Peggy Noonan still doesn't get it - and likely never will

Peggy Noonan's latest column in the Wall Street Journal

But it is a weakness of Trump supporters now that they still cannot take seriously the unreadiness of the White House for a sudden, immediate and high-stakes crisis. They do not see the chaos and the lack of professionalism of the unstaffed government as a danger. It is, a dreadful one.

This is the glaring defect that Peggy fails to see.  It’s not just that the people who govern America don’t care about the people in the country.  It’s that the ruling class has done such a piss poor job of governing.   

They don’t realize that they have done a terrible job because they are doing really, really well for themselves.  In that, they resemble the oligarchs and dictators who rule in places like Cuba and Venezuela.  They are fat, happy and rich while their people go dumpster diving for food.   

Americans living in places away from the metropolitan areas on both coasts are not yet in the same shape as Venezuelans, but they have seen their jobs and dreams escaping thanks to the plans and policies of the ruling class who exported their jobs to third world countries and their dreams for their children buried under piles of college loan debt that did not provide the future they were promised. 

Peggy Noonan, apparently like many, believes that Trump’s occasional callousness and crassness are unprecedented.

As Victor Davis Hanson shows, she's dead wrong.

With all due respect, I don’t think we “all” know that this started with Trump, however crass he can be. Rather, we know all too well the political landscape a decade before Trump.

Do we recall the recent deranged talk of 2004-8 from the Democratic Party, the popular culture, and the media—or the relative passivity of the wounded Bush administration in response to such venom?

Why, after all, did Alfred A. Knopf publish the novel Checkpoint, a boring and tired rant about fantasizing the assassination of then-President Bush? Who created the particular landscape that encouraged filmmaker Gabriel Range to offer up “Death of a President”that trafficked in the same fantasies of a Bush assassination?

Why would the Guardian publish an op-ed by “satirist” Charles Brooker’s dreaming of the need for another John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald to repeat their needed work—a theme in part that actor Johnny Depp has recently channeled against Trump.

Were premonitions of Trump in 2004 befouling our political discourse?

What were the “origin and rationale” of the Jonathan Chait’s 2003 New Republic screed, “Why I Hate George W. Bush” in which he began: “I hate President George W. Bush There, I said it . . . I hate the way he walks—shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks—blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudo populist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him.”

Had Chait become unhinged by reading The Art of the Deal?

Peggy has been coasting for most of her life on her role as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. In her old age, she has become a sad spectacle.

Peggy Noonan’s cheap shot.

Donald Trump has been known to use hyperbole. Peggy Noonan is known for faithfully reflecting the conventional thinking of Washington DC, known by people outside the Beltway as “The Swamp.” By reading Noonan we find out what the alligators in the swamp are talking about. Her latest column questions his sanity and councils him to shut up and sit down if he wants to finish his term.

She quotes him as saying

“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

And then snarks:

“Actually Lincoln got secession, civil war and a daily pounding from an abolitionist press that thought he didn’t go far enough and moderates who slammed his brutalist pursuit of victory. Then someone shot him in the head. So he had his challenges.”

This may be a good time to remind Peggy of a little history. The Civil War didn’t start at Lincoln’s election.  He wasn’t shot by a Democrat actor until he began his second term. Hollywood had not been invented yet but John Wilkes Booth would have been sympathetic to the way that SNL and late night comics attacked the current Republican President.

The attack on Fort Sumter, which set off the Civil War, began On April 15th of 1861, five months after the election.  Perhaps in Peggy's mind secession, rebellion, civil war, and Lincoln's assassination all blur together.  These things take time, Peg.  But the media and the Democrats - but I repeat myself - are working hard on it.  

Talk of secession is getting serious consideration today. Groups in California,  Oregon, Oklahoma, Maine, New York and  various speakers for Liberal, urban America are talking about it and it’s getting some serious money behind it, especially in California which considers Trumps voters to be sub-human troglodytes.  It's not that much different than the views of Democrats of 1860 regarding Black people. In terms of secession planning Democrats in 1860 were ahead of the curve, their modern counterparts are just getting their act together with a riot here and death threats there.

Of course, newspapers in 1860 were divided between those who supported Lincoln and wanted to abolish slavery and pro-Democrat papers who supported slavery. Today the press speaks with one voice.  It speaks for Democrats, wishing to overturn the election and remove Trump.

