Do Trump Hit Pieces Benefit GOP?

(A related story may be found here.)

First, this writer wishes to be clear right off the bat that although he deeply respects Donald Trump, has voted for him, and is enormously grateful for his presidential achievements, this writer's mind remains open regarding the best, most winnable GOP candidate for 2024.

In any case, it's both unfortunate and sad to repeatedly witness large amounts of Wall Street Journal (and other) print spaces devoted to vitriolic Trump hit pieces by its apparent lead editorial voice Peggy Noonan, in the Journal.

A most recent Dec. 10-11 example is titled "Only the Voters Can Crush Donald Trump," a feature that occupies fully half of an editorial page.

Whereas I don't ordinarily characterize the Journal as being overall either conservative or liberal — it has truly excellent and informed writers leaning on both sides — it seems there are few articles with references to Trump that don't carry an obligatory notation that he falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged.

Okay, so I'll admit that I, along with lots of other observers, agree with him.

Those who are determined to imagine differently, might question how a political functionary with no discernable achievements over half a century campaigning from a basement bunker beat him in 2020 by eleven million more votes than his Democrat-revered superstar former boss was able to score in his 2008 election win.

Did the country suddenly have a spectacularly spontaneous epiphany that Joe Biden wasn't the hapless hack whom Barack Obama once warned never to underestimate an ability to "F*** things up" after all?

In case of further continuing doubt about influential media complicity in that remarkable 2020 outcome, it may be illuminating to direct some attention to tranches of so-called "Twitter files" currently being released by Elon Musk exposing evidence of brutal social media censorship of pro-Trump and conservative tweets in the run-up to that election.

Noonan opens personal attacks on Trump with reference to a "dining with anti-Semites and white supremacists" occasion at Mar-a-Lago.

Here, she ignores the facts that his administration was the first to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, that he moved the U.S. Embassy to there from Tel Aviv, and that his daughter is married to a Jewish husband who played a central, trusted role in negotiating the historic Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain which has opened new opportunities for Mideast peace.

She then goes on to highlight a role "Party professionals and elders" must play to eliminate Donald Trump as a 2024 GOP presidential candidate.

"The first step," Noonan writes, is to "narrow the field."

It's not enough, Ms. Noonan argues, for senators to come forward to "deplore his latest antics," or if "party operatives cast doubt on his viability and writers and thinkers on the right deplore him."

No, since his is a populist movement, "it's the populace that has to turn."

How can this be made to happen? In short, she believes Trump must be totally weakend.

In Noonan's words, "In 2024 Mr. Trump will have to be crushed in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and on Super Tuesday, if that is still the Republican schedule. If that happens, he is revealed as without clout or muscle, and disappears as a force."

As for selecting better alternative candidates, Noonan's first priority "is that they have a real shot, a significant base of support."

If so, one might wonder why she bequeathed the entirety of her big Nov. 28 editorial promo spread to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an unrealistic GOP primary dreamer who excites no cheering throngs this writer is aware of.

Noonan's second priority test for a GOP primary runner is to have a winning campaign message. In this regard, Christie's primary narrative shares Noonan's negative anti-Trump attack focus rather than any compelling evidence of an appealing leadership vision.

As Noonan quotes Christie: "We can't lead and convince Trump folks if we're unwilling to stick our necks out and say his name. . . .  There needs to be a fight out loud, in public."

She then goes on to point out that Donald Trump is not "a transformational figure in the [President] Reagan mold," citing differences between them as fidelity to the Constitution, seriousness and knowledge about issues, personal dignity among them, and transforming the party without splitting it.

But let's also remember that Reagan led our country at a time before neo-Marxists and berserk far-left woke elements later took control of the opposition party, divided the electorate based upon racial and gender politics, and denigrated the entire concept of national pride and patriotism in schools and broader society.

Let's also not forget that same sanctified tribe of elitist Republican establishment "Party professionals and elders" Noonan now refers to allowed this to occur, getting rolled at every turn by ruthlessly dedicated and sly foreign and domestic strategists who played them as naïve, fecklessly impotent posturers.

Yes, if Trump sometimes acted as a jerk  . . .  lacked prudent situational awareness of when to act "presidential" or to openly speak his mind  . . . at least he took them all on and got mobbed and badly bloodied in the process.

Love him, or in Noonan's word, "despise" Donald Trump, support him for another run or not, but let's be very grateful that we're all far better off because he fought for us.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.