31 January 2018

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP


Even if you loathe Donald Trump it is hard to argue with the results he has engendered since taking office, and for all his personal flaws, results are what count.  The economy is doing very well, and as his policies continue to take hold, barring some unforeseen catastrophe,  it is increasingly clear that we are on the cusp of a boom that is only beginning, and bringing along the rest of the world in the process. Markets are at all-time highs, unemployment at an all-time low, job creation and investment are accelerating, and incomes are rising, and will increase even further for most people due to tax reform and cuts. ISIS has been decimated, and long overdue reforms are finally shaking up a sclerotic government that desperately needed it. 

It is no secret that I was skeptical of Trump prior to the election, but I withheld judgement to allow enough time to go by to reliably form one, unlike the preponderant conservative intellectual establishment.  However, his first State of the Union distilled the change that is in the air. If it weren’t for his off the cuff rhetoric he would be at least twenty or more points higher in polls, and in that respect he is his own worst enemy, Nevertheless his policies and results are increasingly popular even if he isn’t, as yet, but that could change as the reality of conditions sets in despite a hopelessly antagonistic and hostile media. 

The mainstream media coverage of his administration is atrocious, and truly unfair and misleading. The other day he made a major speech in Europe that was hardly covered at all by the networks that couldn’t even be bothered to show any of the speech, but instead lead with a non-story about an alleged attempt to fire a special prosecutor that never happened, so where is the story? With regard to the real news of the day all they could say was, well he didn’t go off-script. But they do make headlines out of every misstep he has made while ignoring the substance of what is happening on any given day. They report allegations as fact despite the lack of supporting evidence. This is ideologically driven malicious malfeasance, that cannot possibly be justified. 

This may play well with those who hate this President who are hearing what they want to hear and reinforcing their prior beliefs, but it is a miserable failure to inform the public, instead providing a truly warped image of reality.  This not to condone the very real flaws in his personal style, but there has to be some perspective, some truth, regarding what is happening substantively. Whatever misgivings one may have, he is getting things done, and keeping his promises. 

He is doing exactly what he said he would do. Even if he were a perfectly behaved angel it would make no difference, because he is an outsider who is directly taking on the establishment, as no one has done before, and they are biting back fiercely.  In fact in the days ahead it will become evident, to the point where the hostile media cannot ignore it, that the real election scandal was not Russian collusion, but in fact how that bogus story was conjured up by his opponents in entrenched bureaucracies that, it turns out, actively worked against his election, compromising the integrity of the FBI and other government agencies. There is much more to come.