Should Donald Trump live to see Election Day, he deserves another win.
It would be a rebuke to America’s vaunted media who have devoted the last four years to waging war on him.
This is the same media who are forever telling us that the president of the United States is the most powerful man in the world.
No, he isn’t.
The American presidency isn’t what it used to be, and not because of Trump.
Our media don’t fully appreciate America’s decline, and how they have contributed to it. They call the president of the United States the most powerful man in the world so they can share in reflected glory.
The news media have their own clout, but they don’t have to stand for re-election. They don’t have the nuclear codes, but they have helped start wars. (Remember The New York Times’ Judith Miller and her weapons of mass destruction?)
Consider the current cover of Willamette Week, an alternative weekly in Portland, Ore., where rioters have owned the streets this past summer. The cover shows a photo of a boarded-up business and a headline pleading, “Can Someone Please Clean Up this Mess?”
These brave, independent journalists at Willamette Week don’t know what to do. Please, someone, help them. Yet this paper has cheered on every street protest since Trump was elected, as if the protesters can’t help themselves. It’s Trump’s fault.
Willamette Week’s political endorsements represent the usual progressives who have been running Portland for almost three decades. The paper’s endorsement of Joe Biden is all of one word: “Duh.”
Media in cities like Portland that have caved in to rioters probably have disaster plans in place should Trump be re-elected. If Biden wins, there will still likely be some celebratory destruction. Sore losers can also be ungracious winners.
From the moment Trump was elected, the media gave voice to sore losers – no matter how absurd. One of the first stories here in Portland was a report of a “noose” hanging on a door at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital. This noose was nothing more than a piece of string that had been tied in a circle and taped to a door securing a small poster jokingly labeled “Stress Reduction Kit” and instructing, “Bang Head Here.”
A black medical assistant saw it, complained and went out on short-term disability. The media were all over this story.
“The fact that the noose materialized on Nov. 10, just two days after the election of Donald Trump, made it more disturbing for her given the dramatic surge in reports of hate speech following his victory,” according to The Portland Tribune.
A surge in hate speech? Or a surge in hurt feelings? Who decides what is hate speech?
Election Night 2016 perfectly represented why I voted for Trump, and why I will vote for him again. I watched the 2016 returns at Laurelhurst Theater in Portland, sitting in the dark, sipping beer and eating pizza. Around me, the crowd was jubilant, laughing and cheering every time another state went for Hillary Clinton.
As the evening wore on, it got quieter, then very quiet. When I tiptoed out, I was smiling. I wanted to yell to the silent figures in the audience, “Now bake me a cake, damn it!”
The Sweet Cakes by Melissa case was a perfect example of what has happened to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It’s not enough to give same-sex couples the right to marry. No. People who don’t support same-sex marriage must be forced to participate in such weddings, even if it violates their religious beliefs. If they refuse, the state must punish them.
Progressives have become as tyrannical and narrow-minded as the Westboro Baptists I used to deal with occasionally when I worked at The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, Wash.
That’s why it felt good to vote for Trump in 2016.
The day after he was elected, I called the only two persons I knew who had voted for him. These two did not know each other, but they said exactly the same thing: “I can’t stop smiling.”
None of us were fans of Trump. We were simply tired of smug progressives demanding obeisance to their politics. If you don’t agree with all things progressive, you’re a racist, a bigot, a white supremacist, a fascist, a homophobe, a xenophobe – and the media will be happy to spread the word.
When Trump took the stage to deliver his victory speech almost four years ago, he was introduced to the sounds of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare For the Common Man.” The shock in the NPR reporter’s voice commenting on this musical selection was hilarious.
Trump has always been good for a laugh. This is not to be underestimated. I learned years ago while interviewing prison and jail inmates that a person who can make you laugh – no matter how hideous their crimes – can make you connect with them.
In their hatred of Trump, the news media have poorly served the American public by not pursuing other stories more diligently.
