Finish the Job, Sir

 

                                           

 

Although the attack on Iran has been an unqualified military success, commentators wonder about the so-called endgame.  What will happen in future weeks and months? Does anyone know? 

Actually, the overwhelming destruction of Iran’s military capabilities means that we are now in the endgame. Let’s consider the condition of the 90 million people in Iran, a country twice the size of Texas. Although USA and Israeli bombing has so far been pin-pointing military targets with remarkable accuracy, the impact on the civilian population could be catastrophic.

Food supplies must be scarce. There must be widespread hunger, even starvation in some areas.

Their water supply system must have been severely impacted. Drinking water availability and quality must have been compromised. Waste removal and sewage systems may not be functioning.

Electricity must be out in many parts of the country with not only loss of light but also heat. Communications networks must be impaired if working at all. 

Needed medical services for the sick, injured, and elderly must be almost non-existent.

Just imagine your own neighborhood without food, water, light, heat and phone communication during a winter storm. Inevitably, we can expect crime and looting as people struggle to survive.

We have won the war, but we will find ourselves responsible for avoiding a human tragedy of enormous dimensions. Look what Israel had to do after the war in Gaza. Iran will require a much greater humanitarian response. What can we do?

This Monday, March 9, President Trump provided a relatively short report on the status of the war, and on its potential aftermath. Anyone who dislikes the President for the things he says should take the time to view the 30-minute report as well as the questions he handled afterwards.

He claimed that the attack on Iran had been an unqualified success, and that our military had achieved in three days what planners had thought would take weeks, even months to achieve. 

He did spend much time on what might come next. He did not sound like a belligerent conqueror out to impose his will on the Iranian people, or even the remnants of the current regime.

The President indicated that he does not intend to repeat the mistakes of the war in Iraq. He intends that Iran’s oil be used to finance the rebuilding of the country and not fall into the hands of terrorists. He also believes that when the supporters of the regime in Iraq lost their jobs, they joined ISIS. He hopes that the policy of accommodation working in Venezuela can work in Iran.

He also stated that shipping lanes in the area will be protected so that the flow of oil will continue to the rest of the world. He pointed out that using our naval resources to keep the Straits of Hormuz open is not for our benefit since we are now energy independent. In particular, this policy will especially benefit China, a country largely dependent on oil imports. Wisely, he does not intend to use success in Iran to drive the Chinese back to the wall. 

He then took questions from the assembled reporters. It is amazing that Trump haters cannot credit Trump’s willingness to take questions. He seems to be out there every day taking questions. Have his opponents forgotten that President Biden rarely held a press conference, and that former President Obama always used a teleprompter?

Anyway, he took about 18 questions from the assembled reporters, and I don’t believe there was one that asked about the astonishing military success we achieved. Today’s media seems no longer interested in reporting what has actually happened, but they focus on what they fear will happen in the future especially with President Trump in command.

Despite the success of the mission, most of the questions were designed to find fault. The extraordinary precision of our bombing in striking only military targets in contrast to most modern war, or the terrorist tactics of the Iranian regime and its proxies went unmentioned. 

Questioners tried to drive a wedge between the President and Vice-President Vance and even suggested that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was unfit to conduct negotiations with Cuba. 

The last question was especially telling. The reporter asked how many casualties President Trump was willing to accept in this war.  In three days, we had destroyed Iran’s Russia and China supplied air defense system, neutralized its 1000 plus ballistic missile arsenal, sunk its entire navy, and decapitated its leadership, and we had taken only eight casualties. 

The question was insulting but the President, as usual, handled it well. He mentioned that he had already met with the families of the eight soldiers, and that despite their grief, they urged him to “Finish the job, Sir, finish the job.”

### 

Political Hatred

In a recent column in the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins cautioned MAGA supporters against falling in love with a politician. Good advice, but he failed to mention that it is perhaps even more unwise to hate a politician. Coincidentally, about the same time a letter to the Journal cited the words of Michael Corleone in the Godfather, "Don't hate your enemies, it clouds your judgment." These words brought to mind a post I had written about political hatred back in 2022 during the Trump interregnum. ***************************

In my quiet suburban neighborhood, I sometimes come across lawn signs that read, "HATE HAS NO HOME HERE." Nevertheless, in the past few years I have never witnessed so much hatred in my town and in my country as has been directed at former President Donald Trump. Like all hatred it seems visceral rather than reasonable. It is as if a large part of the population has received a political vaccination that enables the political immune system to form an immediate and violent reaction to even the mention of his name. 

During the election when I questioned my neighbors about their Trump animosity, they invariably replied that they just could not stand the man, no matter what he might have accomplished in office. They could not even bring themselves to acknowledge that he might have accomplished even one good thing as President. He has been our of power for more than a year but still my Internet home page features almost daily anti-Trump headlines.

I have been thinking about this Trump hatred phenomenon for awhile, and recently I found as good an explanation as I have ever read in a biography of Sir Robert Walpole, an English politician of almost 300 years ago. It would appear that Walpole was as larger than life as Donald Trump, and just as hated despite his accomplishments. Below is J.H. Plumb's concluding appraisal of Walpole that brought Trump and his haters to mind. 

