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[Pre-order a copy of David Horowitz’s next book, America Betrayed, by clicking here. Orders will begin shipping on May 7th.]
On June 16, it will be nine years to the day since Donald Trump rode down that golden escalator in the Manhattan tower bearing his name and announced his candidacy for president of the United States. During those nine years, his name and image have dominated not just American political discourse but the entirety of American culture, and even world culture, in a way that may well be without precedent in the entire history of the Republic. Yes, the name and image of Franklin D. Roosevelt loomed over the country during his twelve years in office, just as the name and image of Abraham Lincoln were ubiquitous during his four-year presidency. But FDR’s centrality was wrapped up in the Great Depression and, then, World War II, and to think of Lincoln is to think, first and last, about the Civil War. By contrast, Trump’s predominance is in one sense just about Trump himself – Trump as symbol – and in another sense about something even larger than the colossal historical events associated with FDR and Honest Abe. Trump didn’t become iconic by presiding over an economic crisis or prosecuting a major war; he became iconic by doing something that no president before him had ever done: he took on the establishments of both major political parties, told some harsh truths about the ways in which those establishments had betrayed the American people and their Constitution, and rooted his presidential campaigns, and his entire term in office, in a determination to restore to the people the kind of government that the Founders had intended. In doing so, he also became an emblematic figure for people around the world whose own governments were betraying the freedoms on which they had been founded.
What about Reagan? Yes, he too was a revolutionary hero: in the wake of the appalling Jimmy Carter, that master of malaise, the Gipper spoke of morning in America, speechified ardently about the evils of Communism, and championed with gusto the cause of freedom around the world. Still, it must be admitted that during his two terms he did precious little to drain the Swamp. He didn’t even go so far as to abolish the perfidious Department of Education, which Carter had just created in 1979, and which Reagan had inveighed against passionately. Perhaps Reagan sensed that if he’d tried to do any more than he did to try to challenge the Deep State, he’d have ended up as Trump did several decades later, with the whole D.C. apparatus out to destroy him, bankrupt him, and put him behind bars. Besides, Reagan had his hands full bringing down the Soviet Union. So I’m not here to diminish Reagan. He was a giant. But even at the height of his popularity he didn’t take up as much space in the minds of people around the world as Trump has done during the last nine years. In his heyday, Reagan shared the international stage with Thatcher and Gorbachev, as FDR did with Churchill and Stalin; Trump shares the world stage with no one. As for most of the other modern presidents – Ford, Carter, Bush Sr. – they were, by comparison to Trump, utter pygmies. The point is that the Trump ascendancy is, in modern times, unique. To find a rough counterpart to his utter domination of the society and culture, you have to look to the great dictators, from antiquity right up to the twentieth century – Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. The big difference, of course, is that Trump, whatever his detractors may say, is the furthest thing from a dictator: he’s a liberator. Besides, dictators have no sense of humor about themselves; and their admirers, unlike Trump’s fans, don’t feel safe making affectionate jokes about them.
In his Farewell Address, President Eisenhower – who had led the Allies to victory in Europe during World War II, ushering in an era when the U.S. was by far the most powerful nation in all of human history – famously warned us of the dangers of that power. “Throughout America’s adventure in free government,” he said, “our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations.” In the postwar era, the U.S. enjoyed an unprecedented opportunity to achieve these goals. Yet it was unwise, he counseled, in the name of finding government-funded cures for every ill, to allow “the public economy” to fall out of balance with the private. In particular, while it was vital to maintain a strong military, it was potentially worrying that Cold War circumstances had compelled the establishment of “a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions” and necessitated annual military expenditures that exceeded “the net income of all United State corporations.” This new state of affairs, observed Eisenhower, posed the threat of “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” – in short, “the disastrous rise of misplaced power” that could ultimately “endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” America’s involvement in World War II, a brilliantly prosecuted conflict with a crystal-clear motive and goal and two exceedingly powerful enemies that had conquered and subjugated much of the earth’s surface, lasted only four years; what would Eisenhower have made of our eight confused, pointless, and ultimately futile years in iraq and twenty years in Afghanistan – the latter of which ended with billions of dollars worth of military equipment being left in the hands of the enemy?
