The "Democrats Miss The Meaning?" Uh, NO, Peggy Noonan Misses The Meaning - Blinded By The Trumpism Mind Virus

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.


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


And:

Fascism | Republicans

Were Don Jr. And Kimberly “Coked Up”? Maybe Not, but It's All Part of the Fascist Tradition

by Amanda Marcotte | August 26, 2020 - 8:11am | permalink

— from Salon

And:

My RNC review: Hannibal Lecter’s dinner party was visually sumptuous

And:

First Family

Melania Trump’s Redesigned Rose Garden is a Massacre

by Samuel Vargo | August 27, 2020 - 6:24am | permalink

And:

Donald Trump

Don’t Let This Mad, Manic President Wear You Down

Will Boos Erupt Tonight At DNC Opening? Maybe

Wasserman -Schultz, may give intro remarks tonight but look for lots of boos.

The question this morning is whether Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, primary architect of Bernie Sanders' demise via her underhanded machinations (revealed in new Wikileaks-released emails) will have an introductory spiel in tonight's opening of the Democratic National Convention. Some news outlets (e.g. FOX News) believe no speaking roles will be allowed after her execrable efforts to derail Sanders were made evident over the past three days.

Others, like the panel on 'Morning Joe' this morning,  believe she will be granted  opening remarks, and will receive predictable boos from Bernie supporters. They are still incensed over the dumbo Hillary pick of fellow Neolib Kaine, and now doubly enraged after the DNC email dump. (See previous post).

All this is germane as new polls show Trump now ahead of Clinton by 48% to 45% with the latter having endured a 4 point drop and Trump a 5 point gain - likely from a convention bounce. Hillary's drop, meanwhile, I trace to her pick of Kaine and maybe partly from the nonstop Clinton bashing during the RNC.

But hold tight because as Huffpo journalist Sam Stein noted this a.m. more 'shoes' are set to drop with release of more emails. Some may show the actual collusion of Clinton with her pal Debbie, which would be disastrous on top of her Kaine pick.  (Note for those who don't know: Debbie was co-chair of Hillary's 2008 campaign.) We don't know but we will see. In the meantime, Stein observed wary Clintonites have struggled to get Wasserman-Schultz out for months now to no avail. According to him  on 'Morning Joe':

"How do you get her out, right? That's really the thing. And there's not really a mechanism to do that. This has all the signs of a negotiated exit where she says 'fine, I will go but I want x, y and z. Not just to be state director but to do the opening and closing remarks' - where she'd going to be heckled"

And "heckled may be an understatement given the level of rage among Sanders' supporters who've been repeatedly insulted, vilified and dismissed by these Neoliberal Dem apparatchiks.  Stein did leave open she could "change her mind" and at that point reality would sink in that she'd have to sacrifice her ego to the good of the party and her pal Hillary. If the FOX story is accurate this may well be what transpired.

Political strategist John Heileman then weighed in to say the one person who could get her out is Barack Obama. But, he pointed out that the White House attitude to the DNC has always been 'We couldn't care less'.

Stein then chipped in, saying:

"Obama stated in 2012 'Why would I want to pick a fight with the party. Leave her there she can't do much damage'"

But, of course, she could and she did as the Wikileaks emails have disclosed. Besides, all the panel members pointed to Wasserman-Schultz's money making performance for the party and DNC so why turf this little money machine out when they need her the most?

Of course, the Clintonites who have an abiding hatred of the Russians (since Bill continued the expansion of NATO eastward to Russian borders),  blamed everything on them. But as yet they have produced not a scintilla of evidence. Oh, there was a "claim" - still no evidence - by a DNC -hired bunch of "experts" ('CrowdStrike") that the DNC's email system was breached by "Russian hackers". Even if true, and I haven't seen anything to convince me yet, this doesn't mean the Russian government or Putin was behind it. Further, people need to read this before they jump on that suspicious political meme bandwagon:

http://www.csoonline.com/article/3084594/security/dnc-hacker-slams-crowdstrike-publishes-opposition-memo-on-donald-trump.html

So, until the illustrious 'CrowdStrike' team can provide firm evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was in fact Russian or the "Russian hackers" I will withhold accepting the DNC claim. (Wikileaks also denies Russian involvement, though of course there will always be critics who suspect the motives and assertions of any group that leaks emails or files - as they did with the super patriot Ed Snowden.)

The irony in all of this is the Democrats had been determined  - after the chaotic shit storm of the RNC - to show the nation and world they were more unified and positive. Now, the leak of the emails has fracture the party and probably irreparably, with the progressive left wing feeling like the political orphans the new Dems have always regarded them as.  This is not only from the emails but also Hillary's selection of the Anti-Bernie, Tim Kaine. How or why she ever believed that stupid move could help is beyond me, but I suspect Robert Reich has probably given the best explanation, e.g. 

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/68239/does-hillary-get-it

Meanwhile, in a '60 Minutes' spot from last night, Kaine showed he's as ignorant as he is dumb - or maybe he's just another propaganda peddler when he babbled (asked about the bias shown by the DNC with the email release):

"I don't see any effort to put a thumb on the scale, one way or the other. I think the vigorous nature of the campaign and the positive nature of the campaign show these are public servants who are in it for the right reason".

Except one of them had a head start with superdelegates mandated by the DNC, and also likely help from voting counts that definitely had 'thumbs on scales'.   See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/05/election-fraud-voter-disenfranchisement.html


We will have to tune in to see if a mini-shit storm erupts at the Democratic Convention opening tonight. I, for one, predict there will be lots more protests on the outside than in.

Postscript:

Latest word is that Wasserman Schultz has bowed out and will no longer make intro remarks. This spares the Dems initial embarrassment (from boos) but will not quell the fury already aroused, from both the email leak and the middle finger pick of Neolib Tim Kaine.  Wifey is also very upset to see on MCNBC how Sanders' supporters are even booing Bernie for his arguments earlier to support HRC. After what's transpired they don't see why they should. Hillary herself could have mollified the Left with a decent VP pick but she chose, I say CHOSE, to give the middle finger. Thus, must now live with those consequences which may also include a demonstration the night she speaks - against her pick.

See also:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails-fundraising.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0