All that he does and says in the early thirties argues a growing inflexibility of temperament, a greediness to grasp and exercise power; the anxiety lessens, and the future is contemplated less than the present. As a young man his contemporaries spoke of his gaiety, of his ebullient life, of the warmth and spontaneity of his nature. Some of this he never lost. Although he could be the most affable of men, quick to respond to his defeated enemies, this should not blind us to the essential ruthless nature of his political actions. Where he differed from many great men who have wielded political power as great as his, is this: he did not require the death or even exile of men who had vainly crossed his path. Their complete political impotence was all he desired. Nor did great power make him secretive or remote or grossly suspicious of his close friends. … He was available to all from field marshals to ensigns, admirals to midshipmen, archbishops to curates, princes to merchants, so long as they were prepared to wait patiently in the throng that daily besieged his doors. And to his colleagues, and to the Court, he remained open-hearted, generous almost to a fault, retaining his delight in ostentatious display, in gargantuan meals and vast potations; his coarseness, his love of lecherous sally, grew rather than diminished with the years… His frankness, his lack of pretentiousness, were nevertheless tinged with vulgarity, with a gross enjoyment, with almost a delight in stimulating the envy of men. 

Certainly that envy was stirred, more profoundly, more publicly than is the common lot of great men of state. He was hated more for being himself than for his conduct of affairs. Not only was his power resented… his whole manner of life bred detestation wherever he went. He paraded his wealth with ever greater ostentation. He bought pictures at reckless prices, wallowed in the extravagance of Houghton, deluged his myriad guests with rare food and costly wine; his huge ungainly figure sparkled with diamonds and flashed with satin. And he gloried in his power, spoke roughly if not ungenerously of others, and let the whole world know that he was master. Such a way of life invited criticism on a personal level. All the opposition press reveled in portraying the grossness of Walpole’s life; ballads were sung of his ill-gotten wealth; obscene caricatures illustrated his relations with the Queen; bitter pamphlets laid bare the graft, the corruption, the favourtism of his regime…. Year in, year out the gutter Press squirted its filth over his reputation. His friends did little better, the institutions by which he governed worse…. His sole aim in life was to amass gold and aggrandize his family. Day after day, week after week, month after month, this twisted and malicious criticism never ceased: and embedded in the heart of the sludge was a grain of truth, enough indeed for this uncontrolled  propaganda to carry with it a certain conviction. The good that he did—the stability, the peace, the prosperity, were taken for granted—the evil magnified to phantom proportions.

Public life and the institutions of government were thereby brought into disrepute: by 1734 Parliament had lost much of the respect it had enjoyed in the early years of the century; an ever franker acceptance of the greedier side of human nature strengthened self-seeking, weakened altruism and vulgarized politics, until critical issues of state became a matter of personal vendetta…. Each year that Walpole remained in power lowered the standards of public life, for the vituperation and criticism were as responsible as the long years of power for hardening his nature and coarsening his response to life.

###

J. H. Plumb. Sir Robert Walpole, the King’s Minister. 1961. Pp. 330-332. 

Election Analysis 2024

  

                  

Since former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamela Harris in the 2024 Presidential election, I have read a number of analyses of the election results and all, whether Republican or Democrat, blame the Democrats for the defeat. Harris is blamed for not being a good candidate. President Joe Biden is blamed for not stepping down sooner. The Democratic party is blamed for being overly “woke” and out of touch with ordinary Americans.  Even the millions of people who voted for Trump are blamed for being racist, bigoted, and misogynistic.

However, I have not seen one analysis where Trump is given any credit for his remarkable victory. Even the conservative editorial writers and columnists at the Wall Street Journal cannot give an ounce of credit to Trump or his team. Indeed, throughout the long-drawn-out campaign, these commentators found it difficult to say even one good word about Trump. It is as if they feared alienating friends or colleagues in the industry. The editors of the WSJ consistently believed that Nikki Haley or anyone else were better candidates than Trump, and despite their losses in the primaries, would have been easy winners for the Republican party. 

In any contest, it is usually the superior player who wins.  Can it be that Trump was the superior player in 2024? Since Trump first entered the political arena in 2015, I have never seen such enthusiasm for a candidate. It grew as he demolished leading Republicans in the 2016 campaign, and then upset Hillary Clinton in the Presidential election. His controversial defeat in the 2020 election obviously did not diminish the enthusiasm of his millions of supporters and ultimately it carried him to victory this year. Without that enthusiastic base no Republican could have won. Was this enthusiasm based on nothing? Was it totally unreasonable?

I have talked with a number of Trump supporters over the years, and I can point to a few reasons for his popularity. In the first place, from the moment he entered politics, it was clear that Trump was not a politician. Perhaps this is the reason why so many in the governing class despise and hate him. He was rich but he was not one of them. No one has ever accused him of being a politician. To put it in a positive way, he appears to his base as genuine, and not as a phony. He is incredibly rich and flaunts it, but still seems like a regular guy. 

I believe that his supporters also admire his courage. He showed a lot of courage in taking on the Republican establishment in 2015. As President I recall his seemingly innumerable press conferences where he took on the entire attacking press corps without benefit of teleprompter or staged questions. Compare his bravado to Biden and Harris who hardly ever held a press conference. 

Who can forget that moment in Butler, Pennsylvania when an assassin’s bullet came within an inch of taking his life. He could have stayed on the ground covered by Secret Service agents, but something in this 78-year-old man made him rise and shake a defiant fist in the air. 

Maybe, courage has something to do with the fact that Trump might be the hardest political campaigner in history. I know he gave practically the same speech at every rally, but he was still out there night after night right till the last day of the campaign.

Trump should also be given some credit for his actual campaign. He obviously picked a team of very talented and capable people. Only after the election did we find out that the leader of the campaign was Susie Wiles. She led a campaign that won every battleground state, as well as the popular vote. The media totally overlooked her. They still don’t know how she did it.