A warrior by profession, trained in the art of deploying military power, Eisenhower the president was more concerned with placing limits on the menace posed by unrestricted power to individual freedom. What, then, would he have made of the Patriot Act, which was ratified after 9/11 in the name of protecting Americans from foreign enemies but which, as was obvious from the start, had the potential of impinging on Americans’ own freedoms? What, for that matter, would Eisenhower have made of the formation of the Homeland Security Department, the very name of which, at the time, sounded outrageously un-American? Then there’s this. While Ike’s warning about the military-industrial is well known, less familiar is the fact that, in the same speech, he warned about the downside of the scientific and technological revolution – namely, “the danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” How aghast would he have been at every aspect of the COVID lockdown – from the severe rules about masks and distancing to the draconian limitations on freedom of movement and assembly? What would he have made of the pathetic readiness of so many millions of Americans to knuckle under to these unconstitutional mandates and to shun relatives, friends, coworkers, and neighbors who, asserting their fundamental rights as Americans, admirably refused to do so?
One thing Eisenhower didn’t mention in his Farewell Address was America’s intelligence services. The Central Intelligence Agency, founded in 1947, grew out of the wartime Office of Strategic Services. The National Security Agency came along in 1952, the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1961. Not all that long ago, many of us were watching the TV series Homeland (2011-20) and cheering on the exploits of CIA agents Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), because we thought of the real-life counterparts of these characters as working for us. Of course, all of these intelligence agencies were Cold War creations, purportedly necessitated by what was quite genuinely an existential face-off with the Soviet Union; and for most of us who lived during the Cold War, almost anything that the CIA did to keep us one step ahead of the Soviets and to prevent the expansion of Communism was worth it. Yes, we used to read about the CIA’s suspected role in certain revolutions and assassinations, and we may have felt twinges of confusion or discomfort about some of these actions; but whatever CIA agents did, we told ourselves that they understood these matters better than we did and that their long-term motives were admirable – that, in other words, they were fighting for our freedom in the struggle for global dominance against Soviet totalitarianism.
After the Cold War ended, new antagonists emerged. But what had been – or had, at least, seemed – a relatively clear big picture became a muddle. Why was our government spending blood and treasure to fight Islamic enemies in the Middle East even as unpleasant but strategically relevant facts about Islam were being systematically scrubbed from military and intelligence training manuals, insufficiently vetted Muslim immigrants were being welcomed to America in huge numbers, and politicians of both parties (with the unwavering aid of the legacy media) were constantly reassuring us that Islam was a religion of peace?
Meanwhile, what had once been the Steel Belt – a region of cities that, thanks to their booming manufacturing sectors, had previously been populated by some of the most affluent factory workers on the planet – was gradually being transformed into the Rust Belt, as jobs were exported en masse to China, Mexico, and elsewhere. Politically, these blue-collar workers were left high and dry. The Democrats (once the party of labor, or at least of labor unions) were now more interested in cultivating certain minority groups who were officially considered to be oppressed. As the party moved from traditional liberalism to something that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Communism, it also increasingly became the political home of corporate bigwigs and other high-income types who’d been brainwashed at elite colleges by far-left professors. As for the members of the Republican establishment, the large-scale betrayal of decent, hard-working middle Americans mattered less to them than the lower prices of goods that were now being produced by underpaid drudges in China and Mexico. Meanwhile, both parties were perfectly happy with mass illegal immigration – the Democrats because they wanted the votes, the Republicans because this phenomenon meant the suppression of wages for low-skilled jobs.
For blue-collar voters who’d been financially ruined by the drastic decline of American manufacturing, Trump was a godsend – a politician who, unlike the entire Washington establishment, was actually on their side. And for those of us who hadn’t really been paying much attention to the plight of those blue-collar voters, Trump was an eye-opener. Among other things, he made some of us recognize for the first time the extent to which, in practice, the two parties were, to a remarkable extent, one. I remember not so many years ago seeing a photograph of George W. Bush in a cozy moment with Hillary Clinton. I can’t stand either of them, but I have to admit, to my great embarrassment, that my reaction to the picture at the time was to admire the ability of political opponents to treat each other not just with respect but with what looked like genuine affection. Today, needless to say, I see that picture in an entirely different light. It’s a picture of two people who were and are part of the same exclusive club, who have profited (and whose families have profited) from the same system, and who, while supporting different candidates in elections, were content with the results so long as the winners were reliable insiders who had no intention of trying to change the game.
