Tag: criticism of Trump

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Washington Establishment’s Embarrassment

There is little doubt that several key trends have not gone well for the United States in the preceding two decades. Despite significant cutbacks in American defense spending, particularly in the realm of deterring large-scale warfare, Russia and China have moved swiftly and massively ahead in the preparation of their armed forces for a major Great Power conflict. Most NATO allies did not meet their fiscal obligations. The Middle East descended into chaos. Inequitable trade barriers continued to plague U.S. exports. Middle-income jobs deteriorated. The nation’s manufacturing base deteriorated.

These downward trends have existed throughout both Democrat and Republican administrations, with the input, guidance and direction of career Senators, Representatives and lifetime bureaucrats, as well as the commentary of the media.  In short, those politicians, professionals and pundits failed.  Matters only grew worse.

President Trump has been portrayed as a bull in a china shop for his unorthodox style, his blunt and undiplomatic language, his failure to genuflect at the altar of the Washington establishment, and his emphasis on actual results, rather than the Kabuki dance of process so loved by careerists.

For doing this, he has faced criticism that has been harsh, extensive, and unprecedented in degree. It has been so widespread that over-the-top comments, particularly by opposition politicians and entertainment figures, have become commonplace.  At the recent Tony Awards, actor Robert De Niro used his platform to launch a vulgar swear word at the President. Others in his profession have enunciated desires and fantasies of torturing and assassinating Trump.

Aside from the grumblings of Hollywood figures, the media itself has morphed from mere criticism to actual opposition. Writing in the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune Gary Abernathy notes: “the Trump era has brought us to a new plateau, one where the media has moved from adversarial to oppositional. …If you care about journalism, it’s a disturbing trend…Former Democratic president Jimmy Carter‘s widely reported comments in Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times column about the media’s coverage of Trump were a welcome acknowledgment of the obvious from someone other than a Trump loyalist. ‘I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about…I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.’”

The vehemence against Trump also reflects the disdain the left-wing establishment and the Washington careerists have for their fellow citizens.  During the campaign, Jeet Heer, in a New Republic article, asked, “Are Donald Trump’s supporters idiots? Jonathan Chait has a theory about why Trump’s success took him and other pundits by surprise: ‘The Republican Party turns out to be filled with idiots. Far more of them than anybody expected…’ Thankfully, we have actual data on Trump’s supporters. Far from being idiots Trump’s supporters are better educated and wealthier than the American average.”

That disdain and outright hatred is based on the Washington establishment’s embarrassment over its failure to achieve real gains for the nation. When faced with Trump’s record of actual progress, for example in the upswing in middle-income jobs or getting the North Koreans to the bargaining table, the embarrassed reaction by Trump’s detractors descends into flights of irrationality. David Rutz, reporting for the Free Beacon reported on June 1 that “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) came down hard on a positive U.S. jobs report on Friday, saying the good employment numbers didn’t matter to ‘families hit with soaring new costs’ …”

Since venturing into politics, Trump has bluntly enunciated real issues, and the failure of the Washington establishment.  As President, he has begun making progress on them.  This has embarrassed  career politicians, life-long bureaucrats, and their media supporters. That is the genesis of the extraordinary level of criticism that has been levied against him.

Illustration: Pixabay

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America’s Constitutional Government Targeted, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of efforts to ignore the Constitution.

Examining the actions of political parties is an essential aspect of understanding perspectives on the Constitution. However, only looking at party leaders diverts the discussion from the new centers of gravity in Progressive politics. The Washington Free Beacon reports that:

“Three liberal donor networks and foundations with ties to billionaire George Soros have joined forces to form a new fund to ‘resist’ President Donald Trump. The Emergent Fund…was established late last year to quickly fund groups to take direct, immediate action against Republicans. Since the fund’s formation, it has received little public attention. It has raised over half a million dollars to give to groups opposing Republicans, such as the Black Lives Matter Network. The fund has extensive ties to significant liberal networks and groups…The Solidaire Network, the Threshold Foundation, and the Women Donors Network, all San Francisco-based groups, mobilized to form the Emergent Fund. The Solidaire Network brings together wealthy progressive donors to foster protest and direct action movements. The donor network is comprised of individuals who can move $50,000 or more personally or through a family foundation. The group props up other donor communities on its website such as the…secretive George Soros-tied Democracy Alliance donor network, the largest liberal dark money group.”

Trevor Loudon, a New Zealander, is the producer of a new film entitled “America Under Siege,” which examines the unusual level of disruption following the 2016 election. In an interview with the Capital Research Organization, he points out that there are groups operating outside of the regular political process, engaging in activities of highly questionable legality which were shielded from prosecution by the Obama Administration. He states:

“One of the…groups involved in this, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, had 23 members of its group arrested in 2010 by the FBI for supporting terrorist groups in Palestine and Latin America.  They were raided, a whole bunch of stuff was confiscated, and Obama’s Justice Department did nothing with those cases for seven years.  But the fact that they were raided because the FBI had an informant inside their organization shows how dangerous these groups potentially are.  It also shows that the [Obama] government] had no willingness at all to go after them.”

Key influencers like the shadowy billionaire Soros, the terrorist Bill Ayers, and even party officials such as the radical Perez and the anti-Semite Ellison are not tied to the traditional practices and constraints of U.S. politics. They have introduced something new and unhealthy: a slash and burn mentality that cares little for practices vital to the survival of constitutional government, such as a peaceful transfer of power, a tolerance of opposing views, and the use of honest facts. As their influence and power has reached its zenith, the normal rational debate and competition of opposing political parties and different points of view have been replaced by the extremism, violence, and disruption that have been the earmarks of collapsing open governments.