 

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Two Resumes

  

                  

This week at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Democrats nominated Vice President Kamela Harris to be their standard bearer in the November election. She will face off against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. Now would be a good time to compare the two candidates. 

Theoretically, we are their potential employer, and let’s imagine that we are looking at their resumes and considering their qualifications for the job. Of course, like any good employer, we should not consider their age, gender, race, creed, or color. Let’s concentrate on their recent work experience.

First, we find that Donald Trump has actually served four years as President of the USA. He has four years of on-the-job experience. We see that his administration had some major successes in foreign affairs. He met with many foreign leaders, both friend and foe, and the World was at relative peace, especially after ISIS was defeated in Iraq.  Toward the end of his term, his administration brokered the Abraham Accords, an historic first step in normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. There was no war in Ukraine.

Domestically, his most important achievement was tax reform that made the tax system not only fairer and simpler, but also more growth oriented. It is important to understand that the Trump reform was not really a cut in taxes but a cut in tax rates both personal and corporate. In 2016, before tax reform, the Federal government collected $3.27 trillion in taxes. By 2019, before the pandemic hit, total tax revenues rose to $3.46 trillion. Moreover, during the Trump administration employment and real wages reached all-time highs.

But more than anything else, he was always up front, a leader in both foreign and domestic affairs. We remember his many press conferences where, unscripted and without a teleprompter, he took on all questions from largely hostile media.  Even during the Covid crisis, he was on stage practically every day during that national emergency. Whatever you think of vaccines, there is no doubt that he acted with firmness and alacrity in their development. 

In summary, his resume shows four years or relative peace and prosperity despite a pandemic, and despite incredible and unprecedented opposition from his political opponents.

 

Now, let’s look at the resume of Vice-President Harris. There is a lengthy goal statement, but one wonders why she has not achieved any of these goals in the past three and a half years of the Biden/Harris administration. She plans to do many things on Day 1 of her administration, but since she is in office right now, why hasn’t she done them already? 

I would ask any reader to help me list three significant things that she has achieved as Vice-President. I can offer a couple of hints. She obviously participated in the coup that put an end to President Biden’s re-election campaign. After years of lying about how sharp and capable he was, she helped to throw him under the bus. If she is truly running the show now, she added insult to injury by putting Biden on the DNC stage at 11:30 on Monday night.  

She also appointed Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate. His only qualification seems to be that he will not outshine her. Otherwise, her resume is blank for the past three and a half years. What has she been doing during that time? She was supposed to be Border Czar, but her handlers have deleted that item.

Finally, her resume shows no evidence of any real leadership. Did she play an important role in the inner circles of the Biden administration? Or is her call for a new era of hope and joy, a critique of that administration? Who knows? She is being hidden from view in the same manner as Biden four years ago, she gives no interviews or press conferences. Her speeches are all ghost written and delivered via teleprompter. It is true that she does a good job of reading from a teleprompter.

I watched her acceptance speech to see if she added more information on her role in the Biden administration. She briefly mentioned three things. First, she warned President Zelensky of Ukraine that the Russians were about to invade.  Three years later, the war goes on. Second, after three years of an open border policy she worked this year to create a border bill but that was somehow derailed by former President Trump. Finally, she is currently working with President Biden to end the Gaza war, but so far with no success. That was all she could say about her record as Vice President. She spent much more time talking about her mother.

 

Who would you hire?

 

###

NABJ and the Great White Whale

 

Early this month Donald Trump appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists (NJAB) conference for an interview. He was questioned by three Black women journalists for about a half hour. It was supposed to be an hour, but equipment problems caused a delay. After hearing about the interview and seeing some negative clips, I decided to watch the whole thing on YouTube.

 

I have to say that I think Trump did a pretty good job. For the most part he was calm, relaxed, and conversational. He was not aggressive or bombastic. More than his words it was his manner that made him appear genuine. Like him or not, you would have to admit that Trump is genuine. Although most commentators fail to understand, Trump appears real and not like an ordinary politician. Certainly, this was the way he appeared in this brief interview. 

 

In the first place he showed up to face the music. President Biden, and Vice-President Harris had also been invited but found reasons to excuse themselves from participating in an unscripted interview. Moreover, Trump accepted the challenge despite the fact that it might be a hostile audience, and that the interviewers might be out to nail him. Indeed, in the first question, the journalist indicated that many felt that Trump was not welcome at the conference and went on to give a lengthy rehash of Trump remarks that Blacks might find offensive. 

 

Trump calmly took offense at her statement and called it rude. Was this the kind of intro he deserved? Didn’t he rate even an hello or how are you, or thanks for coming even though the others had bowed out? What about the fact that he was there taking questions when only a month before, he had escaped death by less than an inch from an assassin’s bullet? Of course, there was no apology.

 

After that, I thought that Trump handled the questions pretty well. Readers can watch the video and make up their own minds. I would just like to comment on the type of questions these journalists asked. Journalists deal in words. They do not make things; they do not fix or repair things. They do not build things. They deal in words. And so, they concentrated on what Trump said, and not on what he actually had done in his four years as President. 

 

The first journalist asked if Trump thought Vice President Harris was a DEI candidate? Another asked if he thought a white policeman should have immunity if he shot a black person. One asked what he would do for the Black community if elected. Apparently, none of these journalists had ever bothered to investigate what Trump had actually done for blacks during his Administration, or else, they did not want to bring up the substantial increase in black wages and employment that his policies had created. 

