1. As clear as day one continues to notice that when you own and control media, you pretty much determine the narratives you create and propagate to your captive viewers/readers for your own ends. And this, not only in your home country but everywhere else where you have enviable presence and reach. Such stupendous powers!
2. Except that at times your detestable opposition steers away from the reservation with its own unacceptable narratives. Thus like it or not, you as potent media is forced to address and dismiss those wayward narratives, and this upends your well-planned and regular programming.
3. Under the current US election, the media readily jumped the gun (as to whether they had good premonition or they already foreknew the results, who knows?) by proclaiming its choice and demanding everybody else accept and move on, this even before the end of counting was in sight. BTW, one could refute that this is such unexplained or willful shortsightedness of what happened exactly 20 years ago.
4. Expectedly , the other side balked, and worse, challenged not just the premature coronation, but it also boldly declared massive voter fraud, not in one isolated area but in several states, mostly hotly-contested battleground states. Thus, legal challenges were filed and the process is churning as we speak.
5. The neatly-massaged scenario depicted by media had some easy ride not only locally but even globally (quite a heavy dose of early congratulatory messages from eclectic sources), and thus the celebratory and transition moves common in presidential elections continued on. And we surmise comforted in the assured hope that pushing it deep into the process of installing a new president any drastic change to the presumptive outcome later would be not only be one gargantuan task, but would be expected to elicit great howls of protest from those who orchestrated the whole promotion.
6. In a concerted scheme to demonize Trump and his side, media is in full blitz making sure that any move Trump and his allies make or even hint is condemned with haste and dispatch as the work of utter evil and subterfuge. Thus, like the 4 years of the Trump administration, the report will be that the only thing consistent with Trump is that everything he does is bad and evil, not a shred of decency or goodness in them. For all intents and purposes and more, he is the devil incarnate.
7. It must appear to be so because it seems that everybody in media is on the same page and echoes the same dreary sentiments.
8. The only obstructing monkey wrench to all this is this discernible observation. How come many of the Christian religious groups, even lay Catholic organizations, are one in support of amoral Trump and not the other candidate who wastes no opportunity to declare himself as a devout Catholic? And these groups truly and really are praying and pleading that a miracle be forthcoming from the Almighty so Trump can continue with his accustomed tasks? And mind you, not loudly protesting, rioting, or worse, looting, or hurting law enforcement and those who represent law and order, just peaceably gathering and praying. First, why a miracle? Because they proclaim Trump is facing formidable dark forces gathered with the sinister intent to end good moral virtues and liberties that the practice of religion has enjoyed in the country.
9. Second, why a miracle? That on his own Trump, the flawed and weak human being, cannot prevail against the formidable forces of the enemy. A Jericho would have to be repeated. Let the walls come crumbling down!
10.But silently waiting in the wings, my puny and inconsequential existence, like that of a lowly fly on the wall, waits with bated breath.
11.And as if these were not enough, the world is still reeling having to contend with the pandemic scourge that continues to wreak untold havoc. Surely, the world must be paying for what it has done. Scores of uncertainties for these indeterminate times!
12.Read about an avid conservative who declared that people want Trumpism but without Trump in it. Therefore, a caricature of the flawed and unwanted hero. The shadowy gunslinger of the movies, who is grudgingly engaged to clean a dirty town. But once done, is summarily pushed out of the way to ride into the sunset.
13.Some call for Trump to indeed ride into the sunset, resting comfortably in the thought that he produced the best ever first administration of a US president, arguably better than any of recent memory. A singular feat with no comparison!
14.However it ends, people have already written a virtual epitaph, or whatever, of Trump. I penned a longish one a bit earlier.
In Memoriam: Donald J. Trump
Written: October 2, 2020,
Friday (The day Trump tested positive with Covid19)
Big print media outlets are
noted for their unacknowledged practice of preparing before-hand for all
possible results in important contests, elections, games, to assure speedy
publication of their copies once results are in. Getting a leg up over the
competition, in a manner of speaking.
