By Jeffrey Blehar
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
It must be lonely at the top as president: entrusted with
all that power, weary under the burden of all that responsibility, yet so very
misunderstood by those whom you nobly seek to raise from the muck of their own
peasant ignorance. (People such as economists and foreign policy realists, for
example.) That’s why I’m glad that Donald Trump has found such special solace
at his boutique social media website Truth Social — a safe space where the
beleaguered commander in chief is free to just be himself and let it all
hang out, without having to worry about society judging him.
And he truly has learned how to express himself with . .
. well, I wouldn’t call it “eloquence,” but at the very least you certainly can
always tell when the president has had a bad day. For example, I knew the Great
Dealmaker had experienced a bit of a setback at the negotiating table with Vladimir Putin on
Thursday merely because of the manner in which he awoke on Friday, bleating the following:
Crooked Joe Biden got us into a
real “mess” with Russia (and EVERYTHING ELSE!), but I’m going to get us out.
Millions of people are needlessly dead, never to be seen again…and there will
be many more to follow if we don’t get the Cease Fire and Final Agreement with
Russia completed and signed. There would have been NO WAR if I were President.
It just, 100%, would not have happened. Likewise, there would have been no
October 7th with Israel, the pullout from Afghanistan would have been done with
strength and pride, and would not have been the most embarrassing day in the
history of our Country, it could have been a moment of glory. Also, there would
not have been any perceptible inflation – Instead we had Record Setting,
Country Destroying Inflation, like we have never seen before. Also, we would
have had an impenetrable Border, with very few illegals getting in. Oh, what a
difference A RIGGED & CROOKED ELECTION HAD ON OUR COUNTRY, AND THE PEOPLE
WHO DID THIS TO US SHOULD GO TO JAIL! GOD BLESS AMERICA AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT
AGAIN!
Get that? Putin doesn’t seem to be too terribly
interested in a 30-day cease-fire after all — and why not, given that Donald
Trump has already rhetorically taken his side in very public and
propagandistically irrevocable ways? — and Trump is frustrated about it.
So frustrated, in fact, that he took to his own boutique platform to complain
about how if only Crooked Joe Biden hadn’t stolen that election from him, then
none of this would be happening. No, the problem isn’t Trump’s negotiating
style or overly high expectations, the problem isn’t Trump’s mistaking his
enemies for allies and vice versa — in fact, none of this is really Trump’s
fault at all. It’s that thieving bastard Biden’s fault, and don’t you forget
it, MAGA voters.
When Americans are looking for answers about a war that
shows no sign of ending, we get an extended relitigation of the 2020 election
from a man who (uniquely) holds the world’s attention. The self-pity would be
amusing in its unwitting self-revelation were it not for the fact that, I
remind you, Trump is president of the United States. The appropriate time for
Trump to make such complaints was during the 2024 presidential campaign — which
he did. In fact, he cited Joe Biden’s foreign policy failure in Ukraine as a
reason why voters should return Trump to office — which they did. Now he will
be judged on his results, not Joe Biden’s.
I don’t regard myself as a particularly old-fashioned
person, so it’s not Trump’s affect — or punctuation, for that matter — that I
object to. (Others can complain how Trump degrades the office of the presidency
with his comportment; accurate though this is, that ship sailed long ago.) I
object that he gives far too much of himself away to the rest of the world —
including America’s rivals and enemies — by living his emotional life out loud
on social media.
If I want to know what the weather is like, I stick my
head out the window; if I want to know how Donald Trump is feeling about any
given day’s events, I wait until 12:30 a.m. and then check his account. (It’s
amusing, incidentally, to note that Trump’s financial interest in Truth Social
has effectively trapped him there; Truth Social’s sole value proposition is
Trump’s exclusivity to the platform.) It’s not that the man lacks a filter,
it’s that he does not properly grasp the difference between what he says and
what those statements reveal on a deeper level, independent of their
content. The pattern is clear: Whenever Trump feels frustrated, or trapped by
events, and is looking for some way out of his current political predicaments,
he takes to venting on social media. This comes from Sunday night:
The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe
Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are
hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the
fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign
them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary
Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew
nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime.
Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL
evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other
innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation
at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the
Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of
the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!
Look, I’m not going to waste time addressing this in
terms of its legal merits, which are nonexistent. The content of Trump’s
statement matters less to me than (1) the bare fact of its existence and (2)
the attempt at creating a diversion. The former indicates that Trump has once
again hit some sort of private impasse; the latter that he now wishes to
distract his loyal base with a shiny object. (Donald Trump wants you to think
that he can magically “repeal” the pardons of Anthony Fauci or Hunter Biden,
but even if there were some sort of “autopen clause” related to a president’s
being non compos mentis, it doesn’t apply here — Joe Biden knew full well he
was pardoning these people and would say so right now if asked.) With outbursts
like this, Trump steps on his own substantive achievements; he should be
celebrating, for example, his administration’s action taken against the
loathsome Houthis menacing global sea commerce; instead, he’s caught up in a
fantasy of putting his enemies on trial.