Scientists linked a deadly flu virus (H1N1) in 1997 to a wet market in Hong Kong. Our media seemed less interested in whether COVID-19 also originated in a Chinese wet market than whether Trump was a xenophobe for suspending travel to China. When he didn’t wear a mask in public, the media quickly turned mask-wearing into a political statement.
Perhaps the biggest lie about Trump is that he has destroyed America’s social fabric. The truth is, our social fabric has been in tatters for years. Depravity is the norm. We now conflate common decency with white privilege.
If you don’t like thieves, drugs, homeless camps, trash, panhandlers, vandalism, human feces, public nudity – your white privilege is showing.
Among the stamps offered this year by the U.S. Postal Service are a series described as “commemorating Hip Hop’s contributions to our culture. It is arguably the most important US cultural export of the last 50 years.”
Really? For the past half-century, hip-hop has been America’s most important cultural export?
Among the four designs of the hip-hop stamps is one honoring “Graffiti Art” and featuring a person holding a can of spray paint.
How perfect for the Summer of 2020 in Portland, Ore., where Antifas and other vandals smeared graffiti from one end of the federal courthouse to the other.
The media subtext of America’s summer of rioting, fires and lockdown is that if Trump hadn’t been in office, none of this would’ve happened. Or, if it had happened with someone else as president, it wouldn’t have felt so bad because the powerful personage in the White House would’ve wiped our noses and empathized with us.
In the months leading up to November’s election, the media have been wallowing in “America’s social reckoning on race.” How many times a week do we hear or read about the “tragic killing” of George Floyd or (erroneously until the case is adjudicated), the “murder” of George Floyd? A felon who probably died of a Fentanyl overdose.
Will the election be Trump’s reckoning on the media? I will do my part to help him. And not just by marking my ballot in the privacy of my home.
This past weekend at the Portland State University Farmers’ Market I saw a Street Roots vendor selling the latest edition of a paper published by homeless activists. The vendor wore a “Dump Trump” pin on his shirt. I handed him a dollar, the usual cost for a Street Roots paper.
“Uh, I’m asking for more than a dollar,” he said. “I’ve got some health issues … Crohn’s disease.” He started to lift up his shirt to show me his colostomy bag.
“No, that’s OK,” I said.
I gave him another dollar and then added: “That pin you’re wearing, I want you to know – I’m voting for Trump.”
He looked surprised, as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
I get it. Progressives are THE WORST! My previous posts certainly qualify my bonifides on this topic.
That said, Trump aint the answer, even as a troll of THE WORST, which is his only redeeming quality as touted by the (admittedly anecdotal) supporters I personally know. Your own piece says nothing about his positive qualities, what he has done or can do for the nation, just how he represents a counter to the prevailing debacle that is the left.
We in Portland tend to forget how siloed we are. The upper midwest, the rust belt, the mid-south, these are all places that resist the non-sense of “Antifa as righteous justice bringers” while also resisting the push towards abdicating our role as world leader by pushing away allies and cozying to dictators who say or do nice things in the short term.
Trump did not start this, but he is the culmination. The culmination of negligent media, of biased media, of social media. He has taken the bad, accepted it, and offered it as an alternative.
As I said, I get it. The fact that I wholeheartedly voted for Ted Wheeler represents my fears on where the left wants to take us, but I am just as afraid of militias that either want to protect the US or overthrow it… depending… These are people Trump has actively called upon to intimidate voters as well as stand by for future orders if things don’t go his way.
I’m a big fan of believing what people say. I get that politicians in the past have made it cliche to lie, but Trump changed that. We should believe Antifa when they say 1. Abolish police 2. Abolish prisons and 3. abolish government. We should believe Trump when he says he 1. might want to be president for life 2. deserves a third term and 3. won’t abide by the election results.
The road here was long and complicated, but I guess I would ask you what you would think if a Democratic President seeking re-election had this number of both convictions of his associates AND former staffers denouncing him.
Actually, I have been keeping a list of Trump’s positive accomplishments. For example, his efforts to get Otto Warmbier back to America after President Obama treated Warmbier’s parents coldly. (Had Obama tried as hard as Trump, would Warmbier have survived?)
