Brane Space: The "Democrats Miss The Meaning?" Uh, NO, Peggy Noonan Misses The Meaning

As I noted in previous posts, it is often amusing to see the lengths to which conservative writers will bend themselves into pretzels to try to criticize the Brat -in -chief, but without upsetting his brainwashed deplorables, otherwise known as the MAGA Walking dead, i.e.

Image result for Trump zombies images

In a way this "tiptoeing" approach is understandable given that each time Trump

gaslights or dispatches another dog whistle his lapdogs are sure to growl, bark and maybe even bite. They also have been shown to have a low tolerance to op-ed writers (even in the WSJ) who don't kiss Trump's butt....errr, "ring" with the proper obeisance.

So it is understandable WSJ op-ed columnist Peggy Noonan ('The Democrats Miss The Meaning' Aug. 22-23, p. A13):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democrats-miss-the-meaning-11597980333

would tread carefully, but in this case to the point of contradiction, confusion and utter absurdity. On the one hand we can applaud her effort to give credit where it is due, in the handling of the Democratic National Convention and its "Zoom" formula. As Chris Hayes put it last Friday on 'All In: This is what you have when you are in the middle of a pandemic. This is the new normal"

Indeed, so it isn't necessary to begin one's column writing:

"To be fair in critiquing certain public events you have to be like a judge in the Olympics and factor in degree of difficulty. No one had ever done a Zoom convention before, so no one knew how to do it. Should there be a host each night? Should it be an earnest actress? Does that make us look shallow? Do we want to look shallow? What hadn’t been done before was done rather poorly, with high schlock content. You got the impression no one creative or daring was authorized to be either."...

Hmmmm.... sour grapes to say the least.

In fact, given the limitations it was a resounding success, all Peggy's twaddle to the contrary. It was perhaps the "gold standard" for a convention conducted in the middle of a pandemic with only some minor peanut gallery complaints, e.g. the Dems didn't allot enough time for AOC (she did get ample for what she had to do), and there was no Julian Castro (Castro turned down the invitation to speak). Other than that the showcasing of diverse people was nothing short of stellar and we especially enjoyed Obama's takedown of the bloated orange fungus fouling the White House, Michelle Obama's warning, and the roll call of the states. The visual for that bested anything seen in historical conventions.

At least Peggy and I agreed on Barack Obama's masterful speech, as she wrote:

"Barack Obama's speech will stick in history, it won't just slide away. No former president has ever publicly leveled anything like this criticism at a sitting successor."

Noting accurately how Trump "never took the job seriously" and never "grew into the office of the presidency". How could he, watching TV (FOX) seven hours s day and tweeting nonstop the another three? As NY Times columnist David Brooks described it:

"His speech was fiercely pro-American and fiercely anti-Donald Trump, showing that to be fiercely pro-American you have to be fiercely anti-Donald Trump."

Well, because Trump is the archetypal anti-American, ready to praise Putin and Russia at the drop of a hat but willing to tear down every constitutional norm and principle that makes this country great. SO it is cognitively dissonant at one point to read in Noonan's essay:

"Apart from the We the People gauziness there was a nonstop hum of grievance at the convention. To show their ferocious sincerity in the struggle against America's injustices, most of the speakers thought they had to beat the crap out of the country."

Which is, alas, exactly the inverse take to what was said. Rather, the speakers highlighted TRUMP'S injustices done in America's name! From separating migrant infants from parents and locking them up, to allowing a storm trooper attack on peaceful protesters, both in D.C. (to enable Dotard to hold a fake bible as a PR stunt) and in Portland. The mission and portrayal then wasn't to "beat the crap out of the country" but to beat the crap our of what TRUMP has let the country become. As Tim O'Brien has aptly pointed out (Bloomberg News):

"Trumpism has fostered a cult of personality around Trump, allowing him to posture as the final arbiter of truth and guardian of the downtrodden. But division, chaos an disrepair - and the corruption of the American experiment - are the long term consequences."

Hence, no good thing can really be said of our nation until and unless the Trump interregnum is totally canceled, extirpated. Only then can we rebuild the nation to what it was, what it could be. Right now, with the Trump cancer we are pitied around the world, as we should be.

Trumpism then has defiled not only the office of the presidency, but the government at large - undermining every agency with Trump toadies, from the FDA, to EPA, to USPS, CDC, DOJ and HHS - thereby ripping asunder the nation's aspirations and principles as a whole. See e.g.

Feeling the Consequences of Trump’s Rotten Presidency, First Hand

One wonders why this is so difficult for Noonan to process, then one realizes she's trying to walk a weasel's 'tightrope' and not offend Trump's deplorables too much before the RNC.

So it is also choice to see her ask: "Do Democrats understand how hunkered down many people feel, psychologically and physically, over the past six months??"

Of course, Peggy, since they have been hunkered down too! Dems are not space aliens walking among us and impervious to the slings and arrows of Covid 19. They are every bit equally affected, from determining how much elderly relatives need to be protected to how soon their kids can return to real classrooms. But they are also perceptive enough to know this hunkering down, and re-hunkering down, did not have to be this traumatic. Not if Dotard Trump the wannabe dictator had followed a coordinated strategy to contain the virus - as opposed to pissing the time away. We know this because it's been well-documented, e.g.

Trump Has Sabotaged America's Coronavirus Response

Excerpt:

" In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion."

Instead of grasping all this Noonan prefers to divide and sow polarization like Trump - who recall, she asked to resign in a previous column. Peggy and her sidekicks at the WSJ may not like to hear it but the DNC was light years beyond the asinine clown show on offer from the Repukes this week, in sobriety, diversity and responsibility. As one MSNBC commentator put it this morning: "The Republican Convention has been just a forum and show for a dictator in training which is why we need to remove him."

See Also:

The 2020 RNC Isn't a Political Convention — It's a Celebration of the Trump Cult

by Heather Digby Parton | August 27, 2020 - 8:12am | permalink

— from Salon