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)

“So far all the political violence associated with the election of Trump, from Inauguration to the latest campus rioting, has been on the Left. "

Victor Davis Hanson

So far all the political violence associated with the election of Trump, from Inauguration to the latest campus rioting, has been on the Left. No pro-Trump crowds don masks, break windows or shut down traffic. The crudity in contemporary politics—from the constant sick jokes referring to First Family incest, smears against the First Lady, low attacks on the Trump children, boycotts of the Inauguration, talk and dreams of killing the president—is on the liberal/progressive side. The entertainment industry’s obscenity and coarseness have been picked up by mainstream Democratic officials, who now routinely resort to profanities like s–t and f–k to attack the president. Almost every ethical code—television journalists do not report on air private conservations with their guests during breaks, opposition congressional representatives do attend the Inauguration, Senators do not use obscenities—have been abandoned in efforts to delegitimize Trump.

When Hillary Clinton assumed the mantle of the “Resistance,” she was deliberately using a metaphor to convey the idea that she is analogous to a French patriot under occupation and Trump is a veritable foreign Nazi belligerent.

Read the whole thing.

The Poisoning of Robert Spencer

It's something of which the Virginian Pilot is responsible.

Robert Spencer, the author of several bestselling books on Islam, a brave crusader against the dopier multiculti illusions and the proprietor of the indispensable Jihad Watch, gave a speech at the Grand Hotel, went to unwind at dinner afterwards, and was poisoned by a social-justice warrior.

The Virginian Pilot is part of the network of media publications that spreads the hate.

Protest the Virginian Pilot

The Virginian Pilot is part of the vast web of news media that's in the business of disseminating Fake News.

I think they should be subject to the same kind of demonstrations that they have supported by their editorial policies.  I'm not advocating smashing their windows or setting fires like the masked hoodlums in Berkeley, their cultural heirs.  But they should be made aware that people think enough about the poison they inject into the public bloodstream.  What's interesting about the Virginian Pilot is that everything they produce is both physical and cultural trash.    The physical paper is poisoning the planet and what's written on that waste-paper is poisoning the minds of the people who read it and beleive the lies written there.

And it's all done for the profit of the immensely wealthy Batten family that owns it.

Here's a good place to start demonstrating: 150 W Brambleton Ave, Norfolk, VA

The Press is Promoting Violence Against Conservatives

Robert Spencer is opposed to radical Islam.  For this he was poisoned.

Robert Spencer Poisoned After Giving Anti-Jihad Speech in Iceland

The political atmosphere in Iceland is poisonous if you are on the Right. It's an atmosphere created by the news media which enforces the dominant narrative. It's much like that in the U.S. where Conservatives are attacked by mobs who fear no push-back by either the media of local politicians and law enforcement.

After I spoke last Thursday in the beautiful nation of Iceland, a Leftist in Reykjavik poisoned me.

Perhaps I should have seen it coming. The international Left has rejected free speech, and has embraced violence as a suitable response to speech contradicting its narrative.

My visit triggered a firestorm of abuse in the Icelandic press, all of which was based on American Leftist talking points. Every story about my visit used the same elements. For example, that the Southern Poverty Law Center claims I purvey “hate speech,” which is a subjective judgment used to shut down dissent from the establishment line. Or the fact that I am banned from Britain, with no mention of the key detail: I was banned for saying that Islam has doctrines of violence. (Ironically, Britain has no problem allowing foreign Muslim dignitaries who happen to agree with me to enter.)

Of course, local media also pilloried me for the “crime” of supporting Israel.

Perhaps most absurd of all, Icelandic media published the false claim that I incited the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik to kill. (Sigh. In a world of logical thinking, I’m as responsible for Breivik as the Beatles are for Charles Manson.) After the event, one article even featured a large photo of Breivik, yet it quoted nary a thing I said that evening.

Not one Icelandic media outlet contacted me for comment, much less for rebuttal to the charges they made against me....

Of course, the Icelandic media gave the 50 protesters outside far more extensive and respectful coverage than was given to anything that happened inside. One station aired an interview with me in which the interviewer refused to believe that I did not feel responsible for the Breivik murders, asking me about them again and again. Articles after the event included quotes from the protesters, but none included even a single quotation or description of anything we had actually said.