 

The media is called the media because it is a medium through which a politician or other newsmaker can be revealed to the public. No matter what the color of their skin, journalists should not inject their own bias into an interview. They should give the subject a fair hearing so that people can make up their own minds. 

 

 

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Trump's Acceptance Speech

 

    

 

 

Our political arena seems to change as rapidly as a summer storm, and even though President Biden has now withdrawn from the race, I still would like to post on Trump's speech at the RNC.

My wife and I stayed up to watch the whole of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Frankly, it proved to be disappointing. I could only give him a C+: C because it was average, but + for its stirring and emotional beginning when he gave his account of the assassination attempt on the previous Saturday. 

 

Let’s take the high-point first. For the first time we heard him describe what it was like to be a victim of a shooting. It was a riveting account of the incident from his own perspective. It was especially moving when he described his attempt to show the stunned crowd that he was ok. It got even better when he praised the Secret Service agents who rushed to the stage to shield his body with their own. He wisely chose to avoid casting any blame. He was truly magnanimous. He topped it off mentioning the other victims of the attack one of whom lost his life by shielding his own family from the bullets. He pointed out that he had visited the families and that millions of dollars have been raised for them. 

 

In these first 30 minutes he was gracious, kind, and thankful. He showed true humanity. Who can fault someone who had come within an inch of his life for believing it was a miracle or that divine providence was at work. He could have ended the speech right there, and it would have been a rousing success.

 

Nevertheless, he went on and on for an hour more, and still missed a golden opportunity. He had indicated after the shooting that he planned to make major changes in his speech, changes that would reach out to more than his base and call for national unity. After thanking the assembled delegates for their support, he could have said something like the following.

 

“I want to thank you all for your support and enthusiasm, but I would like to pause our celebration for a few minutes to speak to those in our country who can’t stand me or what I stand for. Not only do they dislike me, but they also fear that I will be a dictator and bring an end to democracy in our country. Some have even called me Hitler. To those people I would just say that rather than imagining what a Trump administration would look like, just go back and consider what my first administration was like. 

 

Dictators routinely arrest, imprison, and execute their political opponents. Nothing like that ever occurred during my Administration. Do you remember how my supporters demanded that Hillary Clinton be locked up? During my term in office, she was never investigated, much less indicted. We had more important things to do. Today, I will go even further and promise that during a second Trump administration, there will be no prosecution of the current President or his family. Joe will be able to retire to his Delaware estate, drive his Corvette, and never worry about Federal agents invading his home in the middle of the night.

 

We brought peace and prosperity to this country. There was no bloody war in Ukraine, ISIS terrorists were defeated in Iraq, and there was peace in the Middle East. We even brokered the Abraham Accords where for the first time, Arab states recognized the right of Israel to exist. No one was a greater supporter of Israel than myself, and antisemitism did not rear its ugly head in our country during my Administration. And yet, I’m called Hitler, and my supporters Nazis or Fascists.

 

You may disagree with my policies, but you must admit that we had prosperity as well as peace during my administration. Wages were at all time highs, and there was virtually no cruel inflation to wipe away these gains. We were energy independent, and gas and oil prices were half what they are now.

 

Please, you don’t have to imagine and fear what a Trump administration would look like. You just have to look back and see what we actually accomplished from 2016 to 2020. Despite incessant and unprecedented political opposition, and a pandemic, there was peace and prosperity at home and abroad. If elected, I will dedicate myself to peace at home and abroad, and not to senseless political revenge and retribution."

 

PS. We had company the first three nights of the Convention, and only tuned in on Thursday night for Trump’s speech. To me the highlight of the evening was the appearance of Melania Trump. She reminded me of the advice St. Francis gave to his disciples. “Preach always but use words only when necessary.” She did not say a word but was the epitome of beauty, dignity, and decorum.  

 

Trump Survival

 

No matter what our political persuasion, we should all be extremely grateful that former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped death last Saturday evening. Of course, we should all be happy for him and his family, but we should especially be grateful that only an inch separated our country from unimaginable political chaos. If President Biden and his advisers has been more alert, they would have declared Sunday a National Day of Thanksgiving.

 

I planned to write about other things today but the attempt on former President Trump’s life has made me reflect on his political career and why I have liked him almost from its beginning. I must confess that I am not one of those who have objected to Trump’s rhetoric and wished that he would “tone” it down. I was not originally a supporter but when he demolished a formidable field of Republican opponents back in 2016, I became a fan. Who will ever forget Jeb “low energy” Bush, or “Little” Marco Rubio?  Perhaps it was my New York City origins that made me admire a man who could take the blows and not back down and give as good as he got.

 

I remember a speech Trump gave in Connecticut during his first Presidential campaign. In remarks that seemed to come out of the blue, Trump mentioned that when Hillary Clinton was asked what she thought of him, she replied that she didn’t like his “tone.” He replied, “in the Middle East Islamic radicals are cutting off the heads of people, mainly Christians, drowning others in steel cages, and burying others alive in the desert sand. Yet, she doesn’t like my “tone”. Subsequently, the Trump administration destroyed the ISIS terrorists in Iraq, something that today has largely been forgotten.

 

However, I like Trump mainly because he delivered the goods as President despite unrelenting opposition from Democratic politicians, high ranking government officials, the mainstream media, and even members of his own party. Here are some accomplishments that have also largely been forgotten.

