"To Whom, or to What, Do We Owe the Phenomenon that is Donald Trump?"

 Writing is a difficult form of communication. In his weekly Wall Street Journal column this past Wednesday, Holman Jenkins, Jr. wrote: “No matter how carefully I choose my words, I can’t make you know all or exactly what I mean.” I understand what he is saying. First, it is not easy to take a half-formed idea and translate it into comprehensible English. And second, words can be defined differently by different people. What, for example, is meant by ‘truth’ or ‘justice,’ not to mention ‘diversity,’ equity,’ ‘inclusion,’ or ‘proportional,’ as the latter applies to the Israeli-Hamas war?

 

This essay had a particularly tough gestation. Fortunately, my wife is a close reader, saving me from even more embarrassment. I appreciate your forbearance. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

December 1, 2023

“To Whom, or to What, Do We Owe the Phenomenon that is Donald Trump?”

 

“Oh, the unintended consequences of perfidy.”

                                                                                                Andrew Levkoff

                                                                                                A Mixture of Madness, 2012

                                                                                                

Donald Trump is like a battery-operated Hyper Pet Critter Dog that runs helter-skelter around the floor. As long as its battery is charged it will annoy most everyone except its owner. Trump’s battery life appears inexhaustible, but is it, and who or what is responsible? 

 

Since January 6, 2021, it has become common for Democrats to claim democracy is under attack, with Donald Trump as prima facie evidence. In a speech on November 2, 2022, shortly before the midterms, President Biden said: “In our bones, we know democracy is at risk.” Just over two months ago, and citing the January 6 attack, he repeated the warning: “We know how damaged our institutions of democracy – our judiciary, the legislature, the executive – have become in the eyes of the American people, even the world, from attacks within, the past few years.” It is a message that resonated with voters in 2022. Will it succeed again in 2024? In that same 2023 speech, he warned that democracies “can die when people are silent – when they fail to stand up or condemn threats to democracy.” While he did not refer to him by name, he was speaking of Donald Trump.

 

The impetus for his remarks was January 6, and the “attack” on the Capital by Trump supporters. But in both remarks Biden failed to mention that democracy did survive – that the only fatality was that of Ashli Babbitt who was shot dead by a Capital policemen and that Vice President Michael Pence certified the election results, which made Joe Biden President. Nor did he acknowledge that the people were not silent – that the “attack” was condemned by Democrats and Independents – and by many Republicans – and all of mainstream media. More than 1,100 rioters have been charged with close to 300 having been given prison sentences, ranging from six months to eighteen years. The people have not been silent about January 6.

 

In the months since, Trump has been charged with ninety-one criminal counts, enough to keep his name in the news continuously, and for his supporters to gather strength from continued insults to their hero and to their intelligence. One asks: Is the phenomenon of Trump an unintended consequence of progressive intemperance? 

 

While I am not a fan of Mr. Trump, I voted for him twice because I believed, right or wrong, that he was better for the country than alternatives. I am a fiscal conservative, socially liberal in the classical sense, and one who is concerned about a degradation in the values that have made this country unique among nations – reverence for family, respect for the law and for others, personal responsibility and pride in our nation. 

 

In 2016 disaffected voters felt that government had become too elitist – too distant from the common man. The Tea Party, which called for smaller government, was deemed extremist, as was the House Freedom Caucus. And progressives’ calls for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) were seen by those on the right as hypocritical, as universities, big corporations, mainstream and social media, and tech companies had no interest in diversity of opinion or inclusion of those who did not conform to the accepted progressive narrative. As Amir Taheri wrote recently for the Gatestone Institute: “…Trump has given voice to millions of voiceless Americans who feel uncomfortable with the status quo and harbor fears, genuine or imagined, about the future.” It is understandable what made him attractive in 2016. What is less comprehensible is why the left now gives him so much free press.