Clearly, jihad is a subject that Icelandic politicians and opinion-makers do not want Icelanders to discuss.

And that’s all the more reason why it must be discussed.

After the event, my security chief, the organizers of the event, Ms. Williams, and I went to a local restaurant to celebrate its success. But I was quickly recognized: a young Icelander called me by name, shook my hand, and said he was a big fan. Shortly after that, another citizen of that famously courteous land likewise called me by my name, shook my hand, and said “f*** you.”

What likely happened is that this young man, or whoever drugged me, heard that a notorious “racist” was coming to Reykjavik, happened to see me in the bar, and decided to teach me a lesson with some of the drugs that are as plentiful in Reykjavik as they are anywhere else.

I learned my lesson. And the lesson I learned was that media demonization of those who dissent from the Leftist line is direct incitement to violence. By portraying me and others who raise legitimate questions about jihad terror and Sharia oppression as racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” without allowing us a fair hearing, they paint a huge target on the backs of those who dare to dissent.

Those who paint the targets, and those who shoot at them, think they’re doing something great. Not only does the Left fill those whom it brainwashes with hate, but it does so while portraying its enemies as the hatemongers, such that violent Leftists such as the young man who drugged me feel righteous as they victimize and brutalize for the crime of disagreement.

I have no doubt whatsoever that whoever poisoned me in Iceland went away feeling happy over what he had done. If he told anyone what he did, I’m sure he was hailed as a hero. I’m also aware that many who read this will crow and exult in knowing that someone who hates my opposition to jihad terror and Sharia oppression made me seriously ill. This is how degenerate and evil the Left has become.

The people who now run the media - the Gods of the the Culture -  are evil.

Why is the New York Times covering for Erdogan's goons?

Hours after Turkey’s President Erdogan met with President Trump, his security guards attacked a peaceful protest outside the Turkish embassy in Washington. As the New York Times reports:

Supporte

Supporters and opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey engaged in a violent confrontation outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington on Tuesday night. Nine people were injured and taken to a hospital, the District of Columbia’s fire and emergency medical services said.

[….]

That's bullshit. Erdogan's goons attacked peaceful demonstrators.

If the NY Times were published in the year 33 they would describe Jesus Crucifixion as "violent revolutionary subdued by Roman authorities."

Loyalty

Let’s face it; General Flynn is the victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome. And Donald Trump is a decent man who didn’t want to see Flynn destroyed in a hysterical attempt to destroy Trump. So he went to FBI Director Comey to argue for the same kind of prosecutorial discretion that allowed Comey to give a pass to Hillary Clinton for her private server and her lies. The same kind of prosecutorial discretion that allowed Loretta Lynch to refuse to pursue charges against Lois Lerner for using her position to discriminate against Conservatives groups at the IRS.

One of the most disheartening things I saw during the George W. Bush administration was for Bush to allow Scooter Libby to hang out to dry. Libby was the fall guy for Bush Derangement Syndrome and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knew at the very beginning of the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame that Libby was not the leaker – his primary task. But he was determined to justify his pursuit and needed a victim. He chose Libby, who had nothing to do with the original “leak” and ended up getting him indicted and convicted for lying to the FBI when his actual crime was a bad memory.

Which gets us back to Trump’s conversation with Comey. According to a third-had account of a memo written by Comey, Trump told Comey “I hope you can let this go.” What is the “this?” What crime is Flynn accused of? It’s not clear to me. Travelling to Russia and attending a dinner is not a crime. Neither is getting paid for giving a speech. Neither is it a crime to speak with the Russian ambassador. Flynn was fired as Trump’s national security advisor because he either deliberately or inadvertently lied to Vice President Pence about speaking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. But even lying to the Vice President is not a crime. So what is Flynn’s crime? Will he be getting the Scooter Libby treatment and convicted of lying to the FBI about an unrelated event?

I suspect the latter is that case. We all know that if a prosecutor wants to convict you of something he will find something and you will be convicted, or if not convicted be impoverished defending yourself. I suspect that Trump knew this and wanted to protect Flynn from being destroyed simply because he was a Trump loyalist.

That’s what people who are loyal do.

The liberal project wanted the global world. Maybe they didn't understand what came with it.