 

The World was largely at peace during his administration. There was no Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there was no war in Gaza. He capped it off with the Abraham Accords, a peace agreement where for the first time some of Israel’s Arab neighbors recognized the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

 

At home his Tax Reform was a model of common sense and simplicity. It bolstered the economy and made the tax code fairer especially for those with incomes below $100,000, the great majority of the population. The standard deduction was raised for all, and tax rates were reduced. A family with less than $28000 per year of income would not pay any Federal Income tax. 

 

Tax deductions like those for mortgage interest and state and local income taxes that mainly benefitted the well to do, were eliminated or capped. Renters, for example, did not benefit from deductions that only helped homeowners, or those who owned more than one home. Moreover, these deductions played a role in driving up the value of homes and pricing lower income people out of the market.

 

Even the lowering of tax rates on corporations was a matter of fairness. Why should American corporations be taxed at higher rates than corporations in other countries? Why were American corporations put at such a disadvantage that they had to build factories and transfer jobs overseas to compete? In addition, higher corporate rates forced these companies to keep their profits overseas to avoid excessive double taxation. 

 

During the Trump administration America was energy independent and was actually exporting energy all over the world. Remember how low gas prices were at the pump. Salaries and real wages for all people were at record highs, and there was virtually no inflation to cruelly wipe away these gains.

 

Even during the pandemic I admired the fact that Trump was always out in front day after day taking the heat despite vicious opposition. In his almost daily press conferences, he made celebrities of government officials like the lady with the scarves, and the now famous or infamous Dr. Fauci. He was ridiculed for suggesting that the virus originated in China, and that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment, but now we know that he was right. He quickly offered help to blue state governors who only responded with ingratitude. 

 

I admit that he was not a perfect President. He talked about “draining the swamp” but did not realize how tough it would be. He was the Captain of the Ship of State, but the crew was disobedient, and sometimes downright mutinous.

 

 He should have left office more gracefully. He should have realized that he had been outsmarted by the Democrats and accepted the results despite evidence of fraud. I listened to his whole speech on January 6, and there was no call for violence or insurrection. Long suppressed videos now show peaceful citizens being calmly escorted through the Capitol by police. There was no insurrection. The protestors were unarmed. There was only one fatality, a female veteran shot in the back by a D.C. policeman while trying to enter a window. 

 

The Republican National Convention begins tonight. Love him or hate him, we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Donald Trump will be there. 

 

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Debate Report Card

 

My wife and I watched the Presidential debate last Thursday night, and it was obvious that President Biden lost. I rate his performance as a “D” because he at least completed the grueling ordeal. My impression was confirmed by watching the spinmeisters discuss the debate afterwards. Even the most die-hard Democrats admitted as much. It didn’t take words. Their faces told the story.

 

 It was not that you could point to a blunder or two. President Biden looked and sounded weak and infirm. One Democratic commentator noted that there is only three years difference in their ages, but Trump looked and acted thirty years younger.

 

Joe Louis, one of boxings greatest champions, once said of an opponent that “he can run, but he can’t hide.” Well, President Biden may be running but he couldn’t hide during the debate. We finally saw the real Joe, or what was left of him at age 81. Finally, he stood alone without even Jill at his side, and we saw him without teleprompter or prepared remarks although he had spent a week preparing. It was sad, even sadder when you consider that he is the President of the United States.  

 

President Biden’s deportment during the debate would make you think that we have not really had a President for the past three and a half years. I would go even further and say that he appears like a figurehead or puppet, and that during his term I suspect that the country has been run by a secret cabinet of non-elected Democratic bureaucrats and advisors working behind the scenes. 

 

For three years Jill and the others in his inner circle must have observed that he was suffering from old age, and that he was no longer fit for the job. Along with a cooperative media, they have perpetrated a colossal fraud on us. They have hidden the real Joe from us but in the debate we could see and hear the truth with our own eyes and ears. 

 

It is hard to believe that the professional politicians who run the Democratic party could have come up with the idea of this early debate. Sure, CNN would give Biden the home court advantage, and the moderators were friendly referees. Nevertheless, debate innovations like shutting off the mikes to prevent interruptions just worked to Trump’s advantage. It toned him down and allowed Biden to disgrace himself.

 

Speaking of Trump, I gave him only a C+ for the debate. He came off as strong and vigorous, and was good on inflation and immigration, but he missed too many opportunities to score. He belabored many points and often repeated himself, and when the moderators tossed him softballs like childcare, he could have hit them out of the park but let them pass. In a night with few memorable lines, he just threw away his best line. When he said something like, “I shouldn’t be here, I should be enjoying a good retirement at some resort, that I was not going to run again until I saw what a bad job Biden was doing,” that statement belonged in his final two-minute summation. 

 

Speaking of grades, I would give an “A” to the two CNN moderators for the way they conducted themselves, and the debate. I thought their questions were fair and balanced, and especially liked the way they reminded the candidates that they had time remaining on the clock to expand on their remarks. I believe that the format should be a model for future debates.

 

###

 

PS. By coincidence, I have been reading the letters of Junius, an eighteenth century critic of the British government on the eve of the American Revolution. In one passage he discussed the Duke of Bedford, an aging aristocrat and minister whose policies contributed to the American war and the eventual loss of the American colonies.

 

“ Let us consider you then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified… can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? And is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, … let it not be recorded of you, that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, although you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigor, of the passions.”

Trump Trial

 

I will hold off on any comments on the recent conviction of ex-President Donald Trump in a New York city court until the matter winds its way through the appeal process. In the meantime, I would just like to comment on the hatred of Trump that lay behind the proceedings. Half the people in this country dislike Trump, and many of those despise, even hate him. What is the cause of this hatred?

