OPINION
Jeffrey Lord
Lord is a former White House political director in the Reagan White House and aide to HUD Secretary Jack Kemp. After graduating from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania he went on to work for the Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Leader, then going on to serve on Capitol Hill as a press secretary and legislative director for Congressman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) and Executive Assistant to US Senator John Heinz (R-Pa.).
It never ceases to amaze watching the so-called “mainstream media” (aka the far left press) foam at the reality someone who is an outsider to the conventional politics of the day – aka in this case Donald Trump – is ascending to the presidency. Again.
This time around – again! – there is the redoubtable editorial board of the far left New York Times foaming and spewing over the fact that former President Trump has clinched the 2024 GOP nomination. It is Trump Derangement Syndrome at its finest.
Let’s take a tour through this circus.
The headline:
Trump’s Conquest of the Republican Party Matters to Every American
And why, per chance, does this matter to every American?
Let us count the ways.
First, says the Times:
This is a tragedy for the Republican Party and for the country it purports to serve.
And why is that?
Well, explains the Times:
In a healthy democracy, political parties are organizations devoted to electing politicians who share a set of values and policy goals. They operate part of the machinery of politics, working with elected officials and civil servants to make elections happen.
The paper said that in normal elections the winner “also accepts that defeated rivals and their competing views have a place within the party.”
Hello? With the solitary exception of Nikki Haley, Trump has reached out to former rivals with names like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom have endorsed him. Indeed, Mr. Ramaswamy will be in Pennsylvania in early April to appear at the conservative Pennsylvania Leadership Conference as a surrogate for the former President. As to Haley, her choice not to endorse her winning rival is….her choice.
Some of the Republicans who are no longer welcome — such as Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney — tried to hold their party’s leader accountable to his basic duty to uphold the law.
Really? Perhaps the Times missed this recent news headlined:
Liz Cheney, J6 Commitee, Hid Evidence Exonerating Trump’s Call For Guard Troops
The story reports:
The January 6 Committee, led by Rep. Liz Cheney, is accused of suppressing exculpatory evidence in their investigation of the Capitol riot.
Specifically, the committee withheld testimony from a Secret Service official that said former President Trump had pushed for 10,000 National Guard troops to be deployed in DC on January 6th.
This directly contradicts the committee’s claims that no evidence supported the White House seeking more security.
Not a word of this decidedly revealing news of game-playing by Cheney and the J6 Committee is mentioned in the Times editorial.
Then the Times rants because Trump demanded America’s NATO allies pay up – pay their dues – “or face his threats to encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to them, (and) many Republican leaders said nothing.”
One can only shake one’s head at the lack of knowledge on this issue displayed by the Times. Trump is decidedly not the first president to be upset with NATO allies for not paying their dues. Historian Stephen Ambrose wrote two decidedly detailed biographies of President Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower, both as post World War II General and President, played a central role in creating NATO in the first place. And quite specifically Ambrose records Eisenhower – like Trump today – was livid that the NATO allies were not paying their dues. Wrote Ambrose, quoting Ike:
I get weary of the European habit of taking our money,’ the President wrote, “resenting any slight hint as to what they should do, and then assuming, in addition, full right to criticize us as bitterly as they may desire. In fact, it sometimes appears that their indulgence in this kind of criticism varies in direct ratio to the amount of help we give them.’ In fact, the whole thing made him mad as hell, and “makes me wonder whether the Europeans are as grown up and mature as they try to make it appear.
So too did Eisenhower’s successor, Democrat John F. Kennedy, who insisted, per his biographer and ex-White House staffer Arthur Schlesinger, that the European allies had to bear their “share of common responsibilities.”
Which is to say, Trump is, as with predecessors Eisenhower and JFK, well within the mainstream of history in demanding European allies kick in for their “common responsibilities.”
And on goes this Trump-phobia nonsense.
The real bottom line here is that Trump continues to question the norms of Establishment sensibilities – and it drives the New York Times and other elites crazy.
Hence an editorial exactly like this one from the Times.
Not only is this not a surprise, it is a snapshot of the core issue of Establishment media versus average Americans, with Trump Derangement Syndrome a driving force.
There will be more media “coverage” like this coming. Count on it.
Buckle in.