Richard Fernandez

The liberal project wanted the global world. Maybe they didn't understand what came with it.

The problem may be not with liberal compassion but its eschatology: the Great State at the End of History was their paradise on earth. Progressives built a great state at huge expense and sacrifice, yet now as they approach the Throne in final triumph they are dismayed to see it occupied by Trump! "Tis' witchcraft," said some. "Tis' Russian hacking," said still others. But the words 'any government big enough to give you everything you want [can] take everything you have' never came to mind. Perhaps the real reason for the surprise is our old friend complexity. The liberal project really thought they could control the complex world when it's all you can do to control parts of it.

What globalism forgot is that system complexity doesn't just expand linearly; potential interactions can increase exponentially. As they tore down borders and plugged stuff into whatsis and whosis things not only got more complicated than the Masters anticipated they got more complex than they could imagine.

...

A global cyberattack leveraging hacking tools widely believed by researchers to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency hit international shipper FedEx, disrupted Britain’s health system and infected computers in dozens of other countries on Friday." Everybody was affected. It didn't matter how you voted.

The incident revealed at least ten NHS trusts still relied on the Windows XP. The instrusion allegedly relied on NSA tools stolen during the Obama administration from a contractor. "According to one source, that includes more than 75 percent of the hacking tools belonging to the Tailored Access Operations. TAO is an elite hacking unit that develops and deploys some of the world's most sophisticated software exploits."

....

They couldn't even manage a park. How could they control the world? Which brings us back to the subject of civilizational collapse and runaway hacking. What makes the pubic think governments which run Windows XP and lose secrets can manage Climate, which is as complex as a human organism? Perhaps we have to relearn humility and restore loose coupling between objects. Otherwise the reactive effects will ripple through "unexpectedly". But of course no one will listen, just as in the Jurassic Park movies. It'll be full speed ahead and 'hold muh beer'.

Nixon and Watergate: What Do the MSM and History Books Not Tell Us About the 1970s Scandal?

As mainstream media outlets (such as New York Magazine) prove to be determined, nay, eager, to link Donald J Trump to Richard M Nixon and his firing of FBI Director James Comey to "the greatest political scandal in modern American history," we should all pause to wonder whether what happened in 1974 should truly be described as the media bringing down a president of the United States.

Proving that in America, thanks to the media guardians, even at the highest level, crimes and misdemeanors are punished. (Thanks to Instapundit for the link.)

It turns out that that description is false. That is not what happened.

What happened, and what future history books will have to get right, is that various media leaning towards one party, the opposition party, brought down a member — the highest-ranking member in the government, to be sure — of the governing party.

The truest description of what occurred in 1974 is not that the independent media brought down a president of the United States.

What occurred was that the left-leaning MSM brought down a Republican.

Well, right there we have something that Nixon and Trump have in common: they are both Republicans. Just like George W Bush, Sarah Palin, and Ronald Reagan are or were, they are/were villains who also "deserved" to be countered by the mainstream media and by every honest citizen.

Oh — and don't forget the very first Republican elected to the White House, duly countered in the 1860s by members of the Democratic Party and their allies.

For Republicans, it’s getting dangerous out there

This won't stop even after somebody gets killed.  It's how Democrats roll.

A Tennessee woman, apparently discontent with her congressman’s remarks at a town hall held at the University of Tennessee-Martin, did what any normal, curious and courteous constituent would do to have her followup concerns addressed — she chased his car down, forced him off the road and started screaming and banging on their windows.

She broadcast her violent tantrum on Facebook.

Think about it: Wright was so proud of her behavior that she put it out there for the world to see. She felt no shame; no need to hide her actions.

College campuses are filled with angry, ignorant students influenced by politically progressive and Marxist professors who don’t mind tossing a rock or two at building windows whenever a conservative speaker comes to town. The streets are filled with anarchy-minded individuals who seem to take whatever cause of the day — women’s rights, for example, or climate change — and turn it into a vicious anti-Trump drumbeat that ends with cars ablaze, people injured and general mayhem inflicted....

All this, meanwhile, comes on the heels of an appeal by a Huffington Post editor-at-large for leftists to simply hound those of the pro-Trump camp by following Republican politicians to their places of work, places of dining, places of living, and stand outside and protest and demand answers. Answers to what? Apparently, to why they’re Republicans, refusing to vote Democratic.

