?During the past
year I have, on several occasions, reprinted articles written by the award-winning
British journalist Melanie Phillips. Because she lives in London and is not an
American, Melanie has a unique objectivity when commenting on what’s happening
in the United States. As mentioned in one of my previous articles, Melanie
introduces herself as a “liberal who was mugged by reality.” Her most popular
book is entitled Londonistan: How Britain
is Creating a Terror State Within. Unfortunately, the United States and
most other naïve Western democracies have also created “terror states within.”
On the day after the U.S. elections,
Melanie wrote the following article, which appeared in several major British
publications.
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*
Against All Odds
Those So Shocked by Trump’s Victory Have Only
Themselves to Blame
by Melanie
Phillips
The relief, for some of us, is overwhelming. Even among
people who dislike Donald Trump or worry about his temperament, the possibility
that Kamala Harris might win the U.S. presidential election produced the
deepest fear and dread – fear for America and fear for civilization.
Others, however – dyed-in-the-wool
Democrats, formerly Republican “never-Trumpers,” and “progressives” in Britain
and elsewhere – are clutching their heads today and moaning, “How could this
have happened?”
It would take a heart of stone not
to laugh. The election result is by any standard extraordinary. This is a man
whom the Left has spent the past eight years trying to destroy through every
possible means other than a stake through the heart.
He was subjected to an attempted
rolling coup, impeachment (twice), lawfare prosecutions, and legal harassment.
He was found responsible for sexual assault in a civil case and convicted of
improperly reporting hush money payments. His house was raided over official
documents that, like Joe Biden, he had taken home. He was defamed non-stop with
malicious distortions of his comments and claims that he was a Nazi, fascist,
and dictator who would destroy democracy. Then he survived a would-be assassin’s
bullet.
Yet Trump and the Republicans have
now come through to win the presidency, the Senate, and the popular vote.
Moreover, in every constituency that
the Democrats had assumed was their own and in which they were confident they
had the vote sewn up – African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities,
women, young people, first-time voters – Trump actually increased his support
and crushed his opponent.
Why, oh why? cry traumatized
liberals. How could this possibly have happened when we said it wouldn’t? We
stated definitively that Kamala would win by an overwhelming majority. So how
can it possibly be the case that she didn’t achieve what we had said would
happen?
The arrogance and hubris are
overwhelming, a rich source of mockery and comic memes that are now doing the
rounds. However, these come from a mindset which is far from amusing. As the
default position of those screaming about the threat that Trump is said to pose
to democracy, this mindset is actually based on profound and venomous contempt
for millions of regular folk.
This was summed up in an unusually
clear-eyed analysis by a member of the American media. As the result was
becoming clear on election night, CNN’s political commentator Scott Jennings
said:
This
is a mandate for getting the economy working again for millions of
working-class Americans. Fix immigration, try to get crime under control, try
to reduce the chaos in the world. This is a mandate from the American people to
do that. I’m interpreting the results tonight as the revenge of the regular old
working-class American, the anonymous American who has been crushed, insulted,
condescended to; they’re not “garbage,” they’re not “Nazis.” They’re just
regular people who get up and go to work every day trying to make a better life
for their kids, and they feel like they have been told to just shut up when
they have complained about the things that are hurting them in their own lives.
Jennings was a rare voice of honesty from within a liberal
establishment that has thus dismissed and defamed ordinary Americans for years.
The reason that so many liberals simply can’t believe what’s just happened, the
reason they were absolutely certain in their predictions that Trump couldn’t
possibly win, the reason they never registered Kamala’s manifold and
disqualifying flaws, is that the world they inhabit is a fantasy world.
What they want to happen is what
they tell themselves must happen; and because it must happen, it will happen.
And if they tell themselves lies – such as
that transgender men are women, that excluding Zionists from publishing is
helping oppressed Palestinians, or that accusing all Caucasians of “white
privilege” is anti-racist – what must happen is already happening. And where it
is undeniably not happening, they have a duty to make it happen by foul means
as well as fair because it cannot be allowed not to happen.