 

When I ask people why they dislike Trump, they rarely mention his performance as President from 2016-2020. True, they point to his behavior on January 6, 2021, but their animus preceded that event. Moreover, they rarely mention his policies, foreign or domestic. Some object to his insulting remarks about his opponents. They just wish he would tone down the rhetoric.

 

I did a search for Trump’s insults and found that the New York Times had compiled an exhaustive list of insults hurled by Trump at various people and institutions from 2015 to 2021.The list is in alphabetical order based on the name of the recipient of Trump’s invective. I only went through the A,B,Cs which I found contained a good sample especially since it included Trump’s opponents in the past two elections. Here is a selection from the Times list.

 

ABC. Fake News. (ABC was first on the list but most media were called fake news)

 

Stacey Abrams. Will destroy the State etc.

 

Jim Acosta. A fake reporter

 

Anderson Cooper. A waste.

 

Bashar al Assad. A gas killing animal who kills his people.

 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements…her mind is shot.

 

Steve Bannon. Sloppy Steve.

 

Paul Begala. Dopey

 

Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bozo

 

Joe Biden. Sleepy Joe etc. (the Biden file is almost a page of small print)

 

Hunter Biden. Crooked as can be.

 

Michael Bloomberg. Mini Mike

 

John Bolton. A warmongering fool.

 

Jeb Bush. Jeb low energy Bush

 

Pete Buttigieg. Alfred E. Newman.

 

James Clapper. Dirty Cop…proven liar.

 

Hillary Clinton. Crooked Hillary etc. (her file is as long as Biden’s)

 

Michael Cohen. Bad lawyer and fraudster.

 

Anne Coulter. Wacky nut job

 

Chris Cuomo. Fredo

 

It seems pretty mild to me except for the charge leveled against Bashar al Assad, the Syrian dictator, who has in fact used poison gas on his own people. Today, after the various hoaxes promoted by the media in the last eight years, “fake news” seems like a matter of fact and not an insult. I found no foul language on the list. Certainly, nothing close to the insulting language hurled against Trump by his opponents. He is often called a Nazi and compared to Hitler. Remember that Maxine Waters, a Congresswoman from California, called him a mother f---er. He did say that Stacey Abrams would destroy the State of Georgia, but recently, outside the NYC courthouse, actor Robert DeNiro claimed that Trump would destroy the Country and the World.

 

No, it is more than insults or rhetoric. For half the country, Donald Trump is the epitome of the big, bad businessman that has been part of American lore from the beginning, especially from the time of the nineteenth century Robber Barons to the present. From Colombo to Law and Order the killer has always been a successful white businessman or professional.

 

From the time he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to declare his candidacy, Trump was the successful white businessman par excellence. Moreover, he showed no guilt about his riches. He had inherited wealth but then increased it immensely. He flaunted his wealth. He lived in Trump Tower and Mar a Lago amid furnishings of gold. He loved to play golf and had a reputation as a womanizer. He married a beautiful young wife after dumping two previous wives. He had a good education but still seemed boorish and uncultured. Most of all, he was not the “not for profit” type. He always watched out for Number 1.

 

Think about it. The last three Democratic Presidents never had to be in business. They never had to run a profit or worry about taking a loss. Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary were lawyer politicians, Barack Obama was a community activist before his election to the Senate from Illinois, and Joe Biden has been in government forever. They were all public servants who made millions, but somehow escaped the opprobrium of being rich.

 

Many years ago I was a young teacher at a newly founded small college in Connecticut. Like me, most of the faculty were liberal arts teachers just out of grad school. For some reason, we all looked down our noses at businessmen even though most of us had little real contact with people in business. We thought they were ill-educated and uncultured, and it seemed especially unfair that they should make much more money than we did. We even looked down upon the school’s fledgling Business department as a kind of necessary evil. I suspect that such anti profit prejudice still prevails today in most colleges and universities despite the fact that most of them now turn out hordes of business majors.

 

As one letter writer in the Wall Street Journal pointed out this week,Trump was prosecuted not because of anything he said or did, but simply because he was Donald J. Trump.

 

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Trump Enthusiasm

 

A recent poll indicated that 97% of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 would again vote for him in 2024. If the poll is correct, of the over 74 million who voted for him four years ago, about 72 million would vote for him again. Despite the repeated claims of his political opponents whose opposition borders on hatred, Trump does not represent a tiny, fringe group of MAGA hat wearing, flag waving supporters.

Super Tuesday has come and gone, and Trump practically swept all the Republican primaries by overwhelming margins, after earlier record-breaking victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan.  Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining Republican opponent, has now dropped out of the race. She was the last hope of the anti-Trumpers, and commentators still claim that Trump cannot win without Haley voters. In reality, a large percentage of Haley votes came from Democratic Trump haters who would never have voted for her in November.

Interestingly, these same commentators never bother to wonder how Haley or any of the other Republican contenders could have won without the votes of Trump enthusiasts. Did Haley or Chris Christie actually think that over 70 million Trump supporters would vote for them after their repeated Trump criticisms? Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida was smart enough not to openly criticize Trump or his supporters during his short-lived campaign, and quickly endorsed Trump after he withdrew from the race.

What explains Trump’s popularity?  During his successful campaign in 2016, I never in all my life saw such enthusiasm for a candidate. Now, eight years later, his popularity remains intact.  Two impeachments did not hurt him, and the recent multiple indictments have, according to a chart in this week’s Wall Street Journal, only increased his popularity. Is it just poor education or irrationality on the part of his supporters, or is there something else? Here are some reasons for the enthusiasm.