But this is the tone and atmosphere of the country right now. And it’s one created and fueled solely by the left. So what’s a good Republican to do to stay safe?

As a former Marxist President once said, punch back twice as hard.

Beware of the Ruling Class

The Ruling Class don't approve of the results of the last election.  They don't like the people who voted for Trump.  They never expected that their efforts to convince you that Hillary was inevitable would fail.

They are determined to overturn the last election and are engaged in a great propaganda war for the purpose of stopping Democracy before it gets out of hand. HERE is a revealing article that explains what the ruling Class thinks and how it maintains its control.

This article examined the major thinkers in the field of mass media, the media power structure and the techniques used to manipulate the masses. I believe this information is vital to the understanding of the “why” in the topics discussed on The Vigilant Citizen. The “mass population” versus “ruling class” dichotomy described in many articles is not a “conspiracy theory” (again, I hate that term), but a reality that has been clearly stated in the works of some of the 20th century’s most influential men.

Lippmann, Bernays and Lasswell have all declared that the public are not fit to decide their own fate, which is the inherent goal of democracy. Instead, they called for a cryptocracy, a hidden government, a ruling class in charge of the “bewildered herd.” As their ideas continue to be applied to society, it is increasingly apparent that an ignorant population is not an obstacle that the rulers must deal with: It is something that is DESIRABLE and, indeed, necessary, to insure total leadership. An ignorant population does not know its rights, does not seek a greater understanding of issues and does not question authorities. It simply follows trends. Popular culture caters to and nurtures ignorance by continually serving up brain-numbing entertainment and spotlighting degenerate celebrities to be idolized. Many people ask me: “Is there a way to stop this?” Yes, there is. STOP BUYING THEIR CRAP AND READ A BOOK.

Some insight into Egyptian women and their "rights" that may surprise

“In Egypt, there is no girls living alone; single girls alone, this — it is not allowed socially! It is unapproved in Egyptian society. Egyptian girls must always live with the family if they are not married. The married girls live with the husbands, yes, but the single girls always live with the families.”

The female Istanbulite’s eyebrows leaped up in anticipation of news of an incoming women’s rights violation. “Trigger warnings” weren’t a thing back then, so far as I can remember, but even if they were, this bombastic professor would not have come with one. Asks the Turkess: “Women can’t live alone? Why? What if they’re students?”

The professor continued gracefully with his energetic explanation: “Aha, yes, sometimes if the girls are students they live in the dormitory. But this is rare, very rare. Not common, I think. Girls who are studying at the university also live with the family mostly. In Egypt it is not acceptable in society for the girl to live alone. If girls will live alone in an apartment, this will be shocking, it will be disgraceful. Even sometimes the janitor in the building, or the electrician, or the neighbor, he will knock on the door or he will find the girl, and he will say ‘Hey, you! What are you doing? Where is your husband? Where is your father? Why are you living alone here? Are you having men come in your apartment? Do you meet men there? Do they pay you to come there? What are you doing there alone?'”

The Turkish girl’s eyebrows at this point were practically detached from her head, so wide were her eyes with shock: “That’s… that’s horrible! Women have a right to live by themselves if they want to! Women have a right…” More high-pitched, futile cosmopolitan protests followed, but the conversation had essentially ended there, with an unperturbed professor shrugging his shoulders and rushing off to a meeting (with a dramatized wave, a hint of a bow and a gracious “Ma’a As-Salaama!” [“Good-bye!” in Arabic] — as always) and an amused me, softly smiling outwardly, and inwardly chuckling the kind of mischievous chuckle one can only enjoy after witnessing a truly monumental yet unintentional trolling. The disquieted young lady turned to me slack-jawed for reassurances for her offended liberal sensibilities, but I too had places to be, and quickly emulated the professor’s neutral exit. “Well, I guess that’s just how it is over there! See ya later!”

The explanation ...

... in Egypt, a girl living alone is immediately and automatically assumed to be a prostitute. And, hilariously, by the standards of Islamic Egyptian society, single girls living alone in the West are invariably precisely that: whores. And, distressingly, single girls living alone in the West are invariably whores by the standards of the Western society of 1950, of 1850, of 1750, 1650…

Read much more HERE

Law enforcement as it was practiced.

