Peter Smith The Media’s Dark, Distorting Prism
If Obama had delivered Donald Trump’s inaugural address it would have been hailed for its eloquence, nobility and resolve. But it was not merely a Republican at the lectern, it was a maverick Republican, so the consensus insists the entire known world is in mortal peril.
“We the citizens of America are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all of our people…We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.”
This doesn’t sound too dark to me. So where is the darkness so perceptibly spotted by the Dems at their ‘media control headquarters’? Here it is, just 83 words taken out of his whole speech.
“But for many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful children deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
If you can stand it, picture the well-heeled media types on CNN twittering on about how this sat uneasily with the soaring [empty] inauguration speeches of yesteryear. For example: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to make your farms flourish and let clean water flow.” And the progress President Obama made on this? Tut-tut, a mere detail.
Never mind that people and whole communities are being thrown on the scrap heap as a result of globalisation, high corporate taxes and mindless regulations; never mind that the living standards of the low skilled are being forced down by illegal immigration; never mind that law abiding people and their children are living in fear in crime-ridden inner cities. There is nothing to see there. After all, east-coast commentators on CNN are doing OK – thanks very much.
Talk about living in a bubble. It is sickening and is precisely why, and not before time, that America has President Trump. And look the way he immediately followed up his supposedly gloom-laden remarks: “We are one nation and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams. And their success will be our success.” The group-thinking MSM would have wet their pants in admiration for his soaring oratory if Obama had said it. The difference is that Trump said it. And the palpable fear is that he actually means it and just might succeed in doing something about it. Forget this cant that he is our president and we want him to succeed. They want him to fail monumentally.
Let me take a step back and admit that at first the content of Trump’s speech clashed with my preconceptions. It wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t expect him to commit himself in such definite terms to the same policies he had espoused in his campaign; to express the same disdain for the Washington elite; to effectively castigate those who had been in charge – Republicans and Democrats – for weakening America and for prospering at the expense of the people they were meant to serve; and to tell the world in no uncertain terms that in future he would always put the interests of America first (imagine how that went down among the political leaders of countries getting America’s protection on the cheap).
Despite all I thought I knew about Trump I was programmed to assume that, once President, he would hedge his bets; be at least a tad mealy-mouthed and nebulous; express a fair quota of empty rhetoric; be hard to pin down. Obviously I have listened to too many political speeches from “fancy dancers, people who can glide you on the floor, they move so smooth but have no answers.”[i] I should have known better.
I do know better. This man, I am convinced, is not just a cut above the political class; he is out of sight. Whether this means he will succeed I don’t know. Outright opposition apart, inertia on Capitol Hill is a powerful force. Trump’s persevering and negotiating skills will be tested.
Whether he is successful depends also, in part, on how success is defined. His ordinary supporters I’ve seen interviewed are level-headed. They don’t chase down his every word and promise. But he needs to get runs on the board. He has no expansive reservoir of goodwill to call upon among the political class. Only concrete results will keep off the jackals on the left and those ostensibly on his side of the fence. There will be no shortage of Republican jackals ready to pounce if Trump stumbles. Hell hath no fury like senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham scorned.
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