My father had a good friend, a doctor, a few years older, named Henry. He and his wife were cheerful and usually optimistic. Being Austrian, one might think he'd be conservative; he remembered the Nazis, after all. But his politics were left-wing. When George W. Bush was elected, Henry freaked out. He hated President Bush. Soon he was sleeping poorly, staying up late at night, pacing in his living room, thinking hateful thoughts about the President. He would even groan and gnash his teeth. My father said to him, "Henry, nothing you can think or do will cause George Bush to lose a single night's sleep. Your anger is killing you, but you can't hurt him." It did no good. Henry's last years were bitter and cramped by hatred.
Today we have a President who has a devoted following of two kinds. Firstly, those who voted for him remain devoted to him and his policies and the promises he made, a great many (most?) of which he has been able to keep. Secondly, we have those who hate him and fear him in equal measure, some of whom actually can do him some harm because they have political power, and by their misuse of that power have thwarted his ability to keep some of the promises he made.
Today we have a party with the name Democratic, and millions of voters who identify as Democrats, but the party has a leadership who are fanatically devoted to utterly anti-democratic policies and measures. Although the Democratic party originally favored a combination of liberal (pro-agrarian and labor) and conservative (small government and anti-elitist) policies, the party had become staunchly conservative (in a negative way) and pro-slavery within a generation, and it came to dominate the slave-dependent South. Only under the influence of William Jennings Bryan in the 1890's did leading Democrats pivot to embrace and appropriate the liberalism and progressivism of the young Republican Party (Republican Theodore Roosevelt was the first influential progressive). Even then, this took time.
Compared to today, the Democratic Party of the mid-1900's was conservative, in spite of the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. President John Kennedy was conservative; he initiated the largest tax cut in history, up to his time, and he faced down Russia and Cuba at a critical time. Lyndon Johnson moved the party to the left, and soon many radicals of "the sixties" became Democrats. It is these who have largely taken over the Democrat party of the early 21st Century. Riding the coattails of Kennedy's popularity, but being utterly opposed to his policies, these neo-Democrats charmed most media outlets, which were already left-leaning.
Fast-forward two generations. The media of today, both TV, radio, print, and podcast, are mostly beyond liberal; they are leftists. The stories and reports they disseminate about Democrat party leaders are 90-95% fawningly positive; the stories and reports they disseminate about Republicans and about conservatives in general are 90-95% negative, and typically contain more innuendo than fact. These media have become the propaganda wing of the Democrat party.
The Democrat party is led by former leftist activists of "the sixties" who seek to break down everything that is unique and good about the United States of America. They are the kind of people who tried to kill me and conservative friends of mine when we heckled them as they harangued students on college campuses during "the sixties" (I survived two potentially lethal attacks).
Today many registered Democrats, particularly younger ones, self-identify as Liberals. On another occasion I'll write at more length about this: Listen, Young Democrats, none of the visible leaders of the Democrat party are liberals. Liberals favor people being liberated (like freeing the slaves and giving the vote to blacks and women); Leftists are all about controlling people, aiming to enslave the entire US population. Liberals believe in people being free to make their own choices; Leftist want to make every choice for you. The Bill or Rights is a Liberal document, designed to counterbalance excessive Federalism; Leftists hate the Bill of Rights.
Leftists were well on their way towards taking over America, probably with near-permanence, when they chose Hilary Clinton as their Presidential candidate in 2015. Her job was going to be to nail down the "leftist lid" on American conservatism, to push through legislatively the measures enacted by more than 250 executive orders issued by President Obama. She was such a poor campaigner, she lost to someone who is called "the orange clown". President Trump ran a well-crafted campaign, based on a better understanding of the Electoral system, and it is most accurate to say, not that he won, but that she lost. The Left will never forgive Trump for beating their anointed champion.
The Left began a campaign to destroy Donald J. Trump the day he announced his candidacy. Amazingly, CNN was once guardedly favorable to Mr. Trump. When CNN was founded in 1980, Donald Trump was already a celebrity. He was already well known for his hype; he loved superlative adjectives like "lovely", "wonderful", "the best". He was also well known for keeping promises, and for adhering to the letter of the law (something he is blamed for by the Left!). He had this in common with wealthy people of any political persuasion: he donated to prominent Democrats and Republicans both. He was a friend of the Clintons, being seen in public with them from time to time. During the past forty years, he has been registered as a Republican, a Democrat, "none", and a Republican again. After his latest party switch, CNN led the leftist media in lampooning him every time they could. After his candidacy announcement, CNN led the leftist media to become part of "the Resistance".
It is these leftist media that President Trump calls "fake news." One of their own published an article in the Washington Post last year that purported to show that Trump had told 10,000 lies in three years in office. A closer look by both left-ish and right-ish fact checkers showed that 75%-90% of the "lies" were actually true, just using "hyped" adjectives at worst. The rest were mostly made up out of whole cloth by the "journalist", who is seen to be a bigger liar than the President. And in fact, counting TV, Radio, podcasts and print media, more than 10,000 lies against candidate Trump and President Trump have been told every day since mid-2016 (and perhaps earlier).
