With discredited former FBI Director James Comey’s self-serving testimony highlighting a handful of things that he claims the president said, far too many commentators have retreated to their default positions. Democrats, who insult President Trump as easily as they breathe, simply played to form. But what’s with some Republicans who are again grumbling about the president’s style — about his "temperament," his tweets, his everyman mannerisms? What’s with the sour grapes Republicans who seem pained even to muster the pallid defense of an appeal to "respect the people’s choice"?
It’s grating. It’s insulting. And it’s clueless. President Trump’s temperament is ideally suited to the times. His character is finely tuned to the tasks at hand. His language reflects the way that normal people speak without worrying about the legalistic parsing of every sentence, or the relentless political "gotcha" game in which the media take words out of context and twist the obvious intent of every comment. In five seconds, and in fewer than 140 characters, his tweets brilliantly disrupt, overwhelm, and redirect entire news cycles. When will Republicans understand that Donald Trump is precisely the president our nation needs to guide us through this turbulent moment in our history?
If God does indeed shed His grace upon the United States, it often takes the form of handing us leaders attuned to the challenges of the times. True, Trump is neither Washington nor Lincoln, but our country is facing neither a new and tentative Constitution nor a pro-slavery secessionist movement. The existential threats of our time are those of a great power in decline. The U.S. has been a unipolar global superpower that stopped being hungry and competitive. The rot from within has reached the point that being patriotic, or putting America first, is considered inflammatory and even wicked. The character of leadership we need now differs greatly from what we needed to face past crises.
The American people had the good sense to ignore the near-uniform, broadly bipartisan judgment of its elite leadership. We elected a president who exudes common sense and plainspoken morality, and who proved his ambition and his abilities by being arguably the single most successful person ever elected to lead a country. We elected a president capable of differentiating the truly important from the day-to-day noise. We elected a president content to get the big themes right without getting entangled in the Orwellian idiom of narratives that bear no resemblance to reality, that oppress us, that subvert morality and common sense, that cause us to judge and be judged by every stray syllable. We elected a president willing to speak unapologetic truths that deflate the pompous pieties of political correctness that have so corrupted our culture. We elected a president smart enough to focus on growing the economy, combating Islamism, and putting our nation’s interests first.
Those struggles are critical to the American future, central to making America great again — the noblest and most obvious goal for an American leader. American weakness and complacency of recent decades have exposed us to a two-pronged threat, one prong from without and one from within.
The external threat is from radical Islamism, a violent supremacist movement out to crush everything in its path. For eight years, we endured an effete, egotistical, elitist, politically correct president, apologetic for our successes and incapable of even acknowledging our enemies. His responses oozed moral equivalence and anti-Western sentiment.
Finally, we have a president capable of facing the truth. Calling out Islamism for the barbaric evil it is. Challenging and empowering the Muslims who mean us no harm to remove any potential confusion driving the supremacists out of their communities. Proud enough of our own traditions to take that message to the very heart of the Islamic world, directly, honestly, with strength, without insult or condescension.
Yet it is Donald Trump whose demeanor makes him an embarrassment to the Washington elites? Please. Trust in media has reached its all-time nadir, and Congress’ approval ratings seldom stray above 20 percent no matter which party is in control. And after eight years of mocking us and exploiting the vapid egomaniacal man-child who held the Oval Office, the world now takes America seriously again.
The internal threat may be even greater than the jihadis. The American left has declared a civil war; most of the rest of the country seems to believe that if we refuse to acknowledge their declaration, it will go away. But make no mistake: the left has opted out of the American system. Poll after poll shows a growing desire to criminalize speech to which someone might take offense. "Religious freedom," which now appears only in quotation marks, is derided as a euphemism for bigotry. Any suggestion that we might want to secure our borders is derided as racism. George Soros and a few cronies fund a massive network of organizations committed to turning Americans against each other. Press coverage of President Trump is uniformly negative — as even the anti-Trump elitists at Harvard have confirmed.
Many Republicans like to pretend that the attacks are personal to President Trump. In their fantasy world, alternative Republican leaders — perhaps even they themselves — would receive fairer treatment. Consideration from Congressional Democrats. Balanced press coverage. They show no interest in defending President Trump — even in the name of a shared policy agenda. They pretend that Robert’s Rules of Order govern a cage match. Having been hostage for decades to political correctness while the country spirals downward, they exhibit every sign of Stockholm syndrome.
Perhaps more than anything else, the milquetoast response by some Republicans to the leftist assault on foundational American beliefs drives home why President Trump is the right man — with precisely the right temperament — for our times.
Bruce Abramson is the President of Informationism, Inc., Vice President and Director of Policy at the Iron Dome Alliance, and a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. Jeff Ballabon is CEO of B2 Strategic, Chairman of the Iron Dome Alliance, and a Senior Fellow at the American Conservative Union's Center for Statesmanship and Diplomacy. To read more of their reports — Click Here Now.
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