Commentary
I recall my delight, in 2017, when I read that Bret Stephens was leaving the Wall Street Journal for the New York Times. It was a natural move for someone with leftist opinions on politics, which he also shares with viewers of MSBNC and NBC. Still, the opinions of the Journal’s editorial board, cannot always be counted on to be conservative.
While viewing a recent broadcast of “Kudlow” on the Fox Business Channel, host Larry Kudlow, former director of the National Economic Council in the Trump administration, commented on an opinion piece by Stephens that he found interesting. I decided I had to read it.
While the headline, “The Case for Trump … by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose,” was not inviting, there were a few nuggets.
After opening with a concession that it was likely that Trump would be the nominee, he said, “Lord help us.”
But then he said, “You can’t defeat an opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable,” as he referred to “people, especially progressives, who fail to think deeply about the enduring sources of his appeal” while calling him names or disparaging his supporters.
He went on to write about three big things Trump got right. Immigration, his view of the direction of the country, and his distrust of institutions that were supposed to be impartial.
On immigration, he recalled Trump’s quote: “A nation without borders is not a nation at all. We must have a wall. The rule of law matters, as he reported of “unchecked migration” and the “consequences of Biden’s lackadaisical approach to mass migration that have become depressingly obvious.”
While Stephens noted how the liberal elites insisted that things were going well while the overwhelming majorities of Americans thought they were not, “Trump’s unflattering view captured the mood of the country.”
In explaining his third point, it was obvious that Trump had good reason to distrust the institutions, like the FBI. “But we should be more honest with ourselves,” Stephens said, “and admit that those institutions did their own work in squandering, through partisanship or incompetence, the esteem in which they had once been widely known.”
Of the Biden campaign’s claim that a Trump presidency poses a threat to our democracy, Stephens notes how “so many voters are unimpressed about the ‘end of democracy’ argument.’”
“Excluding the pandemic, a once-in-a-century event that would have knocked almost any sitting president sideways, Americans have reasons to remember the Trump years as good ones, defying expert predictions of doom,” he wrote, recalling how wages outpaced inflation, unemployment fell to 50-year lows, stocks boomed, inflation and interest rates were low.
While there are those who dislike Trump’s purported offensiveness, Stephens wonders if the “incessant offense taking, finger wagging and fake prudishness” of his opponents are less obnoxious.
Concluding his piece, he wrote, “It shouldn’t seem strange to Trump opponents that a man whom we regard as an agent of chaos should be seen by his supporters as precisely the man who can sweep the decks clean.”
“I happen to think that’s exactly wrong,” he adds, “you don’t mend damaged systems by breaking them even further.”
Kramerontheright disagrees. The Deep State needs to be dismantled.
“If you’re saying its ‘morning in America’ when 77 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, you’re preaching to the wrong choir – and the wrong country.” – Bret Stephens
Still a never Trumper, Stephens writes, “Trump’s opponents say this is the most important election of our lifetime. Isn’t it time, then, to take our heads out of the sand?”
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
