OPINION:
Bob Dylan had it right. “The times they are a-changin’.” Perhaps the most dramatic rejection of the way Washington “works” — or more accurately, the way it doesn’t work — was the election of Donald Trump in 2016. And, as we now posture for 2020, this silly town still can’t figure it out.
Even Mr. Trump’s nomination stunned the traditional Republican Party and its embedded political machine, and Mr. Trump’s sharp criticism of the extended and wasteful war in Iraq quickly organized the internal Washington “neocon” community against him and alienated the entrenched Republican Bush family — and Mr. Trump loved it. The criticism of the Iraq War also alienated most of the Congress, longtime supporters of the never-ending Iraq war, which was proven as foolish as Vietnam.
Mr. Trump also ran against President Obama’s subsidized social programs and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) money machine — the one that facilitated the “pay for play” political access to the disgraced Clinton klatch with its phony “Clinton Foundation” cutout. Mr. Trump teased and angered Hillary Clinton so much that she labeled those who opposed her as “deplorable and irredeemable,” apparently not realizing she was offending at least half of the voting public — probably much more. To her genuine surprise she learned it big time on Election Day: The traditional “working states” voted for prosperity and they got it — the best economy in almost 80 years.
Instead of kissing the spoiled butts of the flaming liberal big-city media, Mr.Trump called them purveyors of “fake news.” They hated him for it — to the extent they couldn’t hide their contempt for him — and no longer try. The day of objective political news reporting is long over in the United States: They now mostly interview each other and are all in big money “show business.” Ironically, perhaps, it was Ben Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s White House NSC spin-doctor who labeled them as “27-year-old-know-nothings” living in an “echo chamber.” We now realize that it’s our news media who are “deplorable and irredeemable” and they prove it every day with their sophomoric political spins.
And when evaluating the “objectivity” of our national media, we should also keep the following practical realities in mind:
• Ben Rhodes’ brother was president of CBS News.
• Chuck Todd from NBC’s “Meet the Press” and the NBC “Political Director” worked as a campaigner for super liberal Tom Harkin in the 1992 election — Sen. Harkin was the ’90s version of Bernie Sanders.
• Bill Clinton’s press secretary was George Stephanopoulos, now at ABC — and George still acts like the old days.
Because no one in D.C. believed Mr. Trump would ever be elected and therefore there would not be any accountability, the Obama intelligence community and Justice Department leadership abused — if not violated — long-standing approval authorities, procedures and regulations governing intelligence collection against political campaigns. While this has been documented in several congressional hearings, the town is awaiting release of the DOJ Inspector General report which is expected to criticize former senior Obama officials in the White House, DOJ and the FBI. The reaction to this report could easily result in criminal referrals and a congressional “select committee,” such as was led by Sen. Frank Church after the Watergate Scandal in the ’70s.
The more Donald Trump reveals about the embedded political conflict of interests in Washington, the more offended the American people become, and the more likely Mr. Trump will be re-elected in 2020. So far, the best the Democrats can do is compete with each other on the amount of “free stuff” they would give away if elected — and they have no plan to pay for it except to tax the life out of our recently revived economy to fund the costs of their various degrees of socialism.
Because of Donald Trump, we also have a new awareness about the serious threats we face internally and from abroad. For example:
• How many Americans realized that many NATO members had not been paying their agreed share — and had been getting away with it for years?
• How about the wholesale and organized theft of our research and intellectual property by the Chinese? They have been stealing us blind since the 1950s as part of their “100 Year War.”
• The unfair and unequal trade and tariff practices enshrined in the poorly negotiated agreements of the past?
• The failure of the past seven administrations to deal effectively with North Korea and Iran?
• The atrophy of our military forces — especially our nuclear deterrent and strategic defenses?
• The combined economic and security threats from our largely open borders, together with pervasive political corruption and organized crime in Mexico?
These truths reveal the policies and practices of the administrations since Ronald Reagan — both Republican and Democratic — have largely failed us in providing the economic and physical security we expect and have paid trillions of dollars for. Accordingly, we no longer should be paying for the policy mistakes of the past — rather, we should focus on what we do best: Hard work, creativity, economic opportunity and prosperity for every new generation.
These are the realities demonstrating why Mr. Trump won in 2016 and will likely win again in 2020: He is properly viewed by working class and centrist Republicans and Democrats as our “last chance” to straighten out the warped “tax and spend” approach of the warped Washington political swamp.
What dumb ideas could we be paying for next?
The latest example: Free medical care for all illegal aliens — an idea with 10 out of 10 “hands up” at the last Democratic debate. And with this latest goofy suggestion, another great Bob Dylan verse comes to mind:
“But it ain’t me, babe
“No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe
“It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe”
• Daniel Gallington served in a series of senior national security related positions.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.