It was, as I say, Trump who opened the eyes of millions of us to this sordid, cynical reality. Some of us may have been at least somewhat aware of the extent to which America’s government was in the hands of a permanent Deep State, and some of us may even have recognized just how much of a betrayal this was of the Constitution and of the people. But Trump, with his passionate denunciations of the Swamp, focused our attention on this outrage. He forced us to realize that for a long time it hadn’t really mattered all that much whom we voted into national office, given that a significant amount of the real power in Washington was actually in the hands of the executive departments, the intelligence community, and agencies like the IRS. This was why the issues that really mattered to American voters – such as mass immigration and the mass export of blue-collar jobs – had consistently been ignored by both parties and unmentioned in campaign speeches.
But it wasn’t just Trump who opened our eyes. So did his enemies. The desperate effort by Obama, the Clintons, and their cronies to tie him to Russia – a charge that was ridiculous on the face of it, but that was pushed by the media without surcease – only served, in the end, to show just how much of a threat to their power they recognized him to be. Ditto the unprecedented attacks on Trump, even while he was in office, by military and intelligence officials who were technically under his command. The two baseless impeachments of Trump, the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the blizzard of ridiculous prosecutions directed at him, and the attempt by New York’s attorney general to seize his properties all underscored both the political establishment’s desperation to remove him from the chessboard and the nakedly undemocratic lengths to which public officials all over the country and at every level are willing to go in order to preserve the Deep State in its current form. And there are many more developments, of course, that have demonstrated the fierceness of Trump’s enemies’ determination to crush him and everything he represents – among them the long-term detention of January 6 protesters, the over-the-top raids on the homes of Trump allies like Roger Stone, and the angry, disturbing speech that Biden gave in September 2022 against that blood-red background. All of these events showed just how much contempt the Democratic elites have for the white working-class Americans who dare to recognize in Donald Trump a champion of the people and of America’s founding values. And nothing reflected that contempt more powerfully than a single word uttered by Hillary Clinton in 2016: “deplorables.”
Trump and his movement, say his enemies, represent a “threat to our democracy.” The fact is that Trump is the symbol of everything that stands in the way of the efforts by the legacy media and social-media giants (X excepted), as well as by the United Nations, European Union, World Economic Forum, and other international organizations, to undermine democracy – by, among other things, silencing dissent from the progressive agenda and plotting to remove beef from our diets, deny us air travel, and confine us to “fifteen-minute cities.” In short, the very people who label Trump a “threat to our democracy” are the ones who are intent on dismantling democracy – not just in America but throughout what we used to call the free world. Take Justin Trudeau’s freezing of the bank accounts of truckers who protested the COVID lockdowns. Note how British police give free rein to protestors who call for Jewish genocide but arrest patriots who dare to wave the Union Jack. And witness what happened just the other day in Brussels, where local authorities sent a battalion of police to close down a gathering of top-flight conservative leaders from around Europe, including Nigel Farage, Éric Zemmour, and Viktor Orbán.
For many of us, the chilling abuses of power by left-wingers who are determined to bury the MAGA movement and its international counterparts haven’t just led us to worry about the present and future of American freedom. They’ve caused us to wonder just how free we’ve really been during the last half-century or so. It was in 1961 that Eisenhower gave his Farewell Address. He was succeeded by John F. Kennedy, who among other things wanted to shutter the CIA, which he recognized as having gotten out of control. He was assassinated in 1963. The Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer of JFK and had acted alone, was the ultimate Deep State entity, consisting of the Chief Justice, the head of the CIA, the former head of the World Bank, two Congressmen, and two veteran Senators. Over the years, Roger Stone and other investigators have not only shown the Warren Commission’s conclusions to be utterly at odds with mountains of evidence but have also provided a great deal of information in support of the hypothesis that the murder was, in fact, the ultimate Deep State crime, involving LBJ, the CIA, and the FBI.
There are those who, reading backwards from the current treatment of Trump by his powerful enemies, now say that the JFK assassination was the moment when the free Republic that Eisenhower spoke of with such reverence and concern in his Farewell Address underwent a dramatic behind-the-scenes transformation. Stone and others have pointed out that our involvement in the Vietnam War, however legitimately motivated by a desire to contain Communism in southeast Asia, also was of great personal profit to LBJ, who stepped up our war effort almost immediately after entering the Oval Office. Deeply troubling questions have even been raised about the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, which may, after all, have had less to do with Jodie Foster than the news reports would have it.