Lose weight the Venezuela way.

Another among the millions of reasons Trump was elected

Democrat Refers to Middle America as ‘Podunk, USA’

But is it Rape Rape?

From USA Today (You Can't Make This Up Department)

Most U.S. colleges — 89% — reported zero incidents of rape in 2015, according to American Association of University Women (AAUW) analysis of data provided by schools to the U.S. Department of Education.

Of course the numbers have to be fake because we all know that college women are raped a lot.

Reported is the key word. Just because a school had no rape reports doesn’t mean no rapes happened.

It's just that when college women are raped, it's covered up by these same women.

AAUW’s findings very likely do not reflect the true state of sexual violence among college students, since a majority of incidents go unreported. In fact, a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that 80% of student victims don’t report their rape or sexual assault to police, based on data from 1995–2013.

And it looks like things are getting worse.

Still, the 2015 AAUW report isn’t as rosy as the previous year’s. In 2014, 91% of schools reported zero rapes, based on annual crime data disclosed by more than 11,000 colleges and universities.

Apparently women in college often view rape like getting a paper cut, not very important at all.

Why the apparent disparity between reported and actual numbers? Victims have numerous reasons for not reporting their assaults. Twelve percent of victims felt their assaults were not important enough to report to police, according to the DOJ data. Other reasons cited for not reporting include personal reasons and fear of reprisal.

I'll consider campus rape important when the women on campus who are raped consider it important. 

Religion of Peace Calling

Imam accused in Denmark of calling for murder of Jews

Imam Mundhir Abdallah preaches in the working class Copenhagen suburb of Norrebro at the Masjid Al-Faruq mosque, which media have previously linked to radical Islam.

He stands accused of citing a hadith or koranic narrative on March 31 calling for Muslims to rise up against Jews.

"Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them," begins Abdallah's address in footage on YouTube, according to a transcript of the original Arabic provided by US organisation the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Don't worry about a thing, Islam is the Religion of Peace.

Aaaaaand "By Thursday morning, the whole scandal had substantially come unraveled"

Charles Hurt on the latest round of Fake News

Every time the Washington political press freaks out and goes into full panic mode against President Trump, the blockbuster, Watergate-volume story always unfolds the same way.

First the news starts leaking or breaking. Newsrooms from the Potomac to the Hudson become seized and fixated on every morsel of the delicious story. News flashes zing around the internet.

Then it hits cable television and the press starts slinging the most salacious and scandalous accusations they can whip up, charging the president with the highest crimes imaginable.

Each time, these reporters sink deeper and deeper into a fantasyland as they dream bigger and bigger. THIS TIME, they keep thinking, we FINALLY got him!

Reporters and Democrats alike — not to repeat myself — are actually now speculating about whether Mr. Trump will survive the certain impeachment hearings to come.

But then, as the heavy breathing subsides and the adrenaline rush gives way to factual, concrete reporting, the most damning charges fall away.

Turns out Mr. Trump is a germaphobe and wasn’t in that Russian hotel room.

The bust of Martin Luther King is still in the Oval Office.

He didn’t abandon conservatives by naming his sister to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump’s Tower — and people involved in his campaign — were, in fact, surveilled.

Slowly, agonizingly, Truth becomes very inconvenient for all these people predicting Mr. Trump’s certain demise.

In the end, they are all left clinging to the smallest Styrofoam shard of their original story, bobbing in the harsh sea of Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The last remaining wastrels pontificating about the “scandal” formerly larger than Watergate are left with just one flimsy accusation.

“Well, he could have handled it better,” they sniff. “He didn’t follow Washington political protocol.”

Are you freaking kidding me? It all starts with charges of high crimes and misdemeanors — impeachment imminent — and when it all turns out to be fake news these people walk away grumbling about how Mr. Trump could have handled it better?

Just look at this latest “Watergate” scandal.

The upshot is that Mr. Trump finally fired a man who every single person in all of Washington, except perhaps James B. Comey’s wife, has said at one time or another in the past year should have been fired.

Why was he fired? For all the reasons every single person in Washington has stated at one point or another during the past year.