 

In their determination to minimalize Trump, Democrats instead elevated him. Presumably this was done because they thought that since Biden had beaten him in 2020 he could do so again in 2024. Trump was (and is) the nominee Democrats prefer. But Trump recognizes the wisdom attributed to Phineas T. Barnum, that all publicity is good publicity. Progressives in Washington and their lackeys in mainstream media, both blinded with hatred for Trump, have served, unwittingly, as his re-charging stations. Mr. Trump benefits every time a rioter from January 6 is jailed, or when another criminal charge is filed against him. Mr. Trump is on social media, on networks’ and cables’ evening news, and in the headlines. “Exposure to a candidate’s name…can lead to an increase in the candidate’s likeability,” is the wisdom from Wikipedia. 

 

It is true that democratically elected leaders can become dictators. In 1921, Fascist Benito Mussolini was elected to Italy’s Parliament and a year later was handed ultimate power by King Victor Emanuel. In July 1932, Adolph Hitler was elected to the Reichstag. Six months later, as leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, he was appointed Chancellor by President Von Hindenburg. For an American President to assume dictatorial control, he or she would need the backing of the military and the intelligence agencies, and support from the press. That was never going to happen to Mr. Trump, as we know from the way he was treated when President, especially by the intelligences services and the media. Keep in mind, extremists inhabit both ends of the political spectrum. And it is the left that is unguarded by watchdogs of democracy.

 

……………………………………………………………

 

Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, but particularly Trump, agitate emotions rather than reason. We need citizens educated in the basic principles of democracy. Eleven years before the Declaration of Independence, in 1765 John Adams wrote that “…liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” Today, if knowledge of civics were required to vote, many of the electorate would be disenfranchised. 

 

Nevertheless, the country has faced challenges in the past – many more severe than what we now face. Men like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan appeared when needed, and the nation had a course correction. The American actress Ilka Chase reputedly once said: “Democracy is not an easy form of government, because it is never final; it is a living, changing organism, with a continuous shifting and adjusting of balance between individual freedom and general order.” She was right.

 

Was Trump the best answer to the concerns so many had seven years ago? Perhaps not, but there was a sense that government had become too elitist, too distant from people and their traditional beliefs in faith and family, a concern that has intensified over the past three years. Yet, the man who has been pilloried has been kept alive by the very people who detest him the most. Mr. Trump craves attention. And the media gives it to him: publicity-seeking prosecutors seeking criminal charges and a never-ending rehash of the January 6 saga. If he were ignored, he might fade away. But the media realizes he drives viewers and eyeballs, more than the failing Mr. Biden. And woke progressives cannot help themselves, so the public is constantly exposed to him. It falls to conservatives – not Mr. Trump – to save our republic. Enter stage right (I hope), Nikki Haley.

"Fear and COVID-19"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Fear and COVID-19”

July 21, 2020

“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.”

                                                                                                Karl Menninger (1893-1990)

                                                                                                American psychiatrist

Fear is an elemental emotion. It can have positive attributes. In combat, fear is a governor on impulse. Fear of wild animals and other tribes was a factor in early man’s forming of communities. It is ubiquitous. We have fears of darkness and loneliness, of failure or rejection, of making wrong decisions. We fear becoming ill or being a burden to loved ones. Fear, we were told by Bertrand Russell, is the main source of superstition. Fear of sorcery was behind the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, which saw fourteen women and five men hung. It descends from ignorance, which wrote Herman Melville in Moby Dick, “is the parent of fear.” Unwarranted fear prevents us from expanding our horizons and improving our lives.  

Unscrupulous politicians use fear to seek and hold power. Tyrant-like, they tell us what cannot be done. Classical liberals, like the Founding Fathers, tell us what rights we have – what can be done. With COVID-19, fear has been used for political gain. By the end of 2019, President Trump’s policies had accelerated economic growth. They had provided the lowest unemployment on record, including Black unemployment. Increases in wages for low-income workers outpaced pay rises for upper-income workers. Amir Taheri, the Iranian-born, Europe-based author, wrote: “Prior to the coronavirus crisis, his [Trump’s] administration had one of the best records in job creation and the reduction of poverty among black Americans.” Since the economy is the single most important aspect in a Presidential election, Mr. Trump’s glidepath to re-election, while by no means assured, appeared to have few – and manageable – obstacles.