Red State writes that The ultimate goal of the more radical Leftists is to create disorder to beget more disorder…These are the ones most likely to be wearing their tattered Che Guevara T-shirts and shouting communist slogans…Most of the violence committed is done…by the more radical elements of the protesters, or refugees from the anarchist Occupy Wall Street movement…”

Politics has always been a blood sport, but what has occurred since the 2016 election is unprecedented, amounting to little more than a repudiation of the peaceful transition of power that has been the consistent and laudable practice and tradition of American Constitutional government.

History has seen this type of environment before.  In her book, SPQR, author Mary Beard describes how Rome descended from a republic, however flawed, into a dictatorship:

“Looking back over the period, Roman historian regretted the gradual destruction of peaceful politics. Violence was increasingly taken for granted as a political tool. Traditional restraints and conventions broke down, one by one, until swords, clubs and rioting more or less replaced the ballot box. At the same time…a very few individuals of enormous power, wealth…came to dominate the state…when the story is stripped down to its barest and brutal essentials, it consists of a series of key moments and conflicts that led to the dissolution of the free state, a sequence of tipping points that marked the stages in the progressive degeneration of the political process…”

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America’s Constitutional Government Targeted

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government examines the changing nature of American politics in this two-part series.

The target of the vehement protests, over-the-top opposition, and hyperbolic media criticism of the Trump Administration, is not the current occupant of the Oval Office. It is, instead, the Constitutional practice of government.

Little discussed is the odd level of verbal violence against a President who is most certainly not an ideologue. His major policy thrusts, both as a candidate and as an elected leader, include:

  • Replacing a health care policy which has demonstrably failed (the dirty little secret of the 2016 campaign was that no matter who got elected, Obamacare was going to have to drastically change.)
  • Restoring a military that had been dangerously and very obviously depleted, at a time when adversaries across the globe had dramatically strengthened theirs.
  • Encouraging American allies to pay a more equitable share of their own defense needs
  • restoring middle-income job growth.
  • reforming taxes and regulations so that more industry would remain within the U.S.
  • Enforcing already existing immigration laws.
  • Reducing regulations that hamper the creation or survival of businesses.


These could hardly be called arch-conservative.  If anything, Donald Trump both campaigned and, in the brief period he has been in office, governed as a pragmatist. Lately, his criticism has been focused as much on conservatives in Congress as on Democrats.

Trump came to office in the aftermath of a demonstrably failed presidency.

Under Obama, The U.S. essentially divested itself of its role as the world’s dominant superpower, leading to greater threats across the globe.  in Asia, China’s belligerence dramatically increased. in Eastern Europe, Russia engaged in the largest invasion since World War 2. Throughout the Islamic world, conditions deteriorated. ISIS rose to prominence due to Obama’s premature withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Libya descended into chaos following the still unexplained drive to oust Gaddafi. Iran’s power and influence expanded dramatically.  The Taliban was positioned to make a major comeback in Afghanistan. Terrorist attacks became commonplace occurrences throughout the world.

At home, Obama’s policies and actions led to an economy mired in the doldrums, racial animosity at a level not seen in decades, and a near doubling of the national debt with nothing gained after all those dollars spent, as well as the worse job participation rate in decades. The national infrastructure continued to crumble.

Stunning scandals took place.  Whole agencies of the government, especially the IRS, were unlawfully used for partisan purposes.  An American ambassador was killed without any attempt to rescue him or to punish the perpetrators. The U.S. Secretary of State’s family personally profited from the sale of uranium, the basic ingredient of atomic bombs, to Russia.

It was reasonable to assume that in the aftermath of those eight difficult years, the public mood would have been at least willing to give the new leader at least a brief honeymoon. But long before Trump even took office, a level of unprecedented and near-hysterical opposition was promoted by much of the media, academia, some Democrat Party leaders, and the financiers of hard-left causes.

One explanation for the unusual and extreme alteration in the nature of American politics has been the takeover of the Democrat Party by untraditional forces.  The party of Kennedy, Truman, indeed even FDR, no longer exists in a viable form.  Those types of leaders have been replaced by extremists such as former Obama Labor Department SecretaryTom Perez, the new DNC Chair, and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the deputy chair, and other individuals such as NYC Mayor Mike de Blasio.

Perez is an extremist who refused, while at the Department of Justice, to prosecute a clear-cut case of voter intimidation against those not identified as Obama voters. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Iain Murray, in a National Review article, notes that Perez’s “rewriting of U.S. labor law is probably the most fundamental attack on the free-enterprise system going on at present…If he has his way, we won’t just revert to the 1930s. We’ll do things that even Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t do, like eliminate vast numbers of independent-contractor jobs and unionize those that remain.”

Perez selected Keith Ellison as his deputy chair. Ellison was noted for his bizarre statements about the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that President Bush (43) used the terrorist assault to copy Adolph Hitler’s infamous Reichstag Fire strategy to destroy his opponents.  Ellison has also been tied to anti-Semitic positions. His 2010 comments about Israel led to a demand by the Anti-Defamation League that he be disqualified from being appointed to federal office.

NYC Mayor de Blasio was an ardent supporter of Nicaragua’s Marxist Sandinista government in the 1980s. He describes himself as an advocate of “democratic socialism” and was executive director of the New York branch of the pro-socialist New Party.

As party leaders, they are not far from the worrisome example set by President Obama.  Obama abused federal agencies for partisan purposes, stood U.S. foreign policy on its head, and took advice from individuals such as Bill Ayers, a founder of the internationally supported terrorist Weather Underground Organization.

Progressive politicians such as Perez, Ellison and de Blasio are at the forefront of replacing rational, peaceful political discourse with a new atmosphere that encourages continual street protests that erupt into violence, including those levied against college campus speakers that don’t agree with the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy.

The report concludes tomorrow.