Trump’s balancing of COVID restrictions, while also trying to keep the economy alive, is also notable — and something the foreign press seems to have acknowledged more than our own media.
But I didn’t go down that path in this essay. It’s impossible to objectively judge Trump’s presidency since he has spent all of it under attack by the media. Has there ever been a U.S. president more hated by the media than Trump?
Seven months before he was even elected The New Yorker magazine devoted every cartoon in its April 15, 2016, edition to Trump. One of the cartoons showed the team from Ghostbusters assassinating him.
Immediately after the election, media outlets circled the wagons and essentially announced, “It’s on.” Any group of anti-Trump activists who joined in were offered generous coverage. (Remember Pantsuit Nation?)
Consequently, you cannot separate Trump’s performance as president from the media’s performance.
I agree with you that Antifa’s promises are for real. Consider, then, how many legitimate Democratic candidates for state and national office also talk about abolishing prison. In a country as free as ours, where some people will use those freedoms to prey on others, to even float the idea of abolishing prison is dangerous.
However, I can’t take seriously Trump’s threat to be president for life. He never expected to get elected in the first place and probably misses his old life (more fun, less work). If you’re worried that he won’t abide by the election results, keep in mind that in August, Hillary Clinton counseled Biden not to concede the election “under any circumstances.”
Almost everyone I know is casting an unenthusiastic vote for Biden. I can’t join them. As I told one of them, “If nothing else, Trump is a mean SOB. We live in a mean world.”
You know that better than anyone. I respect your bonafides and can understand why you don’t want Trump. If he gets re-elected, the streets of Portland likely will go crazy. But a Biden victory? Antifa and their supporters ultimately will feel emboldened.
I see Biden as a guy quick to take a knee. I’m sick of seeing leaders take a knee. As you note, I probably wouldn’t feel that way if I didn’t live in the progressive silo of Portland.
God Bless you Larry. I was hoping you would articulate this so succinctly and with an economy of language. When faced with an argument like Pamela’s my only response is mostly despair at a world gone mad.
Still I appreciate your perspective Pamela because it possibly explains why one of my beloved children voted for him.
When it comes to Portland I trend toward Republican but nationally we need to get back to center if it’s not too late.
I suspect you meant matt, not Larry.
There are some of us (maybe your son is one) who had hoped that Trump — the outsider — would have moved us towards the center. After all, before he was a Republican, he was a Democrat.
If he hadn’t spent the last four years fighting with the media, who knows. I have no confidence in professional politicians moving us to the center.
Don’t despair, Tom. Visit the Babylon Bee website. Or check out the Twitter responses yesterday to Jeffrey Toobin.
No I was talking about Larry. You don’t have that many people who comment here, which is a tragedy. I can keep up. It’s just hard for me to understand how anyone can take Trump seriously but then I’ve followed the career of a relative of a close friend who has devoted 50 years of his life to defending Adolf Hitler and deconstructing the history around the Holocaust. He is a recognized authority on the history of Jews and the Holocaust, but his conclusions are still wrong.
There is no comparison between Trump and Hitler. It’s a desperate reach by some notable Trump haters, most recently Dana Milbank of The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/25/this-is-not-drill-reichstag-is-burning/
Milbank thinks Trump is going to cling to the presidency after he loses. First, Trump hasn’t lost yet. Instead of trying to predict the news, the media might wait and how see how the election goes and how the winners/losers react.
Trump spouts off and says a lot of things — especially in his constant banter with the media. They always take his bait. He moves on, and they’re still hung up on what he tossed them.
If you need to compare today’s America with the Nazis, try looking at the insults and blame directed at white people in 2020. Compare them to the insults and blame Germans directed at Jews. One of the most disturbing things about the Germans in the years leading up to WWII was how they turned against their Jewish neighbors, friends and colleagues.
Have you not noticed how it’s acceptable to insult white people now just for being white? It’s OK to destroy statues of white men — even Abraham Lincoln.
I don’t know about you, Tom, but I’m getting my ancestral papers in order in case of a Biden victory. You know, we all originated in Africa.