But if you are among the legions around here suffering from Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome, it is always much more sinister.

Russia!

The FBI was closing in on Donald Trump’s sordid connections to the Russians! (Minus the laughably debunked Moscow hotel room scandal that was one of Mr. Trump’s previous “Watergate” scandals.)

The FBI had just asked for more money to pursue the Trump-Russia connection, we were breathlessly told. Subpoenas were just being issued to known associates of known associates of President Trump!

So incensed by the lies of the scandal’s coverup, it was reported, that a top official in the Justice Department was threatening to quit in protest rather than carry on working for such a criminal in the White House.

And then inconvenient reality unfolds again.

One by one, each of these blockbusters came under clouds of scrutiny. Nobody quits in protest.

By Thursday morning, the whole scandal had substantially come unraveled.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, said he and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, had recently met with Mr. Comey and came away with the clear impression that, in fact, Mr. Trump is not a target of any investigation by the FBI.

“Sen. Feinstein and I heard nothing that contradicted the president’s statement,” he said.

And in a stunning display of nonpartisanship, Mrs. Feinstein agreed.

Well, OK. But the White House should have handled it better.

Trump’s Quiet Victories

Conrad Black on Trump's ability to drive his enemies mad.

Donald Trump has not just been a distasteful opponent, as the D.C. political establishment generally considered Nixon; or a convivial Californian outsider like Reagan, who changed economic and strategic course but didn’t attack pillars of Washington incumbency. Nixon and Reagan had contested numerous elections as Republicans, and despite the odd rhetorical flourish, weren’t going to do more than make course corrections from their Democratic predecessors, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter.

But Trump was different. He launched a movement, paid for his own campaign, (no ghastly fund-raisers with the dumb, opinionated rich), dismissed the Bushes, McCain, and Romney as Clinton-Obama sound-alikes, and frontally assaulted Wall Street, Hollywood, the national media, the lobby system, and every adult in Washington D.C. (which voted 96 percent against him).

Trump’s crushing victory in the Republican primaries was attributed to the weakness of the other candidates―he would hit a stonewall with Hillary. His victory over Hillary was a freakish product of the vagaries of the electoral system (from which John Quincy Adams, Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, JFK, and George W. Bush also benefited), and of Russian interference via Wikileaks and otherwise, and the conduct of FBI director James Comey. (Comey was at first praised for his “integrity” for recommending against indictment of Mrs. Clinton after recounting a sequence of her likely illegalities.) As was foreseen, the response of the solid anti-Trump press after the election was not that public grievances against Washington must be based on something, but rather that there were more racist, sexist, gun-happy, Bible-thumping, lager-lout philistines than had been appreciated....

The bizarrerie of the intellectual right is illimitable. My dear and esteemed friend George Will, after an acrobatic exercise in the columnar snobbery that Trump was unaware that Andrew Jackson died 16 years before the start of the Civil War, (Jackson was concerned about the danger of civil war throughout his presidency, as George knows and Mr. Trump was alleging), has fled into the television embrace of Rachel the Madd and Mika Buzzfeed at MSNBC, the most astonishing flight since Joachim von Ribbentrop went to Moscow. They have all walked the plank; President Trump has induced self-destructive political bilharzia in the deranged effigies of once-serious and important people. I still love them, but I grieve for them....

The self-targeted Democratic torpedoes, which Trump had the tactical intelligence to goad and then to consign to due process, were the lies about collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, and the challenge to the president’s constitutional authority over immigration, (reinforced by ninjas smashing and burning at Berkeley, and the mobbing of travelers at airports around the country and overseas). The torpedoes will come home on those who launched them in the next few months, warhead-first and at high speed. Then, frenzied partisanship will start to give way to the instinct of self-preservation, and the locked-arm solidarity of the Never-Trumpers will start to break up. The party of Jefferson and FDR is unrecognizable, but it can still be distinguished from a liberal ISIS. The president’s shortcomings are overly notorious, but his enemies are no longer of this world. He will win, and change the nation for the better.

Read the whole thing.

No Guilt This Time

And it's driving the Left crazy:

I have given up on discussing the ascendance of Donald Trump with anyone who didn’t vote for him. They are too hard in their denunciation. A mild suggestion that the Democratic Party went so far into identity politics that it pushed people toward a leader outspokenly tired of political correctness leads at most to a pause in the rancor.

