Commentary
I often hear from my subscribers, ‘Man, how many publications do you read?’ The answer is “a lot,” a number of them by subscription and others by occasional internet drop in. Then there’s what I hear on TV news programs.
Notes from Iowa
While many of you were watching football, I was watching Donald Trump give his victory speech in which he was quite restrained, thanking a number of people before talking about how he, with our help, would take back our country and make it great again.
CNN and MSNBC embarrassed themselves again, censoring what we hear. CNN viewers heard Jake Tapper say that Trump had declared victory while speaking over Trump’s speech. “You hear him repeating his anti-immigrant rhetoric.” Of course, he knows Trump is not anti-immigrant. He is anti-illegal migrants.
Then there was the remark by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who while Trump was speaking said, “we’ll keep an eye” on what he says, and “will let you know if there is any news made in that speech – if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important.”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who is always ready to drop the race card, this time used her show to attack white evangelical Christians in Iowa, attributing Trump’s victory to them while describing them as “overrepresented.”
Oddly enough, Trump won their votes while DeSantis was endorsed by Family Leader President and CEO Bob Vander Plaats and the twice-elected president of Iowa’s right to life organization, Marlys Popma, supporting Haley.
“The (Iowa) result is a show of organizational strength that Mr. Trump didn’t have in 2016,” commented the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. “Voters recalled how the economy was better under Trump with little inflation, and America’s enemies weren’t on the march.”
From Hollywood
Then there was the comment from Rob “Meathead” Reiner arguing “How in God’s name can anyone who believes in the teachings of Jesus support Trump?”
Coincidentally, Reiner is producing a documentary, “God and Country,” which seeks to label religious conservatives heading into the elections as “Christian nationalists.”
From time to time, I learn about a piece carried in leftist publication, The Atlantic. They make it difficult for non-subscribers to read on line.
Writer Tom Nichols is among the media writers attempting to play up Trump’s desire to take revenge on those in Washington who, for years, have attempted to ruin him.
Writing of Trump’s win in Iowa, Nichols wrote, “So much for the hopes of establishment Republicans – the handful who remain anyway – and other conservatives that voters would refuse to join Trump’s personal crusade for vengeance against the American system of government.”
Of course, Trump supporters will recall his town hall response to an audience guest that he won’t have time for retribution because “we’re going to be so busy making the country great again, that we won’t have time for retribution.”
There will be, but it will be subtle
From another blog
Every now and then, I drop in to read Ann Althouse’s blog, Althouse, to see what she’s thinking. Last Saturday, she opened with a headline from the New York Times, “On the Ballot in Iowa: Fear. Anxiety. Hopelessness.”
Commenting on the Times piece by Lisa Lerer, who reported on Iowan’s “throwing around the prospect of World War III, civil unrest, anxious of divisions they fear are tearing the country apart,” Althouse wondered “why do mainstream media stoke despair and anxiety?”
Before I sought out Lerer’s piece to read it in its entirety, I could answer that question. They have the Biden-Harris talking points that warn of the threat to our democracy by Republicans, primarily Donald Trump. Referring to him as a dictator, and his supporters, who like the idea of making America great again, MAGA extremists.
Just a few paragraphs into Lerer’s piece, it became clear why she wanted readers to feel despair and anxiety as she found a 65-year-old chemical engineer from Kentucky to interview. He voted for Biden in 2020 and was in Iowa for a renewable fuel summit.
“There’s civil war coming, I’m convinced of it” he told her, adding that he is “weighing going to Brazil in November.” Still, Lerer wrote that he was “hardly the image of a radical.” Really?
Looking ahead
There are those, I am sure, who don’t think I really went out on a limb predicting a 50 percent win for Trump in Iowa, but with the polls such as they are I believe I did. In the end, Trump took 98 of the 99 counties and lost the 99th by just one vote.
I think DeSantis and Haley are finished and might as well join forces with Trump against Biden.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