Before the election Democrats claimed Trump was "threatening our democracy" by refusing to accept the results of the election.  Today, having lost the election, the press and their allies in the Democrat party are refusing to accept the results of the election; a neck-wrenching reversal reminiscent of how Communists did a 180 following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.   

While I'm told that Lincoln was referred to as "Honest Ape,"  the most esteemed orator in 1860s America, Edward Everett, wrote in his diary:

"He is evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis."

From Washington, Congressman Charles Francis Adams wrote,

"His speeches have fallen like a wet blanket here. They put to flight all notions of greatness."

Sound familiar?

If that kind of mild criticism of Lincoln led to a bloodbath, what does it mean for the future of the country when Democrats, the press and comedians accuse Trump of being the agent of America's enemies, giving oral sex to the Russian President and accuse his wife of prostitution.  His son Barron was attacked as a rapist and killer.

Democrats in 1860 were unhappy that a man was elected who believed in the dignity and freedom of all men, not just white men. They were happy to be the ruling class and were determined not to allow a mere election upset the status quo. So they took action and decided that secession and armed rebellion were the answer.   When they lost, they killed the first Republican President.

Of course in 1861 it was easier to stage an armed rebellion. Transportation was primitive and people were most loyal to their community and state. Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union army but, while opposed to secession,  decided his loyalty lay with Virginia. Today it's a little different.  This conflict is cultural.  Academia is rebelling against Flyover Country; it's the Coasts vs. Middle America.

Today, thanks to the unified combination of the press, the Deep State, the Democrat Party and the Never Trump contingent in the Republican Party the Ruling Class believes that they won’t have to begin an armed rebellion to retain their control of the organs of government.

Keep the Lincoln vs. Trump timeline in mind. It’s still in the first innings of their respective presidencies. It’s still possible that the street violence and secession talk with grow into something more deadly. 

Assassination? Several Presidents since Lincoln have been assassinated. Even Presidents who were not compared unfavorably to Hitler. Presidents much less vilified by the popular culture than Trump. He hasn’t even won a second term yet Peggy. Give the Democrats time. I’m sure they’ll get around to it.  I would caution Trump against going to the theater.

(edited)

It’s the big fact of American life now, isn’t it? That we are patronized by our inferiors.

Peggy Noonan (who loved Obama in 2008):

The big fact of the week, however, has to do with these words: They don’t like us. The Democrats, progressives and left-liberals who have been embarrassed by the latest WikiLeaks dump really hate conservatives, or nonleftists. They don’t like half the people of the country they seek to control! They look at that half with disdain and disrespect. Their disdain is not new—“bitter clingers,” “basket of deplorables.” But here it’s so unashamed and eager to express itself.

A stupid man from a leftist think tank claimed the most “powerful elements” in the conservative movement are Catholic. “They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations,” he wrote. Mrs. Clinton’s press aide Jennifer Palmieri responded: “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they become evangelicals.”

When I read that I imagined a conversation with my grandmother, an immigrant who was a bathroom attendant at the Abraham & Straus department store in Brooklyn. Me: “Grandma, being Catholic is now a step up. It means you’re an aristocrat! A stupid one, but still.” Grandma, blinking: “America truly is a country of miracles.”

Here’s what you see in the emails: the writers are the worst kind of snobs, snobs with nothing to recommend them. In their expression and thoughts they are common, banal, dumb, uninformed, parochial.

I don’t know about you but when people look down on me I want them to be distinguished or outstanding in some way—towering minds, people of exquisite sensibility or learning. Not these grubbly poseurs, these people who’ve never had a thought but only a sensation: Christians are backward, I saw it in a movie!

It’s the big fact of American life now, isn’t it? That we are patronized by our inferiors.

Here's the truth, Peggy.

I recall a line from Dr. Zivago that has stayed with me for years. Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago:

"Besides, I've executed better men than me with a small pistol."

Of course the people in the American Ruling class are worms, but they have police power.

They can find a law you've broken and put you in jail. Exhibit A is the poor fool who created that video that Obama and Hillary blamed for Benghazi.

Or they can find a reason to free you from prosecution, like Hillary who committed crimes that sent lots of little people to prison.

