"The Appeal of Donald J. Trump"

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“The Appeal of Donald J. Trump”

October 13, 2019

“I can’t spare this man. He fights.”

                                                                                                Abraham Lincoln on Ulysses Grant,

                                                                                                after Grant was criticized for

                                                                                                heavy losses at Shiloh, April 1862

Accusations fly furiously around corridors of power in Washington and in newsrooms across the country. Neighbor no longer speaks to neighbor; children are distanced from their parents; colleges promote ideologies rather than encourage debate. Doctors tell us we have become stressed due to harsh and unrelenting political attacks. Serious debate is ignored, yet issues remain: What kind of government do we want? A state whose tentacles reach deep into our lives, or one based on self-rule that values individual independence? Should we tilt toward socialism or rely on free-market capitalism?

For almost a century, the nation has moved away from small government and citizen representatives, toward big government and professional politicians, bureaucrats and administrators – toward a “deep state,” defined by Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, as “consisting of career civil servants who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows.” Both political parties have perpetuated this trend. Even under Reagan, for example, Washington bureaucracy continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace. But the Left has always been more aggressive. Think of FDR and the New Deal, LBJ and the Great Society and Barack Obama “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

As to when and where it began – the trust-busting policies of regulatory reformers in the late 19^th Century, the appointment of J. Edgar Hoover as director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924, or the Alphabet Agencies of Franklin Roosevelt’s thirteen-year reign – is less important than recognition that an unfortunate consequence has been the expanding influence and power of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and administrators. It has been cozy, tacit arrangements that allowed both political parties to accommodate their special interests. It has permitted political and personal loyalty to germinate and expand within agencies – loyalty toward those who encourage the growth of their responsibilities and treachery toward those who challenge their positions.

Mr. Trump came to Washington to challenge the status quo. He promised to sweep out corruption and cronyism. From the get-go, his actions created resistance, which has blossomed. The ‘Resistance’ was founded on the belief that Mr. Trump had been illegally elected President, and that he had put democracy at risk. Whereas reality was that cozy, federal jobs were at risk – jobs that on average pay fifty percent more than equivalent private sector jobs, with better benefits and greater job security. Tools of the ‘Resistance’ includes defiance, leaks to the media and intimidation of Trump appointees. They have been abetted by reporters consumed with hatred toward a man who had the gall to question their objectivity.

In no part of government has this been truer than in the intelligence community. On January 3, 2017, newly elected President Trump expressed criticism of U.S. intelligence agencies. That same day Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community – they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” History suggests Senator Schumer’s forecast to be accurate. The backlash against Mr. Trump has been relentless, notably by biased, ethically challenged men like John Brennan, James Comey and James Clapper. In fact, Mr. Comey, the former (and fired) Director of the FBI, told Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times last Saturday that he “pledged to spend the next 13 months working to drive Mr. Trump from power” – not words one would expect from a member of the federal bureaucracy. These are men who claim to have the interests of Country, but are, in fact, seeking to line their own pockets, while doing their utmost to destroy a duly elected President.

None of this has deterred Donald Trump. He ran (and won), at least in part, on his promise to “drain the swamp.” Like an energizer bunny, he went to work. He increased employment while decreasing unemployment. He put through a tax bill that hurt the wealthy in high-income states, while lowering taxes for low-and-middle-income people. He moved the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and made NATO nations pay a higher percentage of their own defense. He took on China for its unfair trade practices and for stealing our technology, and he abandoned the Paris Peace Treaty whose only purpose was to make signatories feel good about themselves. He re-fashioned NAFTA, while bringing home thousands of manufacturing jobs. He helped make the U.S. energy independent for the first time in decades. And he has told no foreign leader that he “will have more flexibility after the next election.”

Mr. Trump does not speak in the sophisticated, euphonious tones of his predecessor. He doesn’t exhibit the gentlemanly, effete attitude of so many of his fellow Republicans. He is crude and uncouth; he exaggerates. His words clash, and his metaphors get mixed; he uses too many adverbs and adjectives and, at times, appears incoherent. He does not always seem to think through what he is saying or doing. Referring to his decision to leave Syria, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that his foreign policy is “tactical,” not “strategic.” I am not so sure. After being criticized by all sides for announcing the withdrawal of the remaining 1000 U.S. troops in Syria, consider his explanation at a rally in Minneapolis  – after eighteen years, with 4,400 dead and almost eight trillion U.S. tax dollars spent, the Middle East is “less safe, less stable and less secure than it was.” He might also have mentioned the flood of refugees that inundated Europe. So, whose policy displayed the better strategy – his, or that of the two previous Administrations?

Perhaps because of his successes and despite the constant battering he receives, Mr. Trump retains one trait his supporters admire: He does not give up. Like Ulysses S. Grant, he fights. He is not part of the establishment and his loyalty is not to the elite; it is to the people who elected him. Until he became President, he had never been a politician. He has no embedded, loyal bureaucrats to protect, or to protect him. Unlike most of his predecessors, but like most of his constituents, he did not build a career in public service. Amidst a pack of professional politicians, he is a citizen President. He does not use identity politics to separate voters into segregated camps. Like most of his supporters, he looks upon people as individuals. He believes in old fashioned concepts, like aspiration, ability, diligence, hard work, meritocracy, independence and family. He shuns dependency, sloth and excuses. He understands that success and failure are natural aspects of life, and he recognizes that luck plays a critical goal.

A good character is always preferable to a bad one. Not knowing Mr. Trump, I cannot vouch for his, but I suspect it does not fit my ideal. But elections are not about discovering perfection but seeking the best alternative. I have seen nothing in any of the candidates now campaigning for their Party’s nomination that suggests a more honest, forthright individual. Certainly, we did not have that in 2016. With Mr. Trump, there is no hidden agenda. That truth was expressed by none other than Hillary Clinton on a recent PBS News Hour: “I said during the campaign, there was no other Donald Trump. What you saw was what you were going to get.” Mrs. Clinton inadvertently touched on another reason for Mr. Trump’s appeal. He is without deceit, a quality one could not apply to Mrs. Clinton. With Mr. Trump you do get what you pay for. Most important, though, he fights. He fights for all those forgotten, working, “deplorable” Americans, those who live apart from the coasts and the elite denizens who inhabit their murky waters. Love him or hate him, that is the appeal of Donald J. Trump.