Yes, splashy books presenting revisionist theories about the JFK assassination and other historical crises of the last half a century are nothing new. But not until Trump came along and pulled back the curtain on the extent of Deep State shenanigans in our own time did it become much easier to believe in the hypotheses put forward in those books. Yes, we’ve always known that American history, like all of human history, has been full of corruption: the 1919 World Series was fixed; any number of elections, including, famously, the one that first sent LBJ to Congress, were rigged; everybody knows that JFK won in 1960 because the Mob took care of Illinois and LBJ took care of Texas. But although most of us maintained a healthy American cynicism about professional politicians and big government, we still basically trusted the system and believed that our votes (usually) counted. No, the U.S. government was scarcely perfect. But what human institution is? America’s founding documents were based on an unblinkered recognition of the depth of human moral frailty. Not only, moreover, could we hardly expect contemporary politicians to measure up to Adams and Jefferson; the fact was that even Adams and Jefferson were not without blemish: the former had signed the Alien and Sedition Act, and the latter’s purchase of Louisiana had no constitutional warrant.) But it was the advent of Trump, and the extraordinary scale of the campaign to take him down, that made many of us realize the degree to which our leaders in Washington had rejected the dictates of the Constitution.
Some observers gripe that we all think and talk too much about Trump – that we make more of him than he is or deserves, that our preoccupation with him serves to obscure the importance of other figures on the political scene and reflects a severe lack of a sense of historical proportion. On the contrary, I don’t think that most of us, however much we may love (or hate) him, fully appreciate the extraordinary scale of the revolution he has wrought. Other figures on the political scene? What political scene? Trump transformed the political scene, and there’s no going back. It’s beyond strange these days to try to read most of the veteran inside-the-Beltway commentators, both Democrat and Republican, because they genuinely seem to believe – or to hope against hope – that somehow the clock can be turned back, the genie put back in the box, and pre-Trump politics as usual restored.
Such thoughts are nothing short of delusional. Tens of millions of decent, patriotic Americans are not magically going to unlearn what they’ve learned in the last nine years. They’re not going to forget the vile lies, poisonous acts, and outright treason of Obama, the Clintons, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Rachel Maddow, John Brennan, Merrick Garland, Antony Blinken, Alejandro Mayoras, and a host of others. They’re not going to go back to believing in the good faith of the D.C. establishment any more than you and I are going to go back to believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Because Trump did indeed effect nothing less than a revolution – a revolution of the American mind and heart and soul. He woke us up. He educated us, in a way that a teacher with a more sober and restrained classroom manner would never have been able to do. He showed us who our leaders really are and showed us who we, if we dare to take heart and take action, might be. He encouraged us – inspired us – to take our country back, all the while believing in its principles, its history, and (in spite of everything) its enduring promise.
The demographic of professional politicians (on every level of government) keep proving themselves to be self serving, greedy, unconscionable creeps. But they are only the runny nose symptom of the virus of ignorant, immoral voters that keep electing them.
A righteous people would not suffer those creeps for a day.
Unfortunately things are necessarily going to have to get worse, a lot worse to rouse those comatose morons (aka, “voters”) from their lethargic state of perpetual ignorance.
Neither of you mention vote fraud. That in and if itself is deeply disturbing! Denial maybe? I m more disturbed by vote fraud than the “moronic” voters. Sure there are some moronic voters but the problem is we do not have fair elections. I wont bore readers or this author with the evidence. But, there is plenty! .
You’re correct! Sorry for the omission!! Vote fraud is so now so common in this country that to a large extent, people expect it and tolerate it to the point where the only time it gets noticed is when it slips by the MSM airheads and inadvertently becomes a brief news story,
Every nation is at threat when their government considers itself above the laws and makes its own laws, and puts politics before everything that is honorable and just. America used to represent freedom, justice, and equallity for all, it was a beacon of light on a shinning hill. Just goes to show when nations become corrupted they need more masters, and those masters do not operate by a code of ethics.