Wow that was Matt. Don’t know how I missed that. I am losing it. Sorry. I always feel a need to comment to your posts, but I always regret it afterwards. Trump is no Hitler but I bet the Hitler scholar I know would agree that Trump is a bigger danger to America than Hitler was back in 1939.
You’re not losing it. You’re distracted like so many people now, especially those living in places like Portland.
I have a friend whose great uncle died in one of the concentration camps. My friend’s father was a boy when his parents fled Germany. His grandfather figured out early on where Germany was headed and left, eventually ending up in California. Unfortunately, the grandfather’s brother did not know how bad things were going to get and ended up dying.
My friend’s father later went on to become a political science professor. I loved talking to him about Germany and the war. He certainly would have never voted for Trump, but there is no way he would compare him to Hitler. I think he would be much more troubled by the anti-intellectualism in academia, the tribalism and group-think promoted by the media.
America has had some bad presidents and survived them. Whatever danger your scholar friend thinks Trump poses can’t compare to what the tribalists and anarchists want to do to this country. They have supporters in the media and Democratic Party and some apologists in the Republican Party.
Thank you for your comments, Tom. I would have never known about “Melancholia” had you not told me. The ending is strangely glorious. I was thinking about it again just yesterday.
My wife and I watched the first debate a few weeks ago. We saw two old farts going at each other. One of them will be president.
I’m going with Trump, strictly for business reasons. The Dems hold the business community in contempt except when they want a new tax. My wife is voting Biden because she likes Kamala.
We’re more worried about the local races. There will be immediate impact. Portland needs a police department more than ever. You have to wonder how Sarah Iannarone, the candidate who brags “I am antifa,” made it this far. Portland voters have to decisively reject her. There’s more where she came from.
I suppose some folks would say we already have an old fart for president. Trump and Biden both redeemed themselves in Thursday’s debate, but I doubt if it changed many people’s minds.
Earlier in the day I went downtown to try and help the Portland economy. The store I visited has not put up boards.
“When we close for the day, we lock the door and cross our fingers,” the salesman told me.
Well thanks I appreciate what you said but just to be clear I am not friends with the historical revisionist, his sister is one of my closest friends and through her I have been drawn into his orbit a very few times over the last 40+ years and been exposed to his ideas.
Back in the 70’s I remember asking him to explain anti-Semitism to me and the first thing He said was “The first act of a tyranny is to suppress all critics.” This was a reference to Jewish control of American media and U.S. policy towards Israel. It does have a certain relevance to what we are dealing with in America now from the Liberal Left. For me the enemy of my enemy is just another enemy. I can hate Trump and those little Antifa/White BLM bastards equally. Keep writing.
Too bad Trump wasn’t as forceful in the first debate. He’s right. He can bring back the economy. Biden will kill it. We’ll all still be wearing masks two years from now if Granpa Joe has his way.
I read the link to one of your older articles where you said Hardesty would bring the Baltimore ghetto to Portland. She’s getting there. Sarah will help.
Yes, a whiff of the Baltimore ghetto. Sunday morning these three stories popped up in The Oregonian: “Portland police are investigating a stabbing that left one person dead early Sunday morning. … A Southeast Portland shooting Saturday night left one person dead. … Portland police say they believe a car fire that killed one person late Friday night was set intentionally.”
I think you actually missed the biggest (but still developing) accomplishment of Trump’s presidency:: the middle east. The fact that the self-promoter isn’t bragging about it as much as is seemingly warranted makes me question his role, but the reality is, things got better not worse under Trump. That would be lauded under any other president so it should be lauded for him.
As for the media and Trump. No, no president has ever faced a unified attack like him. Of course, in the age of “everyone is a journalist”, the media has interestingly enough never been controlled by so few. I think it’s safe to say the rules have changed… and as with all things likely for the worse. I often joke Trump could get rid of all his critics by simply tweeting “breathing is good for people and so everyone should breathe as often as possible”. This would obviously create a backlash against breathing and… well I’m sure you get the joke.