So, when faced with the evidence of
the disaster that was Kamala Harris’ candidacy, they simply didn’t see what the
rest of us saw. They didn’t see that her inability to answer any question other
than in gibberish “word salads” was evidence of someone who was totally
unsuited to public office. Instead, the mainstream media censored those
episodes on the grounds that it was their duty to ensure she was elected
because the alternative couldn’t be allowed to happen.
They didn’t register the copious
evidence on social media of African Americans and Hispanics declaring
themselves Trump voters. They didn’t acknowledge – couldn’t possibly
acknowledge – the disaster of Barack Obama’s arrogant attempt to bully young
black men into voting for Kamala, a desperate move that backfired so very badly
when these young men declared themselves insulted by a man who had done nothing
for them while he was president.
But when what they deem
unconscionable really does happen despite all their efforts, it’s as if the
world has turned backwards on its axis. It’s an offence against nature itself.
It simply cannot be.
Hence the titanic effort by the
liberal establishment in Britain to reverse the 2016 Brexit vote. Hence the
unconstitutional and probably illegal three-year attempt by elements in the Justice
Department, FBI, and Democrat party – facilitated by a shockingly partisan
media suppressing the truth – to lever Trump out of office the first time around.
Lo and behold, there are already
threats to repeat that attempted coup against democracy – by those who in the
same breath are intoning that Trump will now destroy democracy. In the Atlantic, Tom Nichols writes:
After
Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell vowed to make Obama a one-term president and obstructed him at every
turn. McConnell, of course, cared only about seizing power for his party, and
later, he could not muster that same bravado when faced with Trump’s assaults
on the government. Patriotic Americans and their representatives might now make
a similar commitment but for better aims: Although they cannot remove Trump
from office, they can declare their determination to prevent Trump from
implementing the ghastly policies he committed himself to while campaigning.
The kinds of actions that will stop Trump from destroying
America in 2025 are the same ones that stopped many of his plans the first time
around. They are not flashy, and they will require sustained attention, because
the next battles for democracy will be fought by lawyers and legislators, in
Washington and in every state capitol. They will be fought by citizens banding
together in associations and movements to rouse others from the sleepwalk that
has led America into this moment.
Get that? “Patriotic” Americans must now prevent Trump from
carrying out the pledges he made to the American people on the basis of which
they voted for him: the essence of a democratic election.
Liberals having this meltdown are
accusing Trump of behavior of which they themselves are guilty: contempt for
democracy, suborning the constitutional order, lying, bullying, extremism,
suppressing contrary opinions, and promoting hatred and division. Psychologists
call this kind of accusatory behavior “projection.” It is a mental disorder.
The chances of this election result
resulting in such people questioning their own mindset and assumptions, which
have now so spectacularly blown up in their faces, are very slim. A notable
exception has been Scott Jennings, who in his rare media mea culpa also said
the following:
I
also feel like this election was something of an indictment of the political
information complex. We’ve been sitting around it for the last couple of weeks,
and the story that was portrayed was not true...all these gimmicks we were told
were going to push Harris over the line, and we were ignoring the fundamentals:
inflation, a feeling like they were barely able to tread water at best...for
all of us who cover elections, and talk about elections, and do this on a
day-to-day basis, we have to figure out how to understand, talk, to and listen
to the half of the country that rose up tonight and said, we’ve had enough.
Absolutely correct. Elsewhere, however, liberal commentators
are employing funereal tones as if they are in mourning. And of course, they’re
lashing out at the people they say are to blame.
They blame Harris for failing to be
different enough from Joe Biden.
They blame women for unaccountably
failing to vote for her.
They blame people without a college
degree for not having the intelligence to agree with them.
They blame the dark forces of human
nature.
They blame Elon Musk for existing.
What such people can’t see – and
will never see – is that the people to blame are themselves.
Melanie Phillips,
Nov 06, 2024
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Getting to Know
Pompeo
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege
of speaking with Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s former CIA director who became the
Secretary of State from 2018 until 2021. Pompeo is a charming, charismatic, and
extremely intelligent fellow. He graduated first in his class at West Point and
served as an infantry captain. He went on to receive a law degree from Harvard –
and subsequently served three terms in Congress representing the Fourth
district of Kansas.