What you say can be said succinctly in a comprehensive way. When a government fears its people, that is liberty & freedom. When a people fears its government, that is tyranny.
As things stand now, in spite of the US Constitution, our American government functionally operates like a benevolent tyranny (e.g., the government hasn’t yet sicced the police and military on those who oppose its government policies, reckless spending, etc..)
But as things go from bad to worse, and they will, that benevolence will inevitably become malevolent in order for the government to maintain “law & order” and forcibly impose its will upon the American people.
Yes, it wasn’t moronic voters who stole the election from President Trump and gave it to Basement Biden, it was Dirtbagocrat fraud and cheating. As if that decrepit, senile old criminal who NOBODY likes got over 80 million votes.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
— John Adams
That old Boston lawyer said it all in that sentence.
Fabulous job, Mr. Bawer. Nothing short of that.
Bruce Bawer has spoken the Truth as the Founders of America did 250 years ago.
I hope these United States today can also achieve and again win back our Freedoms.
I am going to frame this article by Bruce Bawer on my living room wall, next to the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of the United States,
Thank you.
Trumpy is larger than life, that’s for sure.
I love to see him on TV and he says what everybody FINALLY knows about Alzheimer Joe with mordant mockery. He even physically imitates him. That drives the Jimmy Kimmels and other late night hosts nobody watches insane. They start railing against FPM, Newsmax TV, Real America’s Voice, Breitbart and any other conservative news source they can think of, although thinking isn’t their strong suit.
Whether he beats the gargantuan Dirtbagocrat vote cheat machine and makes it back to office……and revenge……remains to be seen but America IS different now because of him.
If he gets cheated a second time, I hope Americans show some spine and rebel. America is in the toilet now because of Alzheimer Joe Beijing Biden’s handlers and the D-Bag party, and everybody knows it, even knee-jerk D-Bag supporters. Hell, even Alan Dershowitz finally changed his political loyalty, and I thought that guy was a hopeless case.
Dershowitz tried to wear two hats for a long time. He finally was unable to do it because he’s too smart and decent.
Took him long enough. The guy’s what, 185 years old now? Proudly voting for a horrid creature like Hillary Clinton is more bi-polar and borderline schizophrenic than wearing two hats. I see him on Newsmax and Real America’s Voice regularly and he is smart and decent but he spent most of his long life a self deluded fool when it came to his support for the Dirtbagocrat party.
Eisenhower did good things but he sacrificed Patton on the altar of politics. Read up on it. He wasn’t the worst political hack, but he was a political hack.
Eisenhower had his faults, to be sure. But political hackery? That’s much too harsh a judgment on him.
Joe Biden, Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the Clintons, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Robert Mueller, Merrick Garland, Eric Holder, Antony Blinken, Alejandro Mayorkas — not to mention Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney — those are political hacks. They’ve got lots of company, too; scores of other deluded, self-serving, power-tripping DC Swamp creatures similarly limited in intellectual gifts, moral rectitude, or anything even approaching plain old common decency. Dwight Eisenhower simply cannot be reduced to their level — not without doing great violence to language, logic, and historical fact.
The most frightening aspect of institutionalized Leftism is now the intelligence community. Foreign, military, FBI and other intel, coordinated by the CIA, comprise a shadow government all but in name. They have the capacity to destabilize a second Trump administration without letting people even know the nature of the activities.
I.m not so sure. Eisenhower personally toured a death camp with Patton and Patton wept but Ike stayed an anti-Semite for the rest of his life. And when he manipulated the Soviet Union and Mao’s China against each other, he undid his own success and intervened to save China from a war it would’ve lost totally – and should have.
The Dirtbagocrat politicians you mentioned aren’t just political hacks, they’re complete traitors.
Eisenhower “only followed orders” when he obeyed his superiors and implemented Operation Keelhaul. Look it up if you are not already familiar with it. It was unforgivable. It likely originated with an order by Stalin to Harry Hopkins, who ordered FDR to enshrine it in American law, and Truman either didn’t know or didn’t care enough to change it. It caused immense human suffering and painted a great stain on the United States.
For those who have not seen what happened in Brussels take a look at this: https://open.substack.com/pub/melaniephillips/p/the-brussels-gangster-state
He, along with the Brexit team were fighting the establishment and the establishment has smashed both of them. Brexit was supposed to stop mass immigration but it is now much worse. Trump was going to secure the border and it is now much worse.