The greatest monsters in history have almost always been morally an intellectually inferior. That actually helped them achieve power over people who followed the rules and lived by the law.

Unless we stop it now, we're going to get what we deserve.

Ace of Spades is wrong

It hurts me to say this because I like Ace.  But he's attacked Trump in an illogical way.  He says that Trump's no Reagan, and that's true; there will never be another Reagan. But that's OK. America has, so far risen to the occasion when it's in trouble and leaders have sprung up. Here's where Ace gets a little ugly:

My problem with Trump is that he is a dealmaker trying to make a sale. Right now he's trying to make a deal with conservatives -- so this is the very most conservative we'll ever see him.

If he gets the nomination, he now starts working on making the second part of the deal with the other party in the negotiations, the general public.

So this is the most conservative we'll ever see Trump -- this is the absolute most conservative he'll ever be -- and he's not conservative at all, except, possibly, on immigration. He combines liberal policy impulses with frankly authoritarian or even fascist ones, which he thinks are "what conservatives want," because, frankly, he conceives of us as ugly-minded, stupid dummies who get off on this shit.

That's why he didn't put the "Ban Muslims" line in a more palatable, persuasive form, like "Reduce immigration from Muslim-majority countries or countries with a terrorism problem to a level where we can vet each individual applicant."

No, he put it in the most bigoted, ugly way he could think of, because that's about his level, and because, also, that's what he thinks "conservatives" are.

I was unable to post my response in his comments (server error) so I'll post it here.

Ace, I love you (in a good, manly way of course) but you’re wrong. It’s not because I know how great a President Trump will be, but because the issues you cited are just wrong. Read the O’Reilly transcript and then tell me that Trump was in favor of importing hundreds of thousands of Syrians. “They're living in hell, and something has to be done.” is not “let’s bring them all to the US.” I realize I’m parsing words here, but you don’t go on O’Reilly’s show for an intelligent debate about foreign policy. You go for face time with the public, and then you leave. The same reason you go to any late night comic’s show. It’s not to disagree with the host; it’s to make a good impression and leave.

You then join (in Peggy Noonan’s words) the protected class by dumping on the unprotected class. When you say that “ … he put it in the most bigoted, ugly way he could think of, because that's about his level, and because, also, that's what he thinks "conservatives" are” you’re also impugning (according to the polls) roughly 44% of Republicans who, according to Reuters, support Trump. So yeah, at this point about 44 out of every 100 Republicans like what Trump’s saying and respond positively to how he’s saying it. So you’re saying what every Liberal asshole with a keyboard and a byline has been saying ever since they lost the Solid South: Republicans are ugly bigots.

Now, I don’t want to pick a fight with a guy with whom I often agree so let me give you an alternative theory. Trump understands the majority of the American people have come to the realization that they are about to lose the country they love to people who don’t love it. They understand that they are being tossed by the wayside by both Democrats and Republicans. Their kids are being indoctrinated to hate America. They are being replaced by cheap foreign labor by the managerial class running America’s industries, and their most deeply held beliefs are despised by the Ruling Class who is determined to make them “bake a cake” – a metaphor for forcing them to do things to which they are morally opposed.

Trump, being a smart man, has seized the opportunity to do a hostile take-over of a brand that has been run into the ground by inept management: the Republican Party. But here’s where you and I differ: it would be beyond stupid for Trump to run as the champion of the people who support him, and then give them the cold shoulder once he claims the prize. Trump may not have been the student of political theory that Reagan was, but he’s not stupid and he’s not going to make the mistake that the Republicans have made once they got to Washington. He’s running as a nationalist and if he wins he will govern as one. He will govern as a champion of the little guy, not just pay them lip service at election time. To do otherwise would turn literally everyone against him. That would not build his brand, and one thing Trump knows how to do is build his brand.

Shouldn’t the elites be aligning themselves with their voters?

Glenn Reynolds asks and important question responding to Peggy Noonan, former Obama supporter:

PEGGY NOONAN ON TRUMP: “The biggest reason has been the distance—the chasm—between the party elite at the top, who are more or less for illegal immigration, and the bulk of the party on the ground, who are opposed. In this case there is a chasm between elites concerned that they personally will look bigoted if they take action and voters concerned about who comes into America in the age of ISIS. It is a split, a distance; it is primarily the fault of the top, not the bottom; and Mr. Trump, who through his popularity could choose to be a bridge across the distance is instead functioning as a deepener of it.”