“Yes,” they might agree, before returning to the point: “But Trump? You can’t be serious!”

You don’t get a debate, just another accusation. And pledges, too, as in Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ “We’ve got to stop his ass!”

It is clear by now that reactions such as these to Donald Trump’s presidency run deeper than political differences. When you see your liberal friends and colleagues unable to contain their scorn, you know that the offense isn’t about education policy and tax rates. Something fundamentally human is in play.

In the last 50 years of culture wars in America, there has been no stronger weapon than guilt. It is the Left’s great hammer of progress. It figured powerfully in the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, women’s liberation, and same-sex marriage. Guilt runs through the teaching of U.S. history from 5th grade through college. It colors controversies over affirmative action, transgender bathrooms, and the glass ceiling. The entire careers of Leftist commentators from the self-righteous Bill Moyers to the self-regarding Ta-Nehisi Coates rest upon it. If we add up the successes guilt has brought to progressive causes and identity politics, we realize just how important guilt is to the Left agenda. Without it, in fact, the Left fails.

Which brings us back to Donald Trump. Why do people hate him so?

Because he won’t accept this appointed condition. He has no white guilt. He doesn’t feel any male guilt, either, or American guilt or Christian guilt. He talks about the United States with uncritical approval—“America First”—and that’s a thought crime in the eyes of liberals. It ignores slavery, Jim Crow, the Indian wars, Manzanar . . . Donald Trump would never refer to America as beset by the original sin of racism, as Barack Obama did frequently, and that makes him worse than a conservative. President Trump is a bigot.

He enjoys the company of attractive women and makes no apologies for it. A man of proper male guilt would have bowed out after the bus tapes were released during the campaign, but there he was in the second presidential debate talking about jail time for Hillary.

And he wouldn’t say, “Black Lives Matter,” either, a slogan that implies whites don’t care about black lives, but insisted, “All lives matter.”

Finally, while Christians, especially Catholics and Evangelicals , are supposed to feel guilty for their doctrine on gender roles and abortion, President Trump quickly dropped gender identity from Title IX and nominated a religious conservative to the Supreme Court.

That’s what happens when a political leader doesn’t share the guilt, and progressives know it. For decades they have pushed a campaign of guilt in classrooms, museums, movies, books, and newsrooms precisely to forestall those moves. If you can persuade an opponent that he’s wrong about a political issue, you can win the day’s debate. But if you can make him feel guilty about his opinion, you’ve got him on the defensive forever.

Guilt isn’t political, it’s psychological. When you can make someone feel guilty, it’s a powerful temptation, especially among those who already suffer feelings of resentment. When during the course of the campaign Mr. Trump refused to accept any guilt, the frustration and disbelief among the Democrats and the media were obvious. When he spoke of “Mexican rapists,” the outrage was voluminous, but he wouldn’t apologize. When the former-president of Mexico sputtered an obscenity about the wall, Trump replied, “The wall just got ten feet taller.” A guilty man wouldn’t be so unabashed.

Guilt isn’t political, it’s psychological. When you can make someone feel guilty, it’s a powerful temptation, especially among those who already suffer feelings of resentment.

When David Duke came out in favor of Trump, the media pounced, insisting that surely this time Trump would acknowledge shameful elements in his candidacy. But when asked, Trump looked more puzzled than ashamed. It was as if he didn’t understand why David Duke was even an issue, but that only compounded his vice, for Duke is significant precisely because he embodies American guilt. That Trump minimized the whole thing only showed his absence of shame.

Donald Trump’s success, then, amounts to a calamitous disarmament of the Left. Not his occupation of the White House, but his termination of the game of guilt—for now, at least. Since the election, progressives have only amplified the charges. More and more, the protests look less like political speech and more like tantrums. Yes, but what else could they do? As Freud once said, “hardly anything is harder for a man than to give up a pleasure which he has once experienced.” Until the Left lets go of guilt and begins formulating a political outlook, not a psycho-political one, its steady descent into adolescence will continue.

Glenn Reynolds:

He rejects their assumed position of moral and intellectual supremacy. Which is both fair, and painful, because that position has always been a lie.