Just two examples of how the globalists have succeeded in destroying the will of the people.
Defund the UN now.
Astute observations eloquently presented, Mr. Bawer. Thank you.
LBJ actually wanted to originally call it the Congressional Medical Military Industrial Complex in his farewell speech but changed his mind because it was too wordy. It’s kind of a shame he didn’t because I wonder if it would have allowed more people to think of Covid differently and question the relationship between the work the military was doing on virus research, the work that pharma was doing on treatments/vaccines for said viruses even before the Academic and the regulatory capture of the FDA or Congress stock conflict of interest with big pharma. The Covid jabs are still being administered to this day under the emergency authorized use as the supposed FDA approved version has a different name / label. Until we get the globalists who forced these experimental medical procedures on much of the world held accountable a la Nuremberg 2.0 this same song and dance could happen in the future with a different virus
Years ago I was a psychiatric nurse and had a male patient who was the
son of a very high-up police official. The patient had emotional problems
caused in part by utter rejection by his father while he was growing up.
The father had many friends and a vibrant social life while his insecure
son never did. The father had concentrated on himself while pursuing
his goals.
Now take Donald John Trump. As this powerful article shows, he is
completely unique in American and even world history. As POTUS – and
as a greenhorn new politician – his accomplishments in four short years
make him one of the best Presidents America has ever had. All while
being crucified and crushed by the Communist deep state.
And it is so obvious that the children he raised love him and are confident
people who are totally loyal to their father. As President Trump sits in that
courtroom now, facing criminal charges – I root for and pray for this unique
man and for his beloved family. And our mortally threatened country. God
bless America and President Trump. MAGA!
I have posted many times – WHO would YOU trust with YOUR life savings and YOUR CHILDREN – PRESIDENT TRUMP? or Joe? THAT is how we should all assess both men! The contrast in their children is like night and day or LAW ABIDING SUCCESS vs drug addled, privileged producers of NOTHING!
If something happened to my wife and myself, I would GLADLY place MY Children, Grandchildren, and Great Granddaughter AND my life savings in the trusting, loving hands of PRESIDENT TRUMP!
Joe Biden is a career government employee who has never done an honest days work in his life. The only thing he knows about money is how to steal it, how to swindle people out of it and how to spend it. To put it succinctly, he’s a politician.
Your best editorial, sir.
A Democ-rat assassin’s bullet felled America’s second greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. May God protect America’s greatest president from that same fate as Democ-rat criminals publicly pillory him in a mock NY City courthouse. Long Live Donald J. T rump.
John Wilkes Boothe didn’t do the dirty deed because he was a “Democrat.” He did it because he believed that he was resisting tyranny. Northern Democrats, by the way, were not pro-slavery. The Civil War was a regional war at least as much as it was an ideological one.
John Wilkes Boothe did the dirty deed because he hated America and wanted Dixieland back.
“Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams
Our nation’s return to Christianity would greatly improve our circumstances. There really is no other answer.
Exactly. This non-Christian would rather live in a true Christian nation than whatever it is we have now!
“THE FBI, DOJ, AND MSM look at Trump under an Electron Microscope, while they look at the Obama’s, Clinton’s, Biden’s, and Democrats, with a BACKWARDS HUBBLE TELESCOPE!” SC
“WE CAN ALL REMEMBER the schoolyard BULLIES who always picked on and beat up the nerds in front of the teachers, who do nothing. A new student joins the school and sure enough, the Bullies have to pick on him to see what he is. He tries to reason with the Bullies, and they push him, kick him, and punch him even as he falls to the ground. The Student gets up and PUNCHES the main Bully on the nose and bloodies it. The playground teachers immediately come to help the Bully while other teachers take the Student to the Principal, who suspends the Student. When the Student walks out of the school, hundreds are CHEERING HIM. The next morning, the school newspaper headlines are: ‘TRUMP IS A BULLY! SUSPENDED!’ All the students that CHEERED for him are now given bad grades by the teachers and any little infraction is reported, while some infractions that they did not commit, are also blamed on them. When Trump returns, he’s encouraged to run for School President, he does, and he Wins. The School Board, Superintendent, Principal, teachers, and their Union, on down to the janitor, want him removed, so they Conspire to remove him by any means, including making False Allegations. A new election is held, and he loses even as proof that there were more votes cast than the number of students. Trump then becomes more popular. He runs again, strict election observers, and WINS! REVENGE OF THE NERDS!”
