"Deflections - Watch What Gets Done, Not What is Said"

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Deflections – Watch What Gets Done, Not What Is Said”

January 22, 2018

“Mr. President, are you a racist?”

                                                                                    April Ryan

                                                                                    Washington bureau chief

                                                                                    American Urban Radio

                                                                                    January 12, 2018

In days of old, knights used shields to deflect arrows and spears. Today, planes dispense chaff or utilize sky shields to deflect in-coming missiles. But, in the world of politics, words are the means by which the tide of battle is turned – attention deflected away from deeds to malapropisms. This is especially true when the enemy is President Trump. Peggy Noonan recently wrote on the subject: “Deflection as a media strategy has become an art form.”  The self-righteous (and self-serving) statement/question by April Ryan – cited in the rubric above – is an example.

Ms. Ryan’s question was rhetorical. It was used to make a point, knowing it would be the story. She may even have expected Mr. Trump to respond; for she, like most of her fellow travelers, see him as vulgar, arrogant, sexist, racist, xenophobic, and stupid. His character, faulty at best, is denigrated further, because his politics are disliked. It is easier to impugn character than to challenge policies, especially those that have helped those the Left claims to support: Black unemployment, the lowest in over forty years, and women’s unemployment, the lowest since October 2000.

Parents, teachers (and the Clintons) would have us do as they say, not as they do. But Carl Jung suggested we are what we do. Jesus, as quoted in Corinthians, said: “Do as I do…” Mr. Trump’s syntax and Tweets can be grating and inimical, but his deeds have been positive. Regulation has been reduced, taxes have been lowered, and the economy is experiencing its fastest growth in a decade. Obama’s “nanny state” is being dismantled. Russia and China, contrary to expectations, have been put on notice. Israel is again our friend. NATO is stronger, as more countries have increased contributions close to the requested 2% of GDP. Relations with Japan and Taiwan have improved, and 98% of the land held by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been recovered. The Mullahs of Iran are being called out for what they are – unrepentant dictators – as is Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Brussels is not seen as the capital of a self-proclaimed moral, unified Europe, but as an impediment to national and individual freedom. And, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has stood up for real human rights and faced down illiberal members of the UN Human Rights Council.

Mr. Trump, with his off-color and politically-incorrect statements, makes an easy target. But, despite cries of ‘for shame,’ it is not his character that really bothers the left – after all, these are the people that brought you Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken and the Clintons – it is his policies. Progressives prefer a paternalistic state, with them in charge. As for Ms. Ryan, Mr. Trump had the correct response: He ignored her.

Don’t be fooled by sanctimonious expressions of false shock. Whether Mr. Trump did or did not refer to Haiti, El Salvador and some unnamed African nations as “shitholes” depends on who you believe. But he may have; the word fits his profile. However, keep in mind, his reference was not to the people of those countries, but to their governments and culture. Consider Haiti, a nation of 11 million: Over decades, billions of dollars have gone to Haiti. Since the earthquake of 2010, $13.5 billion has been sent – an amount that exceeds a year’s GDP, yet the country persists as one of the poorest in the world. The country’s GDP per capita is less than one third that of its island neighbor, the Dominican Republic. More than 300,000 Haitians now live in the U.S. Why is it so poor and why have so many left? Because their country is a “shithole,” made so because of the graft and corruption of their political leaders, who have created a system of political cronyism, aided and abetted by a “progressive” West.

Democrats were once the Party of big ideas: the concept of “safety nets,” the progenitors of women’s and civil rights. But now, devoid of big ideas, they are focused on small issues – identity politics – that serve to divide the country: gays and women in the military, Muslim immigration, Black Lives Matter, trans-gender bathrooms, etc. – those singled out as victims of White, Republican oppressors. They promote multiculturalism, which speaks of a people not unified as Americans, but Balkanized. Today, Democrats represent moneyed coastal elites, academics, government bureaucrats, unions and those dependent on government largesse. Their immigration policies are not designed to better the country, but to add to their body politic.

Democrats are masters of deception and invective. They accuse Mr. Trump of cavorting with “strong men,” while ignoring that it was Mrs. Clinton who presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a re-set button in March 2009, and that it was President Obama who made a deal with the Iranian Mullahs in 2015 – a deal which removed sanctions, freed billions in assets, allowed the country to sell their oil, and set the country on a path to become a nuclear power. Yet, the lives of ordinary Iranians have not improved, as recent demonstrations show. David Brooks recently wrote that Mr. Trump lives in self-imposed isolation: “…trying to unite his clan by declaring verbal war on other groups; trying to shrivel his life into a little box by building walls against anybody outside his categories.” Mr. Brooks has read Mr. Trump’s Tweets, heard what he says, but ignored what he has done: His first wife, Ivana, was from the Czech Republic; his third, Melania, from Slovenia. His closest family advisor is a woman, his daughter Ivanka. And Ivanka, in marrying Jared Kushner, converted to Judaism. Does that sound like a xenophobe or a polyglot?

Donald Trump frustrates liberal elites, because he is coarse and refuses to kowtow to the Establishment. Despite reducing the role of government, Mr. Trump is accused of despotism. The Left hates him with a venom reserved for Nazis and child molesters. Reconciling that hatred, with acknowledgment that his economic policies appear to be working, is difficult. They want to keep that hate alive, so that in 2019 a Democrat Congress may impeach Mr. Trump. But, as Andrew Klavan wrote in City Journal (referring to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”), “Mr. Trump is Randle Patrick McMurphy to the Left’s Nurse Ratched,” who “pretended to be the soul of motherly care [but] was actually a castrating, silencing tyrant.” It is Mr. Trump’s straight-forward boorishness that penetrates the stranglehold the Left has on cultural, political and academic niceties. That he does so in a thuggish manner is unfortunate, but rude is better than lies. More attention should be paid to what he does and has done, than what he says and has said.

Being a coastal conservative is like being part of an underground movement. Like Mr. Trump, I was once accused of being a racist from a reader dripping with disdain. In my case, like his, the question was phrased as an arrogant and patronizing statement. Even recognizing the truth in the observation that “Only racists say they are not racists,” I felt insulted and sullied. I was certain the reader had not read carefully what had been written. Accusing another of being racist is a way of deflecting one’s own shortcomings. It reminds me of my father’s admonition: “Never argue with a fool, for a passerby is unable to tell which is which.” Ms. Ryan heard what she wanted to hear, and my reader read what he wanted to read; so, both made accusations in question form. Hear what people say, but watch what they do. It would be better if words and deeds conformed, but watch what Mr. Trump does.