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Thank You, Peggy Noonan
I had just wandered through a generally so-so observation about patrician and plebeian elements in our present political situation. I was not sure that I had made my points clear enough for the normal pleb to grasp fully (we are generally too preoccupied with life’s minor distractions such as rent, food, and selecting the right brand of beer).
But one can always count on their betters to provide. So Peggy Noonan was kind enough to write a Wall Street Journal piece that explains it much better than I. She, of course, is an established member of the GOP Order of Patricians and her concern was about the unwashed plebs generally known as Trump voters. Hope among her fellow elitists was that more and more of this group would abandon the notion of the former president seeking the office again in 2024, that support for him would fade and he would pass from the public’s eye. As it is turning out, that simply isn’t happening. In fact, it appears to some that their numbers might even be growing.
This is so despite the continuous dumping on the former president. Or maybe even because of it. The latest anti-Trump production is turning into a huge disappointment. It actually seems to have the opposite effect intended. Interest in the show trial sometimes called the J6 hearings has been weak and far below what was hoped for. In fact, it is probably having the opposite effect. Only the most gullible or pre-disposed believe in them and for the rest they are far too transparent. For most, they leave the distinct impression of Star Chamber episodes intended not to learn anything but to influence an election by removing a leading candidate. Plebs must be protected from their limited intellects by narrowing their choices to only acceptable options.
In any case, Trump is actually increasing in support from this sideshow. So a fresh approach in pleb management has shown its face recently. That is to agree that the plebs do have some real concerns and that maybe the down and dirty Trump demeanor helped to create attention for them. But now he has served his purpose and it is time for candidates with smoother edges to carry the banner. For the moment, they are even willing to accept some candidates who might be a little “Trumpy” themselves as long as they are not the original. For the moment, that is.
But in the end, the real call will be for “reasonable” candidates who can hopefully worm their way into those “purple” vote without really confronting the matters that will change us as a nation and having to win a thoughtful and passionate argument for Liberty. You know, the kind of candidates who made Trump possible in 2016, the kind who knows in his (or hers, or …..) heart that something can be worked out to get us by if the patricians were left to bargain among themselves.
Noonan knows enough to begin every con job with a compliment, sort of. She is impressed that every Trump voter does love America even if it is “not always been a fully thought-through love but it’s generally fully felt”. She even concedes that this is “admirable”, even if the thought process was so incomplete. So plebeian. If it got any more simple-minded, it would be on my level.
A little deeper into the piece one is able to get a clearer picture of the patrician view of those millions upon millions of the GOP base who are so regularly called on by the party elites but rarely listened to. She tries to reinforce the Dem contention that Trump was told by all reasonable and sane people that the 2020 election was fair and square but he chose to listen instead to a collection of “kooks, crooks and freaks” which was not hard to find since “Trumpworld has more than most”.
Her appeal to wayward plebs is to drop Trump or lose the shining chance to dominate in the coming elections. Everything is so very bad that just about any Republican will surely win. Any except, of course, Trump. “Only Trump” would lose.
But the truth is as soon as Trump can be eliminated, the patricians will begin to try and thin out any of the other non-conformists with plebeian tendencies. Before the discussion is over they will hope to be back to the old standard GOP patrician because they could win “in the middle”. You know, that legendary middle where gun rights can be narrowed, where new entitlements have been created, where “comprehensive” immigration reform lives, where government dollars represent educational concern, where … Oh, hell my simple mind and stubby fingers are over-loaded … You can fill in the rest.
What is so desperately needed is a clear, objective American agenda for all, with disregard for who you are speaking to. The principles of the Founding and the principles which build successful lives will reach all levels of society.
The great swath of middle America that I have spoken of very much feels the loss of our Constitution even if the patricians don’t. The party elites have yet to realize that MAGA is not a Trump thing. It is a grassroots American plebeian thing. Trump simply put a slogan behind it and then did his best to implement it.
The Peggy Noonans still talk and act as if this was about a loose-mouthed billionaire and not the saving of the republic as founded. But they do sense the shift away from them and that is what they hate, what they fight against. If Trump is at the head of the column or not is hardly the central question. The real question is the uncompromising direction of the column.