“DEMOCRATS DRAGGED TRUMP to the Public Square to Stone Him with The Scandal of the Week written on the Stones. For over two years, it was The Russian Collusion Stones, but in the end, it was all proven to be a Conspiracy by his political opponents, and the FBI, in a Coup attempt against a sitting President, and they got away with it. The DEMOCRATS then walked away from the Square LAUGHING since Trump was still laying there beaten to a Bloody Pulp. ‘NEXT SCANDAL! KEEP IT UP TILL NOVEMBER! Add more and more in our Accumulation Effect with so many Scandals going on that the American people will tire of him!'” SC
“BOXING RING: Trump gets into the Ring to fight his political opponent but as soon as he enters, the fighter punches, kicks, headbutts, and throws a low blow knocking Trump to the ground with no foul called by the Referee. The crowd CHEERS. As Trump begins to get up, the fighter kicks him repeatedly. The crowd CHEERS. Trump tries to get up again but this time, the referee kicks him. The crowd CHEERS. Trump makes it to his feet and immediately punches the fighter. ‘FOUL!’ The bell RINGS. The Judges disqualify Trump! The crowd CHEERS. The TV announcers: ‘TRUMP IS A DIRTY FIGHTER!'” SC
Pretty good analogy.
Make it into a movie.
Thank you, Mr. Bawer. Great, great article. DJT is remarkable, indeed.
Many so called politicians would have folded a long time ago, and could never withstand this kind of scrutiny or attacks because they have alot to hide….and MUCH MORE THAN ANYTHING DJT HAS EVER DONE. No wonder there is TDS in so many liberals and rinos. They have nothing that makes them unique, patriotic, or commendable and could never be congratulated on their policies.
After reading, “While Europe Slept,” I’ve always been a fan! As Trump supporters are characterized by our media as stupid, uneducated bumpkins, it would serve everyone well to see that profound thinkers and writers such as Mr. Bawer can articulate what we Trump supporters can see. Excellent as always, Mr. Bawer!
Actually, it was Melanie Trump who sold me on supporting Trump in 2016. In an interview with Greta Van Susteren, she spoke about her husband’s willingness to sacrifice his lifestyle to save America and its disastrous trajectory, and that she would support him in that endeavor. She turned my head around and I have never looked back or turned on my support for Donald Trump.
I can only hope and pray that he can survive all the onslaught against him. We need his leadership!
He is a hero in terms of attitude and tactics.
Lame. Some of Dick’s stuff is funny but Trump insults aren’t. As if everybody in the country doesn’t know the Big Don Trump Years were golden years and the Alzheimer Joe years are shit years.
And Trump is burly while Diaper Joe is girly.
President’s Trumps children are responsible, engaged adults with their own family. They have never been in the tabloids for being wasted in public with lunatic behavior let alone busted for drugs and prostitutes over and over like the demented pathological liar and crook installed puppet POTUS Joker Bidump. This is the kind of remarkable man President Trump is! I read his books before the Apprentice TV show for entrepreneurial information and the are there! Everything President Trump did as citizen Mr. Donald Trump, prepared him and steeled him to the awesome accomplishments fulfilling all of his promises and the demonic onslaughts of relentless persecutions from day 1 of his first administration. President Trump exposed the swamp. The enemy within and without of the USA hell bent on bringing USA down. Why do they detest freedom and capitalism that leads to modern societies and conveniences that provide more opportunities for employment and further entrepreneurialism to perpetuate capitalism? President Donald J. Trump. Man of YHVH Man Picked By YHVH Fulfilling his Divine Manifest Destiny. And nothing short of. Do not think for one second, YHVH’S Will Promises and Plans will be changed. President Donald J. Trump. Knight of YHVH Excalibur!
The whole Judge Jury and Prosecutor against Trump should all lose their American Citizenship and be all moved to the Amazon
Send them to the Amazon, Congo or anyplace else which still has cannibals. Let the natives go “Green Inferno” on them.