Thus, for example, headline banners are printed before-hand to document
all possible results. An illustration of very recent vintage was the one where
certain news-magazines already had their intended covers for next issues timed
right after election for the expected assured win of Hillary in 2016. Another more classical instance was the Dewey
Beats Truman headline, that was actually leaked and released to the public. A victorious Truman had been shown in
pictures holding up that false headline after his win, with a big grin on his
face.
Anyway you get the point. This is no prophesy by any stretch, just trying to cover all bases.
My purpose in a macabre sort of way is similar. Because however things spin, one is confident that it could be either this, or Trump Wins Re-election For 2020. Why this kind of weird dichotomy? In a morose sort of way one could imagine that a good number on the other side are aching for the above headline to be the reality they wake up to one morning from a night of restless tossing and turning. (Not envisioning any more, since we have heard/read similar voices already.)
There was never been in memory, and maybe even in US history books, where a president has been so criticized, reviled, investigated, derided and ridiculed, and condemned for practically everything that he has ever done or imagined in his administration. Forcing the labored conclusion that there is a creeping sense that he had not done a single good thing in his entire administration. Thus, in that scorched-earth campaign of destruction nothing is off limits, including his hair and style, and the expenses associated with it. So overwhelmingly fettered with negative criticism that one also could sense that the entire country was going to the dogs. Many measures however point to the contrary.
But people either consciously or unconsciously are missing or omitting the sterling peaks that he has allowed the country to reach in his short stint. True, the many lows in his life, mostly prior to his presidency, could fill a small room. The many elite institutions in the country have been making sure that those low points are always front and center in any media discussion. One cannot name any elite sector of society that is on his side, from academe, to media, to all the political classes, the big-tech companies, the bigwigs of Wall Street, not even the affluent society that he is considered belonging to. That combined enmity could possibly be the reason for his mystique and power derived from popular support, and a rendering of his rise to political power could be the key to understanding him and his administration.
No question Trump comes from the very affluent, and in many circles, reviled, class in US society. The One Percenters! All his life he knew no other kind of life, so we can say, he was one born with a silver spoon. A profligate and hedonistic kind of life came and mingled seamlessly with his lifestyle and business dealings. Multiple marriages, many girlfriends, uncouth manners, bully-like in some respects, etc. He continually spoke of things political though such exposition came solicited because of who he was and what he did as a public persona; but he never engaged in it, simply dropping hints about making a run. All of his life he had straddled political lines showing moral and financial support on both sides, and more. You get the picture.
All of a sudden and out of nowhere, he decides to enter politics under the Republican Party, known traditionally as the rich man’s party. He could not have entered in an inopportune time as any God-fearing pollster would have advised, wading into a very crowded field of heavy-hitters and in the mire of very chaotic politics overall. But he did. Though no serious-thinking “pundit” or intellectual gave him a spitting chance of winning. He won both the primaries and the actual election and handily, if we may add to it. So, why?
Now in hindsight most everybody prognosticates that it was because of his populist stance and programs. Make America Great Again! So he was lifted up by the unlikely support of those who were not even of his own kind and class. It is bruited about that he was able to tap into their collective angst as the forgotten Americans, the middle class and those in the fly-over states.
For whatever currency one may assign to that, we have to confess and admit that he had in his winning accomplished a tremendous feat not realized in recent US history. He made fools of all the experts and pundits who mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at him as one completely not having an iota of chance of winning. That alone in the books of many would have made him short of being a cult hero, able to magnetize and energize great followings. But the truth is that the ugly reverse of all of that would be all he ever got.
Unfazed, he started his work of governance, not minding the magpie-like noises from the chattering classes that were not only relentless, but incessant and unyielding. More than making noises, the gathered opposition threw everything at him, including the kitchen sink and then some. And a committed opposition one could not imagine could happen had galvanized – from the unappeased Democratic losers, to the unrequited media, to the suddenly out of the closet Deep State operatives that we now learn were given free rein to rain havoc on the incumbent administration.