I think you do a dis-service to us all when you dismiss Trump’s plays at dictatorship, though. They are clumsy and obvious, but Trump is not a complicated man. He speaks his mind and this weakness is the strength he used to beat Hillary Clinton. I am bothered by the open requests for foreign influence in our elections, but not so much for his financial ties to Russia. I think the Hunter Biden debacle has clearly shown too many politicians use unethical means to make money. Why do you think the Republican senate has not hammered this topic:? It’s almost assured a number of their adult children sit on various boards across the world, each earning six figures for doing nothing but being the child of a US politician. I’m actually more worried about the absence of this graft than the presence, because when no one wants to buy our influence, we shall know we are truly finished as a world power.
Maybe Trump isn’t bragging about the Middle East for the same reason I didn’t point to it as an accomplishment: The Middle East will always be with us. The only way we will know what has truly been accomplished is with the passage of time. During the Carter Administration, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty. Of course, not everyone was happy with it, and Sadat was later assassinated.
I can’t share your fears of Trump the dictator. He has too many public enemies. It appears he has more open enemies than friends. He instills more ridicule than fear.
It’s hard to condemn foreign influence in our elections, when America has its own history of interfering in foreign elections. Even media that hate Trump, e.g. The New York Times and The Washington Post, have detailed — citing CIA reports among other sources — that America has tried to influence elections in places as varied as Chile, Iran and Serbia. We were trying to protect our own interests and promote democracy.
There’s a pertinent quote in a 2018 story in The New York Times from a CIA man who said there is no moral equivalency between what Americans have done and what the Russians have done. Equating them, he said, “is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns — the motivation matters.”
Those were the good old days when there was a difference. Now Antifa and BLM protesters are treated like the good guys.
There is nothing surprising about the Hunter Biden controversy for the reasons you point out. Your warning is chilling: “When no one wants to buy our influence, we shall know we are truly finished as a world power.”
What so many people in this country call “white privilege” is actually American privilege. They’re going to miss it.
My family’s different. We’ve got Biden voters and Trump voters. No gunfire has broke out. I’m with Biden but can’t stand Kamala. She’ll take over if she can and won’t wait for Joe to forget his name. Trump turned himself into a joke with all his tweets. What I don’t get is why you think he may not survive to election day? I’d like to be that energetic when I’m his age.
Everything seems so precarious. That’s what I was referring to. The one thing we can count on is that after the election is over, the media will immediately start speculating about potential presidential candidates for 2024.
I’m recovering from having been denied a gratuitous blessing.
I can add nothing fresh to what has been said all I can do is a little underlining.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1322007829578948610
The Left is in the process of overthrowing the government and destroying the nation. I mean they are doing this right now in the community in which I live. Just down the street some evenings. Trump is the danger to the nation?
Remind me who wants to pack the court, disregard the Constitution, open the borders, criminalize free speech, enact racial discrimination laws, and on and on? I believe the pre-ascended Ginsberg had her reservations about that document, too.
https://www.npr.org/2012/07/04/156186033/should-u-s-constitution-be-an-international-model
Of course I link to that stalwart of journalistic probity, NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925755387/unfettered-free-speech-is-a-threat-to-democracy-journalist-says.
I’ve long admired NPR’s refusal to touch the Trump Russia scandal for want of evidence. Likewise when queried about the omission of the Biden material NPR managing editor Terence Samuel stoically observed:
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions. And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
Finally, from the arch reactionary hisself, Matt Taibbi:
https://nypost.com/2020/10/27/the-media-and-social-media-drive-to-squelch-information-a-menace-no-matter-who-wins-election/
A gratuitious blessing. I’m not even sure what that is. I’ve always been partial to anonymous blessings.
Tonight, Antifa and BLM protesters from Portland descended on Vancouver. Eventually there has to be an official response to stop the Left, or there will be vigilantes. A friend of mine who used to work in the criminal justice system compares the rioters to the KKK in the early 20th Century.
Thanks for the links. I did not know that RBG had so many reservations about the U.S. Constitution. Granted, it might not work in South Africa or Kenya, but I’m curious about the additional rights they have that we don’t.