I suspect that the real reason for this unusual outburst
of ranting energy is as transparent as a mountain stream: Donald Trump’s
approval numbers are returning to earth. His postelection “honeymoon” is long
since over, and his ratings have now receded once again to their old familiar
net negative territory in the RealClearPolitics averages. His dreams of a “brilliant, perfect” deal in
Ukraine are running into reality as Putin barely bothers to pretend to be
interested in peace. (As the Carnival goes to press on Monday, a direct
conversation between Trump and Putin is scheduled: I trust it will resolve this
misunderstanding and put this whole war to bed once and for all.) DOGE risks
being seen as vaporware — led by an easily distracted tech celebrity who
increasingly looks like the richest man to ever publicly embody the Peter
Principle. Tariffs are no closer to revitalizing the U.S. economy than they
have been or ever will be. If I were ever unfortunate enough to find myself in
a sticky situation like that — one of my own making, no less — I too would
probably spend a lot more time feeling sorry for myself on social media.
Kyrsten Sinema Is Enjoying All of This Far Too Much
Though many readers may not be aware of it — it seems we
have learned to take these things less seriously as news consumers — Washington
lawmakers avoided a government shutdown on Friday. Senate Republicans sought to
pass House Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution to fund the government
until September; despite pressure to act as a roadblock, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer declined to use the filibuster, allowing Republicans to
pass it with only their 53-vote majority rather than seek 60 votes. The can has
officially been kicked a bit down the road — see you in the fall, friends!
Schumer’s decision not to toss a spanner in the works
proved so popular among Democratic activists and the rank and file that he has
just announced the cancellation of all his public appearances for the
foreseeable future — including a book tour and a forum on antisemitism — and
may be entering the Witness Protection Program by the end of the week, provided
he can convince Kash Patel over at the FBI to open up a slot for him.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke of her “deep sense of outrage and betrayal,”
while Pramila Jayapal denounced the “betrayal of working families.”
The Left loves its designated hate figures and traitors
every bit as much as the Right does, and Schumer is swiftly becoming one for an
internal opposition desperate to indulge its “resistance” reflex. Schumer is a
bit smarter than they are; near as I can tell, Democrats have adopted — if only
for lack of any better options — the reasonably savvy strategy of sitting back
and letting an overweening Trump destroy himself economically and
politically. (Scoff if you will, but this may happen sooner than you think
given that Trump has no further races to run.)
So, although I risk getting my pay docked for saying this
in National Review, I for once
sympathize with Chuck Schumer. Though the Carnival of Fools is surely poorer
for the lack of such political theatrics, it was right for Schumer to avoid
triggering a pointless government shutdown. (The activists who wanted Schumer
to filibuster the spending bill as a repudiation of Trump are an eerily perfect
mirror image of those who wanted Republicans to shut the government down as a
repudiation of Obama; they share an identically sub-rational craving for
confrontation, regardless of outcome or value.)
But one person was having far too much fun with all this
internecine Democratic drama, and it’s no surprise that it happened to be the Senate’s
most famous ex-Democrat (and ex-politician, for that matter):
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. For those unfamiliar with Sinema’s political
bildungsroman, she was elected as a quirky progressive-ish (the “-ish” matters)
congresswoman and managed to vault into John McCain’s former seat in 2018. Her
independent-minded streak could not survive our current age of extreme
polarization (at least not in Arizona), and she ultimately found herself hated
by her own Democratic Party base as much as, if not more than, she was hated by
her Republican opposition, who proved how serious they were about retaking the
seat by nominating Kari Lake for it. (Lake barely lost; any other Arizona
Republican not named “Paul Gosar” would have won easily.)
Sinema’s big breakup with the Left came over her refusal
to vote to get rid of the filibuster, back when Chuck Schumer theoretically (a
word doing some heavy lifting in this case) had the Democratic votes for it. So
it was no surprise that she was out counting
coup on all the progressive Leftists — addressing Ocasio-Cortez and Jayapal
directly — who were now screaming about the need to employ the very filibuster
they once denounced her for defending.
Her one error: Progressives detect no hypocrisy in their
position. They were against the filibuster when they controlled the Senate, and
they are in favor of it now when they don’t. (Jayapal admitted as much when
Donald Trump retook the presidency.) It is hopeless for Sinema to try to shame
these people. Their approach to the filibuster is a principled enough one,
after all, albeit Atreidean: “When I am weaker than you, I ask you for
freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than
you, I take away your freedom because that is according to mine.”
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