First, let us count in summary some of the high peaks in his fledgling administration.
He was able to bring down unemployment in a very dramatic fashion, pushed by the quick actions on deregulating the economy from past restrictions that hobbled it all these years. And the unemployment improvements crossed all boundaries, affecting all sectors of the labor force. Nothing like it had been seen before in US economic history.
For the first time in decades he made the US energy independent, releasing it from its dependency on foreign oil. The country’s economic engine was going full bore and markets were soaring. MAGA was on its way to fulfillment.
In the world, Trump sought quickly to upset the status quo, which encrusted condition had put unfair and unnecessary burdens to the homeland. The spoiler rose to action, with his detractors projecting a world of chaos and division because of such just demands. But no such thing happened, at least nothing that could not be massaged and placated. Thus, on many occasions he brought China to the table to level the playing field on trade. Another historic first with China, in tandem with the North Korean side issue. And with regional trade agreements, he was able to negotiate better terms with other nations, like Canada, and Mexico. And with regard to NATO member nations, he got them to pay their fair shares for the maintenance of the organization in which traditionally the bigger burden had been shouldered by the US. Yes, he also got out of the Paris Climate Change accord for good reasons and in favor of US interests. Iran learned that this was a no-nonsense president as walked out of the accord inked by the previous administration. And more.
What about the stances and actions he had advocated and executed in other areas like sovereignty and the border, morality and health, law and order, the military, etc.?
Based on his stances, he is one who is Pro-Police, thus pro-law and order, and not for riots and anarchy. Pro-Life, taking positions for limiting the runaway abortion rights legislated additionally after Roe Vs Wade. In short, pro-country, pro-America, as it has stood all these years from its founding.
All these he accomplished early in his first term. But why so early? Did he use a magic wand (as the previous president joked about) to accomplish them? I doubt that. The simple answer is that he was the only president who had the political will to do all these unpalatable things that past Admins avoided. He simply deregulated, so the means used were always there but none used them as he did. Ergo, nothing extraordinary and out of thin air, just the will to do them. And that he did, with ease and dispatch.
That is the secret of his successes, and probably the reason why he is so derided and loathed. He showed current politicians and those in the past how easy it was to move the country forward.
No doubt, the MAGA juggernaut was underway. But China had to get in the way to mess things up. For the pandemic like afternoon fog suddenly came and wiped out many of those hard-earned gains. Imagine if those gains had not been garnered prior, where would the US be during this pandemic? No doubt worse.
But in spite of that and as the pandemic raged, his workload never slackened nor diminished. And he fought hard and fierce like the way he had lived his life, with dogged determination and passion. And to a certain extent, with abandon. And in the end it was the Chinese scourge that felled him.
And for that it was China who could possibly claim him for the kill, as well as for the almost a million people in the globe who perished because of China’s neglect. And his enemies in the end who no doubt relished the thought of eradicating him from his position never got the chance and enjoyment for that. And I use the word, enemies, with full intent and purpose for they were truly not just detractors but enemies in every sense of the word. In a real way then, they never got the chance or pleasure to “break any bone in him”.
Godspeed, for you fought the fight and at 74 years lived a life as full and fruitful as any man could wish, and more, attaining the highest public position in the land while also garnering temporal success in the business world.
We must all die so regrets have no place here, maybe just pining for reckoning of those who had willfully and unfairly maligned your person, name, and the things you did for your country.
Lastly, not to worry you left the country on the rightful path, for surely VP Mike Pence and the millions who followed you will honor your passing by continuing your work for you in your self-same manner and diligence.
Go and enjoy the fruits of the things you did for God and country!
DISCLAIMER: Reality typically being unmindful of people's wishes, this sick foretelling was not to be. And it is a big relief.