It’s only been a week since Trump won his historic upset victory, against all the assurances of all the pundits and talking heads. By all rights the chattering class should be chattering out in the cold now, permanently exiled to what the Brits call the ‘wilderness’ for politicians out of power.
Trump, glowing with magnanimity, is trying his best to be presidential, and not to rap the media’s knuckles too hard. What seems still to be missing from the media, though, as with their whipped candidate, is humility. They still have the hubris of a power that is now no longer theirs.
A brief recap of their latest lies and spin:
Trump has backpedaled on immigration.
False. From the beginning, for those listening, Trump said we are going to get criminal aliens out, build a wall, and when that is done, and public trust restored, we’ll decide what to do with the rest of those here, fairly and humanely.
From the beginning, Trump said “we want to keep the good ones,” even if they have to go back first. Ted Cruz criticized this as ‘touchback amnesty,’ if somewhat unfairly. As long as no voting rights are granted, a decriminalized status is not amnesty and isn’t the end of the world.
We didn’t support Trump because he had the hardest line of rhetoric, but because we trusted him to make every effort to actually do as promised, and believed that he would be more effective than his opponents. His victory and defiant retention of Steve Bannon at his right hand shows our confidence was well placed, despite the schizophrenic media obfuscation (a. Trump is selling out the base, b. Bannon is the base and must be stopped).
The idea of a door-knocking deportation force was never anything other than a product of the fevered imagination of the hysterical media, which used the imagery to whip up extreme emotions (but apparently not enough votes) that are now playing out in some chanting, marching, breaking things and random violence against innocent pedestrians.
That Clinton won the popular vote is also making the media rounds. As Trump has said, if the presidency was a contest for the popular vote, he would have run an entirely different campaign and won it differently, with a focus on the highest population areas. Pointing to Hillary’s slim popular vote margin (while ignoring probable fraud) is like congratulating the loser of the fifty yard dash for extreme endurance, and accosting the judges for judging by the rules.
Contrary to the media narrative, there is no great friction between Trump and the GOP outside a handful of Congressional tramps beholden to special interests, lobbyists or some dirt we don’t even know about.
On the Affordable Care Act, Trump has not backpedaled one iota. It’s a game of semantics to say ‘repeal and replace’ is substantively different from repeal, replace and hold over those positive aspects of the law that would be in the replacement anyway. Keeping them is a nice gesture to the outgoing president, who, like it or not, is the president. It allows Trump to get what he wants with less damage to Obama’s legacy, thus preserving cordiality between presidents and the dignity of the office even though it was occupied by a bad actor. To ‘take the lumps out,’ as Fred taught the young Donald. That is magnanimity, something the jackal packs of the press will never understand.
Trump has not ‘gone establishment.’ He was always part of the establishment, except during that year and a half where he had to beat them silly to achieve his goal of winning the presidency. Trump knows how to soothe the wounded egos of the fairly defeated. To leave those wounds open would injure his own chances of successfully accomplishing his agenda.
Trump defeated all of his opponents. For the most part they’re no longer hitting him. They’re speaking publicly of reconciliation and coming together. He’s reciprocating that and he’s not out to kick them while they’re down. He is being gracious to the vanquished.
In their desperation, the humiliated media are now seizing on this as evidence of a betrayal, and cheering on those insincere, disappointed rightwing pundits who secretly wished for a Clinton win and are now looking to find flaw in Trump for being willing to work practically to get things done. There are plenty in the talk radio world who would have loved nothing more than to field a big loser, lose big and then lament their fate for the next four years with their swelling, tear-filled audience of duped schmucks.
There is no betrayal going on. Trump is doing what Trump has to do to Make America Great Again.
Finally, in gleefully hoping for Trump to abandon his supporters and join those he beat, the media have tipped their hand: it wasn’t Trump they hated all along, although they were happy to concentrate their hate upon him. It was us—the deplorables who he spoke for and who supported him. They hate the country they wish to rule. But it doesn’t work that way.
Trump’s honeymoon may be over early, but the honeymoon of America and its media overlords is over forever. I do believe we will take the hubris out of them, and they may yet see humility.