Or they could be “shot down in combat over New Guinea” (DERP) and eaten by fictional cannibals like Lyin’ Joe’s uncle.
lets not forget that Eisenhower also warned about the scientific-technological elite … “We must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
“The more RATIONAL a society, the less it can be ruled by brute force.” – Ayn Rand
“The inverse of Ayn Rand’s quote is also true: The more irrational and even psychopathological a culture becomes, the more its people succumb to every form of totalitarianism (green, COVID, socialism, etc).
That’s why elections and politics alone will not save us.” – Michael J. Hurd
A society that wishes for one great leader to rescue and save them is already immersed in one prerequisite for dictatorship.
So I guess, in your feeble mind, Trump will somehow morph into a dictator. You are truly an idiot.
Thank you. Great article!
Trump is unique in the same way Aaron Burr was unique.
You’re as unique as your fellow Special Ed students.
or cellmates 🙂
Interesting article. I have one small change. “Honest Abe” was a railroad lobbyist/lawyer. Not honest. Similar to a Raytheon lobbyist today.
The 19th century railroads connected America and along with big steel and big oil gave America the highest living standard on Earth.
Honest Abe saw the wisdom and humanity in that.
Thank you Bruce Bawer for another wonderful “sweep of history” placing the Trump phenomenon in a correct context. We may be “culturally” poles apart but we can’t get enough of your writing. Your books such as “Surrender” are prominent on our shelves. Roland, Ottawa, Canada
So the fact that many in both major parties are bent on preventing him from having a 2nd term, and all the lawsuits against him, are evidence not that he might be a bad guy, but that the two parties are the same and equally bad, and everyone out to restrain his influence are the real bad guys. By that standard, our jails must be full of heroes.
Is there anything Trump could say or do that would give the author of this editorial, Bruce Bawer, pause? I’d like to see how he’d respond if Trump shot to death a random stranger on a street corner. How he’d make the stranger the bad guy and Trump a hero for shooting him.
Stop equivocating like a contemptible RINO and man up and boldly admit that you hate Trump and everything he stands for. I doubt if you have the stones to do so.
The fact that many in both major SCUMBAG ANTI-AMERICAN political parties are bent on preventing Trump from making America GREAT a second time, and all the lawsuits against him, are PROOF that they’re criminals and he’s a great man, you lowlife.
America is in the toilet under Diaper Joe and his handlers and you support that? YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT.
Another thing about Reagan– he was not a man of the working classes — like PDT, despite being a billionaire, is. Over and over, that’s who he heads for in a crowd — Reagan never went into the local fast-food restaurant or met with the cops on duty, etc. He was a Hollywood rich man, and he and his wife lived that life.
You don’t know much at all about Reagan do you? Reagan gain his knowledge of average Americans by driving all across America and stopping in small towns and listening and talking to the people along the way.
Perhaps if you didn’t passionately despise republicans you would visit the Reagan library and learn a thing or two about the man. But I doubt if you have the courage to do that.
After all, democrats are notorious for not letting the truth or facts disabuse them of the lies and distortions they tell themselves and each other.
Actually, Uncle Ronny used to regularly call random Americans and have conversations with them.
Never has such uniqueness been subject to a hatchet job like the one the Democrats are perpetrating on Donald Trump. America will rue the day when it comes.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE!!!
President Trump has courage to stand up for doing the right things for the country, and so did Ronald Reagan. That is a rarety….. They both wanted a secure nation and a Capitalist system, not this corrupt New World Order that is being pushed on us by the Globalists and elites, that is causing division, lawlessness, and bankruptcy.. Taxpayers are paying billions for this illegal invasion. The World Economic Forum, China, Russia, Iran, WHO, and United Nations are involved. As President Reagan would say, “The Axis of Evil.”
Trumps popularity and Bidens falling polls tell us that the M.S. Media bottom feeders are losing t he trust of the American People and falling Newspaper and Magazine sales is another sign
Trump is because Ronald Reagan opened a door. He got us thinking in grand terms
All those names listed above, from the haughty Clintons down to the Rachel Maddow types on TV,
there’s not much difference between a political hack and a traitor.
Thanks, Mr. Bawer, for a wonderful article.
Minor note. LBJ’s rigged election was the one that sent him from the House to the Senate in 1948. Landslide Lyndon, his collegues smirked.