The arrival of COVID-19 and the resulting shut-down of schools, colleges and the economy changed election dynamics. There is no question that COVID-19 was (and is) a serious health concern, particularly for the elderly and especially for those with comorbidities. Nevertheless, fear was the instrument employed by politicians of both parties. While younger people could (and do) contact the disease, and potentially contaminate riskier segments of the population, the risk to their health was not much worse than that of a bad case of the flu. We will never know what death counts would have been had there been no early shutdowns, but we do know the death tolls from the flu pandemics of 1917-19, 1957-58 and 1968, when there was no shuttering of the economy or schools. Adjusted for changes in population, death rates, with the exception of 1917-1919, were worse during the previous pandemics. In fact, in speaking to friends with whom I was at school in 1957-58 not one had any memory of the flu that year. Yet it killed 116,000 Americans when the population was about one half of what it is today.

In an on-line lecture for Hillsdale College, Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute said that the spread of coronavirus infections “…require what Japan calls the three Cs: confined spaces, crowded places and close contact.” The job of public health officials and politicians should be to limit those venues, to protect the vulnerable, and to urge the public to rely on common sensical behavior as it pertains to personal hygiene, distancing and mask-wearing. Masks, as we all know, should be worn indoors when around others. But, as we also know, they reduce the available oxygen and increase the amount of carbon dioxide we inhale. Edward Cline, in a recent essay for his Rule of Reason blog, noted that the “Occupational Safety and Health Agencies around the world confirm the minimum level of oxygen in the air we breathe should be 19.5%, while carbon dioxide should be around 400 parts per million.” Masks lower the first number and raise the second, so care should be taken when wearing one. Healthcare workers must wear them, and there is no question that they help slow the spread of the virus when one is in close contact with other people. Yet fear has made them pervasive in outdoor settings, to the extent that friends tell me they wear masks while driving alone in their cars, for the virtue-signaling message that doing so sends to others, the less virtuous (like me).

While epidemiologists have responsibility for risks from the virus, politicians have responsibility for both the health and economic well-being of the people, and the media has a responsibility to accurately report news, both that which supports their biases and that which does not. Politicians and media types, none of whom had jobs at risk, placed priority on stopping the pandemic above concerns for the economy. Yet a survey last year conducted by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling found that 45% of U.S. households (fifty-one million) have no savings and 70% have less than a $1000.00. Shutting down the economy caused 40 million Americans, a quarter of the workforce, to lose their jobs, at least temporarily. Congress alleviated economic fears by passing expensive relief packages – a necessary measure – but in doing so raised fears among those who worry about a build-up of debt that must be repaid. No government can survive long on printing presses. All governments tax the productivity of workers. A growing economy, and a concomitant expansion of government services, requires rule of law, protection of private property and an environment that encourages capital investment, all necessary for economic growth.

That fear has become pervasive in this election year can be seen in a media hellbent on defeating President Trump. One example: In last Sunday’s New York Times, a top-right two-column headline, with undisguised bias: “Passing Off Virus Burden, White House Fueled Crisis.” Just below the fold, another editorialized front-page headline covering four columns: “Rising Mistrust of ‘Warp-Speed’ Vaccine May Prolong Pandemic.” If that weren’t enough, and to ensure that readers remain comatose, the front page of The New York Times Magazine: “Why We’re Losing the Battle With COVID-19.” There is no question that the Times deliberately scares people about the virus – I am sure they would say it is for their own good – but the corollary is that economic fear is the progeny of fear of COVID-19. Thus, things worsen.

“The enemy is fear,” said Gandhi. “We think it is hate, but it is fear.” In George Lucas’ movie “Star Wars,” the Jedi master Yoda says, “Fear is the path to darkness. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” While fear has been used by tyrants forever, its use by democracies is rarer and thus more insidious. Governors have used fear of COVID-19 to rule by executive decree rather than relying on the legislative process. What they don’t acknowledge is that that fear creates psychological problems – anxiety and depression, especially for the elderly living alone. It damages our ability to control our emotions. No matter how serious has been COVID-19 as a pandemic, fear has made the problem worse.