His firsthand knowledge of Donald
Trump does not fit the media narrative. He said that Donald Trump is a tough
but fair boss who has no patience for excuses. He takes advice from those he
trusts – and expects those around him to be armed with facts. What impressed
Pompeo was how Trump warmly greeted the maids, the gardeners, and the myriad of
low-level White House workers. At holiday time, he gave them a personal card
and cash. He stopped by the desks of support staff and inquired about their
families. His average workday was 16 hours. Pompeo also said that Trump often
did quiet acts of charity and was deeply concerned about making the lives of
hardworking Americans better.
In a 2018 interview, Secretary of
State Pompeo said, “Our administration has implemented the strongest pressure
campaign in history against the Iranian regime, and we’re not done. We’ve cut
off billions in funds that the Islamic Republic’s leadership would have used
for various nefarious purposes, not the least of which would have been their
efforts to destroy the State of Israel. Under President Trump, the Israel
haters, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, will receive far less
blood money from Iran to pursue their terror activities then ever in recent
history.” Pompeo went on to say, “The simple truth is that anti-Zionism is
indeed anti-Semitism.”
Tragically, all of the tough anti-Iran
sanctions imposed by the Trump administration were reversed as soon as Trump
left office. October 7, 2023, was the direct result of reopening the faucet
(from the Obama years) for funds to flow freely to Iran and its proxies.
Pompeo was present at a White House
meeting that included some career State Department officials, some of whom
clearly were not supporters of Israel. One official said, “Mr. President,
American Jews don’t support you; why are you so supportive of Israel?”
The President replied, “There are
two basic reasons. The first is that supporting Israel is in the best interests
of America and the free world. They are the first line of defense against the
barbarians who wish to destroy democracy and civilization. The second is that the
Jews have a biblical right to Israel. They only want to live in peace, and they
are surrounded by homicidal maniacs; it is my duty to support Israel.”
I wish that more American Jews had
the clarity that Trump has regarding Israel – which brings me to the sad
reality that a true friend of the Jews and Israel, Larry Hogan, lost his bid to
replace Ben Cardin. Admittedly, the fact that Hogan was well qualified worked
against him in Maryland. It’s stunning how many Jews voted against Hogan. Now
Maryland will have two senators who will not have Israel’s back. One day, maybe
I’ll understand why Jews so often work against their own best interests and
those of Israel.
Pompeo also mentioned that when he
sat with President Trump at meetings with some of the world’s most despicable
leaders, Trump was soft spoken, focused, steely eyed, and forceful. He
projected a powerful persona, which caused “the bad guys” to reconsider the
consequences of actions that were detrimental to U.S. interests. “In those
meetings Trump was quite strong and believable when issuing warnings about
American resolve,” Pompeo said.
In 2020, notwithstanding Donald
Trump’s many successes, Americans were led to believe that the likable grandpa
Joe Biden would be a centrist who would act presidential and not rock the boat.
Therefore, with the support of a corrupt media and some corrupt FBI and CIA
officials (courtesy of the Obama “deep state”), millions of nice people who
just wanted a return to “normal” voted for Uncle Joe.
By 2024, outside the bubble of the woke
elite, there were many millions of Americans who decided that what was actually
needed – and required – was a “disrupter,” someone who would push back hard
against woke insanity and against America’s enemies. It’s kind of like knowing
that if you need a dog for protection, a dachshund or a cocker spaniel isn’t
the best choice. A German shepherd or a Rottweiler will protect you in two ways:
First, when you walk with a formidable dog, a bad guy says to himself, “I’d better
find a softer target because this dog could kill me.” Second, if an attacker is
dumb enough to try to mug you, your loyal dog will, in fact, neutralize him.
Trump is the Rottweiler that the majority of Americans now want, and need, for
protection.
Yesterday, a friend called me and
said, “Well, now that Trump has won, all of the protesters and rioters who
support Iran and its proxies will have to go on a major recruiting campaign in
order to have an ample number of anti-Trump rioters to spread around the
country over the next few months.” His tongue-in-cheek statement may very well
be true. Time will tell!
Ultimately, everything is in G-d’s
hands. I thank Hashem for His blessings and pray that we will see peace in
Eretz Yisrael and, hopefully, peace in America. Hodu lashem ki tov! L’chaim tovim uleshalom!
