry) commentary, historian Victor Davis Hansen writes:

The [op-ed] writer’s chief complaint is that Trump “is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision.” Flesh that out. That would imply something along the lines that Trump ignores advice from New York Times op-ed writers and instead thrashes about and cancels the Iran deal. Or he dangerously and rashly gets out of the Paris Climate Accord. Or he stupidly insists that the U.S. embassy be moved to Jerusalem in helter-skelter fashion. Or he insanely demands massive deregulation, tax cuts, and new oil exploration without following any overarching principles in achieving 4 percent quarterly GDP growth or a record high stock market. Worst of all, madman Trump screams, yells, and ends the sacred idea that after 70 years the Palestinians are still refugees.

Certainly, there are principles behind such Trump moves, but they are not always those of the Washington establishment, whose agendas the writer reflects. Trump’s initiatives are often long overdue moves that would never have happened in either a “sober and judicious” Democratic or Republican administration, however much they might have been polled and discussed.

Trump has mostly one principle: he was elected to pursue a conservative populist agenda without too much worry what the Washington establishment said or did, whose record on the economic front since 2008 and in foreign policy was not especially stellar. In that sense, he is far more principled in carrying out his promises than many past presidents whose stump speeches on taxes, illegal immigration, trade, educational reform and a host of other issues were either never reified or flat out broken ...

Anonymous huffs: “In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the ‘enemy of the people,’ President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.” Again, Trump has said repeatedly he would prefer no tariffs if trade was just reciprocal. On trade issues, he has made progress with the EU and Mexico and likely soon Canada and China, all of whom enjoy trade surpluses which Trump throughout his campaign claimed were harmful to the United States and would diminish under his presidency.

As for as Trump’s loud anti-media tweets, worry not about what he now says, but when he [like the Obama administration] orders his attorney general to start monitoring on the sly the communications of Associated Press reporters or the private emails of a Fox correspondent, or when his Justice Department and FBI hierarchy deludes a FISA court in order to spy on American citizens.

As far as “anti-democratic” and a Russian-appeasing Trump, he has not yet claimed [as George W. Bush did] that Putin was trustworthy and genuine based on a soul-gazing stare into his eyes. Nor has he been caught on a hot mic [as Barack Obama was] promising to give up U.S. missile defense programs in Eastern Europe, if Vladimir would just give him “space” during his reelection bid. Trump has said silly things about Putin, but so far his actual record is certainly not of the [Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama] reset sort that greenlighted Russian entrance into the Middle East, Ukraine, and Crimea.

Somehow it’s “news” that a senior, unnamed official claims all the bad stuff that we don’t know happened, or actually never quite happened, was due to Trump alone. And, of course, all the good stuff that we do know happened was only because of noble, smart, patriotic, and visionary officials like the writer and his friends ...

The recent op-ed is yet another episode in an endless resistance cartoon, another pathetic effort of self-important grandees to undo by fiat what the voters did by voting in 2016.

Yep. That about covers it.

If the Washington elites in the Democrat and Republican parties, along with their deep state allies and their media flunkies, had accomplished great things on either the domestic or foreign policy fronts over the past two decades, they might be worth listening to. But they haven't. In fact, it can be argued that Donald Trump has accomplished more in two years than they have in 20.

In this era there are far too many people who value words and style over accomplishment and results. Far too many politicians and activists tell us they care, tell us they'll improve the plight of the downtrodden, tell us that their way is the road to a better tomorrow. There's only one problem—they never seem to put one foot in front of the other and achieve actual results that actually benefit the people that profess to care about (you know, more jobs, better pay, a safer neighborhood), that improve the plight of our citizens (like reducing the number of them who depend on food stamps), or lead to a better tomorrow. That's left for the gruff people who actually do stuff, not talk about doing stuff.