I’m not sure how Trump is supposed to bridge this distance. Shouldn’t the elites be aligning themselves with their voters?

A Week of Political Failures

Peggy Noonan:

House Republicans made it bad for themselves. Putin made it even worse for Obama.

Let me help you with that subhead Peg: 

Republican Establishment fails again.  Obama fails worse than usual.  

Noonan is the Republican Establishment writ large.  She calls Boehner's uselessness "dignity."  

Peggy Noonan gets it almost right

The WSJ’s Peggy Noonan lays out the known facts of the IRS case and concludes that it requires a special prosecutor. She’s right, and frankly, it’s amazing how in a week, the American media has pretty much come around from the question of if a special prosecutor is needed for the IRS investigation, to how broad should be the limits of the special prosecutor’s investigation?

But here’s where Noonan gets it wrong. Right in the last paragraph:

“Again, if what happened at the IRS is not stopped now—if the internal corruption within it is not broken—it will never stop, and never be broken. The American people will never again be able to have the slightest confidence in the revenue-gathering arm of their government. And that, actually, would be tragic.”

Actually it wouldn’t be “tragic” if the American people were not to have confidence in this or any arm of their government. It would be exactly what the Founders called for.

My favorite quotation from the entire 85 editions of the Federalist Papers is this one from Federalist 25 by Alexander Hamilton:

“The people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”

In fact, you could almost sum up the gist of the entire Constitution with that single statement,

I wish I had said that.

Message to Peggy Noonan: "F**k Off" you ugly old white skank.

Peggy Noonan was one of the Rhino-Republicans who helped Barack Obama win the presidency. I was reminded of this by Kyle-Anne Shiver:

When Sarah Palin lifted her pit-bull-in-lipstick foot to the Republican stage in 2008, it took all of five minutes for her to get the rhetorical bulls eye on her forehead. The same Peggy Noonan declared on an open mike that with Palin’s nomination, the election was “all over.”

Here’s Noonan in 2008 on Morning Joe (start at 5:10):

When Obama broke his pledge to take public funds for his campaign (opening his coffers to undocumented credit card contributions from people like Mr. Goodwill Hunting) Noonan insisted that this was not a man who broke his word, but someone who “came to play.”

According to Noonan, Obama wasn’t a Chicago machine politician who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years hearing him spout racist, anti-Semitic, God Damn America sermons; he was “Obambi,” a harmless cuddly little fawn.

Noonan gushes about the ad Obama was running about embracing his “middle American” values, never questioning where he would have gotten these values; Hawaii, Columbia, Harvard, the faculty lounge, Chicago, talking with Bill Ayers, listening to Reverend Wright, buying real estate from Tony Rezko?

Noonan on Obama: “he’s not new on the scene, he’s like us and he’s fabulous.”

Noonan on John McCain during the 2008 campaign: no war hero, just “ … an old white man.”



And Peggy Noonan on Obama’s spiritual advisor, the aforementioned Jeremiah Wright?

He seems like a bright man, warm, humorous and compelling, but also needful and demanding of the spotlight,… What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama's stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be "one of us," that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race. … But I am finding it hard to feel truly upset about what Mr. Wright has said.

Noonan says she disagrees with what Wright says.  How can she not and still show her face? But, there’s always the BUT: ignore the fact that his sermons are racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic and full of hate for America; he’s bright, warm, humorous and compelling. Compelling? What is compelling about what Wright is saying; the hatred of white people, or Jews, or America?

And she follows up with a plea for America to be fooled. She wants Obama to be able to convince us that he can make good change, he’s "one of us."

So today, having helped sell America on Obama, telling us that – except for the bitter clingers – he’s one of us, she find his stock sinking in value and all of a sudden, she’s “one of us” again.

Debbie Schlussel Has her pegged (March 2008): Peggy Noonan: Delusional Obama Gusher, Rev. Wright Apologist & Phony Conservative

I have a message for Peggy Noonan and all the rest of her friends, fuck off and die. We don’t need you, we don’t trust you and we’re not looking for your advice. We see where that led and you’re not welcome.