The focused media and political hatred of candidate, then President Trump is outlined in some detail in a new book by David Horiwitz, Blitz: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win. Do take note that the subtitle doesn't begin with "How" or "Why". The author is too canny to fall into that trap. Why write a manual for your opponents to use against you? Author Horowitz has considerable credibility as a convert to conservatism, having been a strong proponent of the New Left prior to 1975.
The author details the numerous avenues by which the Left has tried to derail the Trump presidency and cripple his work. Quite frankly, nearly all the leading members of the Democrat party, and of the "never-Trump" Republicans, and of the entrenched bureaucracy, are guilty of treason.
I could go into detail about the content of the 14 chapters, or some of them at least. I'd rather you read the book, at least if you aren't a Trump-hater. To the Trump-haters out there: I could exhort you to read it, but I wish to spare you further heartburn. You are probably going to suffer Henry's fate anyway, but why make it worse? I would only wish for those people to read it who are moderately anti-Trump; it may convert some.
The only chapter I'll discuss is 13, "What Trump Did". The Leftist media would have you believe he is a failure. So what has he done? More to the point, of the things he promised, what has he accomplished?
- He promised to "drain the swamp". This is the hardest, and he has only begun. All but a handful of the elected Senators and Representatives are corrupt to the core. Removing them requires exposing their corruption to the voters in their states. The entrenched bureaucracy includes tens of thousands who cannot be fired, who don't care who the President is, only how to retain their power and control over as many people as possible. But the "fireable" ones are being fired, starting with James Comey, John Brennan and Andrew McCabe. Their replacements may not be able to fire the swamp creatures that work for them, but they can curtail their evil.
- Prior Presidents of both parties, and the Congress with them, have engaged in a series of very unfavorable trade treaties and other unfavorable relationships. Candidate Trump promised to do away with the treaties. President Trump did so. In no special order, President Trump:
- terminated TPP
- initiated tariffs against China for intellectual piracy
- removed the US from the Paris Agreement (which favored China and India and punished the US)
- exited the Iran deal
- withdrew from UNESCO (Obama had already cancelled US funding for it)
- terminated NAFTA, which had sucked numerous industries offshore
- pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council, which is blatantly anti-human-rights and particularly anti-semitic
- stopped supporting UNRWA, which "aids" Palestinians, thus enabling more anti-Israel terror
- President Obama halfway defunded the US military. President Trump restored that support, and more. In fact, President Trump has shown more overt support for the military than the four prior Presidents combined. How many know that when military casualties are brought to Dover Air Force Base, he is nearly always there to pay homage? To give credit where it is due, most prior Presidents have gone to Dover for this purpose, at least at times, as did President Obama, just once.
- President Trump persuaded 26 of 27 NATO countries to increase their financial support of NATO, closer (but not all the way) to their agreed-upon obligation.
- He enforced the "Obama red line" against Syria's use of chemical weapons, which Obama had not enforced, by bombing a Syrian air field. A year later, when Syria used chemical weapons (against Syrian citizens) again, Trump ordered another missile strike, in conjunction with France and England. This time Syrian chemical weapons production was crippled.
- He signed a measure that directed relief efforts in Iraq and Syria to specifically help Christian and other religious minorities.
- He hasn't winced from using the terms "jihad" or Islamic terrorism" or "war on terror", which were eschewed by President Obama.
- He placed sanctions on Hezbollah.
- When Pakistan became openly non-cooperative with anti-terrorism efforts, President Trump withheld nearly $1.5 billion in promised aid.
- Obama created ISIS. Trump destroyed it.
- The book describes several measures intended to give heartburn to Russia and V. Putin. My own research has uncovered more than 50 such measures. A quarter of these are economic sanctions of various kinds. He also withdrew from the IRNF nuclear treaty.
- The Trump administration approved the export of lethal arms to Ukraine (more heartburn for Putin…and the Left claims Trump is working for Putin!).
To see more, check out
https://www.promiseskept.com/, where hundreds of actions are gathered under 14 headings.
I wonder: What might have been accomplished had there not been such determined opposition and insurrection against the Trump administration? He seems to have what I call Glacial Inertia. It may not seem like he is moving very fast, but on a broad front, he cannot be stopped, and a lot gets done.
A great value of the book is showing the treasonous behavior of the Left that falsely calls itself a Democratic Party. What might ensue in the next few months (just four, as I write)? Look how quickly the coronavirus scare transformed the country in the past four months. Consider the effects of the rioting that consumed much of June, 2020—though I think it will be seen as a flash-in-the-pan within another month or so.
Will Donald Trump truly smash the Left in the coming election? I sincerely hope so.
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