In the first place, he already has experience as President. This is very important. I remember that back in 2016 many commentators believed that Trump could not last a month as President. They felt it would be almost impossible for him to even form an administration and govern. Nevertheless, whether you like him or not, you would have to agree that he was up to the job. I will not list the many accomplishments of his term since he continually refers to them in his speeches. But more than anything else, he was always up front, a true leader in both foreign and domestic affairs. Even during the Covid crisis, he was on stage practically every day during this national emergency. Whatever you think of vaccines, there is no doubt that he acted with firmness and alacrity in their development.

Secondly, there are his words, his manner, and behavior. Detractors, who will never vote for him anyway, want him to tone it down. But his supporters want him to do just the opposite. So what if he fooled around with women in the past, not one of his many critics ever accused him of sexual misbehavior while in office. He certainly never had sex with a young intern in the White House. 

So what if he ridicules his opponents. His supporters love when he pricks the balloons of the high and mighty. Think about it and compare his jibes to those insults hurled at him by his haters. Did he ever call anyone a mother f----er? Don’t his critics have a sense of humor? His supporters, after being ridiculed and derided as deplorables, love his combative personality. Did nice words ever prevent Mitch Romney from being derided as a heartless nabob who wanted to deprive grandma of benefits?

Trump detractors never mention his actual performance as President. They just don’t like him, period. Basically, they dislike the fact that he is a white businessman who is not only wealthy but who also flaunts his wealth. But his supporters love the fact that he made his money in the private sector battling in the shark tank that is New York City real estate. They want a shark in the White House and not a feeble old man like his successor who somehow made millions for himself and his family as a career public servant.  

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Trump DeSantis Ticket

  

Trump and DeSantis

 

Last week I conducted my own informal poll of Republican Trump supporters on whether they would like to see Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as Donald Trump’s choice for his running mate in the Presidential campaign.  All believed it would be a great idea.  A few days later, right before the New Hampshire primary, Governor DeSantis withdrew from the race and announced that he would support President Trump.

Now that Donald Trump has defeated Nikki Haley by 11 points in New Hampshire, I think his way is clear to the Republican nomination despite Haley’s determination to carry on. No matter what she does, I think it would be good to examine the pros and cons of a Trump/DeSantis ticket.

Trump does not need DeSantis to shore up his base. In all my life I have never seen such enthusiasm for a candidate as Trump has garnered since his entrance into politics in 2015. Despite all the criticism, harassment, impeachments, investigations, and indictments, his supporters still love him. In 2020 an unprecedented 74 million people voted for Trump, and I doubt if any of them have changed their mind since then, especially considering what has happened at home and abroad during the past 3 years of the Biden/Harris administration.

What DeSantis can add to the ticket is an heir apparent. Critics claim that Trump will be a lame duck if elected in November, and because of that he will have even more difficulty governing than he did during his first administration. DeSantis provides a competent, experienced, and youthful successor to the aging Trump. He would be a natural to carry on the conservative agenda in 2028, as well as step in if Trump were to experience health issues before then. What a contrast it would be to the Biden/Harris ticket. Even Democrats shudder at the possibility that Biden, already obviously suffering from old age, would be succeeded by Kamela Harris.

It is true that Trump has had bad words for DeSantis since 2020. Trump had helped DeSantis win an unprecedented landslide in Florida, but then believed that DeSantis had failed to reciprocate. A couple of years ago, when DeSantis responded “no comment” when asked if he planned to run for President, Trump felt he was being disloyal. In hindsight, it would have been much better for DeSantis to have responded: “President Trump did a great job during his term in office, and if he chooses to run again, I will support him. I will only consider running if he chooses not to run.” Given his results in recent month he would have saved a lot of time and money. 

Nevertheless, politics is politics and if Joe Biden could choose Kamela Harris as his running mate after what she said about him in debates, there is no reason why Trump and DeSantis cannot mend their fences and forge a winning combination for November.

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Trump Interview

 

Former President Donald Trump appeared on the Tucker Carlson prime-time cable news program the other night. Actually, Carlson devoted his whole show to playing segments of an interview he had conducted with President Trump at his Florida home, Mar a Lago. I know there are many people who cannot stand to listen to Trump or Fox News, but for those who claim that would like to see a kinder, gentler Trump, it would be good for them to watch this interview. Excerpts can be seen on YouTube. *

 

I am not a regular viewer of any cable news channel but did tune in to see what the former President had to say. It was refreshing that Carlson generally let Trump speak without interruption, or the back and forth that often characterizes such interviews. Carlson realized that Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, and that his audience wanted to hear him. I did not take notes but here are a few items that struck me while listening. 

 

Trump looked and sounded remarkably fit for a man his age. Is remarks demonstrated both intelligence, and considerable experience. He sounded Presidential. There was little rancor or recrimination. When asked his opinion of President Biden, there was sadness in his voice. It was almost with pity that he noted that you just have to look at the President, or hear him speak, to realize that there is something wrong with him. He said that it was not a question of age, for he knew people even at age 95 who were still sharp as a tack. There was no bitterness in these remarks, just sadness that we have a leader that no one respects, especially abroad. Foreign leaders will not even take his calls.

