You don’t have to like the Donald
A few years ago, I wrote two posts about Jews and Muslims. The points I was trying to make in them was that you don’t have to like the Jews to be on their side and you don’t have to hate the Muslims to condemn their wrongdoings. I feel much the same way about Donald Trump and the left.
As I am watching the events unfold, I still cannot decide whether this is the end of Western civilization and the start of the global communist project with no possibility to turn around, or, is it the moment when the left so egregiously overplayed its hand that it may make the right to snap out of their delusional faith in the resilience of American democracy.
Trump is in the focal point of this question. I knew about the existence of Donald Trump for a long time, but it was mostly irrelevant to my life. I had no interest in his businesses and activities. That all changed when he decided to run. I am Canadian, so I couldn’t vote for him, but I definitely preferred him over Hilary, the most dangerously crooked politician I have ever seen in my life.
I was worried just a little, thinking that Trump is not conservative enough. He used to be a democrat after all. Well, he turned out to be a big spender, and a protectionist, neither of which I agree with, but for all the rest he has done, I could not find a single reason to dislike him. Looking at its implementation, I softened up even on the protectionist bit. It turned out to be just a drive to make better deals for America. Fair deals. I have no problem with fair. As it turned out, most of the Trump huffing and puffing was nothing more than negotiating tactics to find the best compromises.
Just like most Americans, the more I have seen of what he was actually doing, the more I liked him. I was especially entertained by the circus it was wrapped in. It seems that Trump kept playing the media like a fine fiddle. He was able to make the MSM foaming at the mouth with a click on the twitter send button. While the media went hysterical over his latest tweet du jour, he piled up an impressive list of accomplishments. Accomplishments that hardly made it into the news, and when they did, then only with comments of doubt, derision and dismissal. People who live on an MSM diet, don’t know that he had any.
Just a few days ago, I answered a question in a newsgroup asking for “…..a short list - say...top 3 or 5 - of these meritorious international/national accomplishments”….of Trump.
I answered:
Well, just off the top of my head, just in foreign policy:
The reestablishment of American territorial sovereignty through securing the borders and reducing illegal immigration.
Renegotiating a number of trade deals, most notably with China.
Reducing US military involvement around the globe.
Forcing NATO members to carry their own weight in the alliance and reducing their dependence on the US
Strengthening the position of Israel by recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and thus enabling Israel to normalize its position in the middle east through new diplomatic relations and various trade agreements.
Putting Iran back on its toes.
Pushing back on globalization
Leaving the Paris accord, while still meeting its goals
..and that was just the international part.
Then others added more:
The Abraham Accords. (Trump did more for peace in the Middle East than any American president since the birth of Israel)
Lowering corporate taxes
Defunding overseas abortion clinics
Opening dialogue with North Korea
Placing strict constitutional judges on so many courts - perhaps his most enduring legacy
Then when I decided to actually look into it, I kept finding more and more. Both foreign and domestic.
Now compare this to Obama’s ‘achievements’:
Getting a Nobel Peace Prize for getting elected as the first black President (essentially)
Being the first president, whose presidency have not seen a single day of peace
Signing the toothless, pointless and meaningless Paris Accord
Stirring up the middle east with the “Arab Spring” that destabilized the region for a decade at tremendous cost in human suffering
Creating several failed states in the region with his incompetent meddling.
Creating ISIS by his incompetent handling of the Iraq situation, handing over billions of dollars worth of weaponry to them.
The cowardly assassination of Osama bin Laden (I wrote about it at the time here)
Cuddling up to dictatorships like Cuba and Iran
The selling of 20% of the US nuclear stockpile to the Russians with a multi million-dollar kick-back to the Clintons
Turning Libya into a failed state, sacrificing the life of the US ambassador there through sheer incompetence, and then lying about it.
Some sites, like this one: Top 8 Foreign Policy Achievements of the Obama Administration put two assassinations on the top of the list of his ‘policy’ achievements and included Libya on the list as a success story.
I could go on, but comparing Trump and Obama is not the point. History will judge them both. My bet is on Trump, who will probably turn out to be one of the most consequential presidents since Eisenhower.
Trump is also the cleanest and most law abiding and process respecting president in my lifetime. Even Reagan had some questionable behaviour in freeing the Iran hostages and with the Iran-contra affair. Trump went along with the most outrageous attacks on his authority allowing them to be played out according to the process. He did not overstep his authority even once.
But yet again, that is not the point. The point is how he was treated. The establishment, the media, the deep state treated him with such excessive hostility, that most of his achievements went unnoticed. The press was so blinded by their hatred for Trump, so preoccupied by their own circus performance of collusion, and interference, and impeachment, and hookers pissing on the bed used by Obama that they had no time left to pay attention to what was really going on.
In a way, I could argue, that they ignored all the serious stuff Trump was doing, because taking his real work seriously for even a moment, would have diminished the impact of their hysterical circus performance. And with this, I finally got to my real point:
I believe, that the revolting, mendacious, libelous and insulting treatment Trump was subjected to by the mainstream media and the left in general is to a significant degree responsible for the fervor of his supporters. This is definitely true in my case. I started out neutral, grew to appreciate his achievements, while the sleazy mistreatment of him by his enemies made me respect him more every day.
Still, in the end, liking him is not necessary. You don’t have to like the Donald to appreciate his achievements and to be disgusted by his revolting mistreatment.
I could provide a long list of those mistreatments, but it would be endless. I will wait for the books that will be written about them. Unless, of course, the left manages to burn them. By de-platforming any publisher, all their employees and their families for even considering to publish such a book. Just as they did with Parler. But I digress…….