The predictable but nonetheless laughable response from the suddenly hawkish, peace-loving Left to President Trump’s denuclearization of the Korean peninsula has spurred me to state the obvious: The Left in the U.S., both the media and the Democrats, can’t stand success.
Well, they can’t stand it when Trump accomplished it anyway. They much prefer to spin President Barack Obama’s many failures -- Obamacare, Iran nuclear deal, shovel-ready projects -- as successes.
In Singapore, Trump may add to a list of accomplishments that includes full employment, a booming economy, and sharp drops in illegal immigration, a new and completely unexpected one: ending a stalemate that has lasted since 1953 and threatens allies South Korea and Japan, as a minimum, with a nuclear strike.
I ask you, is it really logically possible to spin a denuclearized North Korea as a bad thing?
The foreign policy novice Trump has completely surpassed Presidents Clinton, G.W. Bush, and Obama at the same objectives.
For the media and the so-called experts it wasn’t accomplished in a conventional diplomatic fashion, and let’s be honest here, Donald Trump did it, therefore it must be wrong.
Another laughable incident is Nancy Pelosi and company sprinting to a moral defense of the violent Mexican gang, MS-13 following Trump’s characterization of the gang members as “animals.”
In a Manchurian Candidate-ish moment, Nancy Pelosi may be a secret agent for the Republican Party. How else can you explain her sorrow over both the booming economy and support for MS-13?
Pelosi replied to Trump’s attack on MS-13 gang members, saying, “Does he not believe in the spark of divinity, the dignity and worth of every person?” and “We are all God’s children.”
Of course, we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That is true of MS-13 members. It was also true of Osama bin Laden, Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler. But can you imagine Pelosi standing up in outrage to defend their humanity?
Similarly, the Associated Press was forced to apologize for falsely claiming that Trump was referring to illegal aliens when he made the “animals” remark.
The FBI assistant director told the committee that the gang has “gained notoriety” because of their “brutal nature.” “Their motivation is rooted in a desire to kill for the sake of killing. The attacks on their victims are gruesome, typically up close and personal. They often involve mutilation and dismemberment and are sometimes recorded.”
How evil is MS-13? Last year, two gang members in Texas reportedly murdered a teenage girl as an offering to Satan. According to prosecutors, the gang leader (known as “Diabolico”) told the young girl that “the Beast” wanted “a soul” before having his partner shoot her in the head and dump her body on a street corner. As charges were read against the two, the Houston Chronicle reported, they “laughed, smiled and waved for the media cameras.” MS-13 gang members, police have said, also stabbed a Maryland man more than 100 times before decapitating him and cutting out his heart.
Her latest outburst, in which she derides the accelerating economy and declining unemployment, is so nonsensical that it demeans Democrats’ credibility, shows them to be remarkably out of touch with average Americans and underscores the poverty of their competing platform. It isn’t the first time Pelosi has given GOP candidates rich fodder for ridicule; remember how she compared thousand-dollar bonuses to “crumbs?” That’s a clip that will show up in midterm campaign ads.
Unhappily for Nancy, but happily for the U.S., consumer confidence doesn’t need “restoring” – it is actually booming; the Consumer Confidence Index rose 2.4 points in May, and reached its highest reading in more than 17 years.
Note that at no time during Barack Obama’s presidency did consumers feel similarly upbeat, despite the president’s personal popularity and his promises of “hope and change.” He delivered plenty of change; hope, not so much.
In other celebrity rants, comedian Bill Maher said on Friday’s episode of his HBO show Real Time that he has no problem with the country sinking into an economic recession if it is detrimental to President Trump.
“By the way, I’m hoping for it because one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy. So please, bring on the recession,” Maher said. “Sorry if that hurts people but it’s either root for a recession or you lose your democracy….I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point.”
At the Tony Awards, classy Robert De Niro exclaimed, “I’m going to say one thing, F— Trump,” De Niro said while pumping his fists in the air. “It’s no longer ‘Down with Trump.’ It’s f— Trump.”
Yet in the meantime, even as his myriad foes prepare their next political, legal, and media attacks, Trump is the man astride the world stage, smiling, shaking hands, signing deals—and unmistakably remaking the old order.
On the downside, however, are the new Trump-imposed tariffs. I’m a free-trade advocate, like most Republicans, so I don’t like them. Also, I don’t like this pardoning trend and hope it doesn’t continue. Maybe taking advice from the Kardashians will help him get reelected-what do I know?
On foreign policy though, the media is aghast at the president's rough handling of Canadian boy-band frontman Justin Trudeau, and his confrontational approach overall at the Group of Seven summit.
When the dust settles, though, Trump may accomplish what eluded Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama: a stabler and safer world without the need for millions of American boots on the ground. He well may go down in history as one of our great foreign policy presidents. It's not in the bag, but it is within sight.
Once again, his critics focus on style over substance, and he just goes on checking off accomplishments to make America great again.