 

He went on to say that the Democratic party will have a real problem if Biden is not able, physically or mentally, to be the candidate in 2024. They will be stuck with under-performing Vice-President Kamela Harris. If Democrats try to discard Harris in favor of a white male like California Governor Gavin Newsome, they will lose millions of supporters who will be furious at the rejection of a woman of color. 

 

At another point in the interview Trump contrasted his administration with Biden’s. He pointed out the obvious facts that there was no war in the Ukraine during his administration, and that China did not threaten to invade Taiwan. Instead, he claimed that he had opened the doors of diplomacy and communication with Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and even North Korea, and that the leaders of these countries respected him. 

 

It is interesting that most of the interview was concerned with global security issues. Trump repeated his assertion, voiced when he first ran for President, that the greatest threat to our planet is not global warming but “nuclear warming.” He pointed out that nuclear weapons today are 500 times more powerful than the ones that levelled Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost 80 years ago. He revealed that our nuclear arsenal was equal to Russia’s, and that China lagged behind but would be our equal in five or six years. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is a thing of the past, and many nations are striving to join the nuclear club. He claimed that while there is  incessant talk and fear about global warming, no one seems to be concerned with the much more imminent and catastrophic threat of nuclear war.

 

He also discussed his indictment by a New York prosecutor. He was calm and matter of fact and did not think the prosecution would amount to anything. Even the police who arraigned him were apologetic and tearful during the process. He did not think this political prosecution or persecution would hurt his election prospects. He said that his recent rallies were the largest and most enthusiastic he had ever seen, and that a recent poll showed him nine points ahead of Biden.

 

As I said above, if you want a kinder, gentler Trump, look at this interview. Trump came across as Presidential, and electable.

 

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* Note. Some of these excerpts contain disparaging, misleading captions and interruptions. I would also like to note that a routine google search for an image of Donald Trump rarely turns up a flattering one. It is just the opposite doing an image search for President Biden.

Trump's Prospects

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Daniel Henninger, editor and regular columnist, repeated the 2020 election analysis that has now become generally accepted. To paraphrase Jane Austen, if President Trump had only behaved in "a more gentleman like manner," he would not have turned off so many voters and lost the election. Or, in the words of a friend of mine, President Trump was a “turn-off, a narcissistic, demeaning bully, as well as an egotistical BS artist." To give my friend credit, he voted for Trump, because he believed the alternative was even worse. Other acquaintances went even further and regarded Trump with dislike bordering on overt hatred.

However, if President Trump’s personality turned off so many voters in 2020, how did he manage to get over 11 Million more votes than he did in 2016? In 2020 his 74 Million votes set a record for an incumbent President. Now that Donald Trump has officially entered the 2024 presidential race, it might be helpful to take a closer look at the figures of the last election.

First, here is a spreadsheet that compares the Trump vote totals in 2020 and 2016.  First are four key battleground states that gave Joe Biden the victory in 2020, then four "red" states, and then two different "blue" states. 

 

	2020	2016	Increase	Gain%
Arizona	1661686	1252401	409285	32.68%
Georgia	2461854	2069154	392700	18.98%
Pennsylvania	3377674	2970733	406941	13.70%
Wisconsin	1610184	1405284	204900	14.58%
Total	9111398	7697572	1413826	18.37%
Florida	5668731	4617881	1050850	22.76%
North Carolina	2758775	2362631	396144	16.77%
Ohio	3154834	2814005	340829	12.11%
Texas	5890347	4685047	1205300	25.73%
	17472687	14479564	2993123	20.67%
California	6006429	4483810	1522619	33.96%
CT	715291	673215	42076	6.25%
Total	74223369	62984828	11238541	17.84%

In the four battleground states that decided the election by the slimmest of margins, his vote total increased by over 18% with a whopping 33% increase in Arizona. How did he win easy victories in Florida and Ohio, states that were very close in 2016? Polls (who can believe them anymore?) showed those states in play in 2020 but President Trump won easily. In Ohio he gained over 340000 more votes, a 12% increase over 2016. In Florida his vote total was a Million more than it was in 2016, a gain of over 22%. Polls showed even Texas close in 2020 but Trump won going away. He increased his 2016 vote total there by 1.2 million votes, a 25% gain. 

Even in California, the bluest of states, President Trump gained over 1.5 Million votes, a 33% increase, despite the fact that his voters had to know that there was no chance of winning in California. More than anything else the California vote indicates an incredible level of enthusiasm for the candidate. In fact, the above figures show that despite four years of bitter opposition on the part of Democratic politicians, the main stream media, and even the the Federal government establishment, President Trump gained in popularity. Despite two failed impeachment attempts, official investigations, and incessant criticism, Trump gained in popularity.

I am not bringing these figures up to replay the last election, but to indicate that the figures are very important for the next one in 2024. Despite media claims, Trump supporters are not a small minority of right-wing nuts. Trump has entered the race and his supporters make up the bulk of the Republican party. He is the front runner and no Republican can win without his supporters. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is an attractive candidate with a good record but he can not beat Trump for the Republican nomination. 

I was sorry to hear that Trump had decided to run in 2024, but not because I don't like him. Actually, I admire his abrasive manner, but I also believe he did an excellent job as President. Nevertheless, I think the office is too much for a man approaching 80, and that it might harm him and his family. Look at poor Joe Biden. But if Trump and DeSantis patch up their personal differences, DeSantis would be a perfect heir apparent. Voters could rest secure that even if old age took its toll on Trump, there would be a  capable successor, something that is notably lacking in the present administration.  Moreover, a Trump/De Santis Administration could  ensure Republican supremacy for not four, but twelve years.

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