Fools, Knaves, and the Knavs (or, The Disappointing Trump)
24th February 2018
Paul Mirengoff at Power Line chronicles the disappointment.
After the 2016 election, the left and some Never Trumpers warned of dire consequences. Civil liberties would be curtailed. Court orders would be disobeyed. Russia would dictate our foreign policy. Trump would lead us into war. And that was just for starters.
Nothing of the sort has occurred. Nothing close.
This creates a problem for the left, its media allies, and some Never Trumpers. What happens when non-partisans realize that there are no catastrophic, or even particularly dark consequences from this presidency, just conservative policies and a bunch of unfortunate tweets? The answer is a dreaded one: Trump becomes “normalized.”
This dread explains, I think, why lefty outlets like the Washington Post must feed readers a daily dose of anti-Trump material. On an ordinary day, the Post’s readers can expect a minimum of two front page stories a day of some alleged Trump outrage, plus more on the inside pages.
Since a president, no matter how bad, cannot commit that many outrages per day, the Post’s stories are frequently ridiculous.