Reading Emily Bazelon refer to “concocted claims” I couldn’t help but think of The New York Times’ “1619 Project.”
Referring to Tom’s misplaced insistence above.
Watching Rosemary’s Baby. Seems like a metaphor for our time somewhere in that film.
Coincidently I’m grazing Ronan Farrow’s book on his Weinstein expose. Seems Hilary initially enthused about cooperating w/him on his US Secretaries of State book. After he pressed ahead w/the Weinstein business she wouldn’t return his calls.
If the libraries open up again, and I see Ronan Farrow’s book on the shelf, I’ll give it a look. (For the first time in my life, I voted no on a library bond. The librarians seemed a little too eager to shut things down and in no rush to open up. Maybe they don’t like dealing with the unwashed masses.)
I’ve been rereading the first few chapters of Hillary’s book, “What Happened” where she describes driving around New York City in the early morning hours after her defeat, looking for a place to give a concession speech that she didn’t bother to have prepared, just in case. Amazing arrogance.
Last week in a highly promoted interview with Kara Swisher at The New York Times, Hillary went on at length about how she is convinced Biden will beat Trump. You would think that 2016 would’ve humbled her a little bit.
If Trump manages to pull off another upset, maybe Hillary should be on suicide watch.
My branch is Kenton and I have been using it for about 10 years.
I have never seen the nation, its founders, its constitution, its achievements, or any white person given a prominent place in their windows which have a regular rotation of celebrated or honored themes and subjects: Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, and etc.
As a side note I only just learned that Gary Thomas, the former county prosecutor captured by Davis’ pack of murderers, managed to kill 3 of them while becoming paralyzed himself.
Should Trump emerge victorious the better move would be to leave a revolver on HRC’s desk rather than put her on suicide watch.
Not that she’d use it, but she might ponder her role in matters a little. Vain and grasping people do not kill themselves while they can still squeeze nickels and a drink out of the faithful.
I think a downloadable copy of the Farrow book available.
However, our rulers are blind to their role in the present debacle. Goddam them locally and nationally.
Was at the library today and saw that they had a biography of an American president on display.
It was the Spanish language edition of a anti-Trump hatchet job supposedly written by a niece who loathes him.
This town is the nation writ small.
I do not understand how community leaders and tax paying citizens can look at the Escape from New York dump that is Portland and not be upset enough to fix matters.
For 150-75 years our citizenry and our leaders treated the city as if it were a reflection of themselves.
I heard about that book. I believe Trump’s cousin, a federal judge, also wrote a book in which she made numerous allegations. When reporters asked Trump about her book, his answer was “Who cares?”
Now how many American politicians have that much honesty? We will now return to our regular programming: the same-old, same-old.
The New York Times gleefully ran down several immediate steps Biden is expected to take on Day 1. Among them: “establishing a pandemic testing board.” Does this mean we will all be required to be tested? And if we test positive but are healthy, will we be required to stay home forever? Wear a mask forever?
And this: “Resettle more refugees fleeing war.” Will they be required to be tested for any communicable diseases?
And this: “Abandon Mr. Trump’s travel ban on mostly Muslim countries… .” Again, will they be required to be tested for any communicable diseases? I won’t even raise the issue of terrorist activities.
The Times tiptoed around China. The country emits about a third of the world’s CO2. While liberals push for the U.S. to re-enter the Paris Accord, what about China? And what has China done about their wet markets?
America survived Trump. In some cases, the country even thrived. We’ll see with Biden/Harris. But I am already tired of Harris’s childhood narrative of being poor and immigrant. I can’t remember which national magazine — maybe Atlantic or Vanity Fair — but one of them did a piece on who really created Harris. It wasn’t her mother. It was the wealthy, white liberals of Pacific Heights.
Here’s a link to that magazine piece. It was in Politico, the Magazine: “How San Francisco’s Wealthiest Families Launched Kamala Harris”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/09/kamala-harris-2020-president-profile-san-francisco-elite-227611