We might be in a dangerous position with our future but more and more I believe that the people who will make the long-term difference have finally realized that the damage done to us by the “warriors” on their side, it is not near the problem as the damage done by the cowards and blinded on ours. Hopefully, Noonan will save her condescension for her own kind.
By the way, if any of you fellow plebs actually want to read the Noonan column you will find it behind a paywall. Unless you have the devious computer skills to bypass “the wall”, you will have to take my word for the content of the piece. Otherwise, you can join me in some simple plebeian pleasure as I take off these smelly socks, let the air hit these more than smelly feet, pour three, possibly four fingers in a cup, and soak up the quiet of an evening that has finally begun to cool.
Published in General
This is a great post and I appreciate you going to the WSJ source, something that I failed to do. I do question whether there is a distinction between the Main and Member Feeds, and, as always, better safe than sorry.
Definitely:
Some of them smell blood in the water and are showing their true colors, thinking it is safe to pounce on Trump. If nothing else, Jan 6 hearings are flushing out the weather vanes.
It doesn’t matter if they’re under oath or not, they can’t KNOW that, it’s just their opinion.
And why should “Make America Great (Again)” be a Trump thing anyway, when Carter used it, and Reagan, and Clinton, and Obama…
The “there there, you silly unwashed plebe” sentiment was one of my original turn offs about Hillary Clinton. (That and her choice of mates.)
Every speech was her promoting the idea that she would fix things on our behalf. She would be the one smart enough to come up with solutions. She would lead, and all we had to do was support her in every thought word and deed. (And better we not think about things ourselves, as she was clearly better than us in terms of having smarts.)
Then over the summer of 2016, Assange brought forth all the many tens of thousands of emails that had been leaked to him, by a source. Not a Russian source, as if that amount of emails had come from Russia, and released to Assange, it would be traceable.
The source was someone who was a top Democratic staff insider. Someone who more than likely offered up a flash drive, as that was about the only way such a scenario could occur without leaving a visible time stamp in which a transfer occurred.
Suddenly Hillary’s every other activity was transparent. Her many activities were not acceptable. It turned out she was a uranium-selling business woman, who gave our nation’s uranium to the insidiously corrupt Canadian businessman Giustra to sell to Russia. (Imagine if Trump had accomplished such a sell out activity circa 2009-2010.)
Her activity of having a private server to use for her correspondence needs with the USA government was on the one hand, incredibly flaky, as it did not have the top notch security provisions such a correspondence would have if she was using a government supplied server.
But when you are using a private server to deflect detection of quasi legal & perhaps treasonous activities, then a whole new meaning comes about in terms of “private server.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to think anyone who even tries to justify the reprehensible behavior of the J6 Committee with their willful abolition of Due Process and so many of our inalienable rights with respect to the J6 defendants and the alleged “witnesses” obviously hates America, longstanding American Values, our Constitution and our Constitutional Republic. They have absolutely no credibility. Their behavior is an outrage. They are the ones who should be prosecuted and packed off to prison for a very long time.
For all that is holy, no.
We have worked hard to turn our county around. When in power for decades, the Democrats would disappoint 80% of the time. Now the Republicans disappoint less than 20% of the time.
I think that we will have to agree to disagree. It is interesting to me the fury of the denunciations of the January 6th Committee Hearings, without a statement that the commentators have watched those hearings. In other words, I can’t recall anyone commenting saying “I watched the hearings and found them to be unpersuasive.” While few Republicans may have watched the January 6th Committee hearings, a whole bunch of Democrats and a critical mass of Independents have watched the Hearings.
I like Trump’s policies of better judges, lower taxes and less regulations. Trump’s policy’s may be popular with most Republicans, but the conventional wisdom is that Trump tried to steal the election and fomented the January 6th riot that endangered his Vice President.
We can be about the future, which DeSantis and Kemp are about, or we can try to salve Trump’s wounded ego. But we can’t do both. And attacking those like Peggy Noonan and Andy McCarthy, and members of Ricochet who see Trump as an albatross, doesn’t change the facts of the matter in the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Americans, namely (a) that Trump lost in 2020, (b) that he is inexplicably linked with the January 6th Riot, and (c) that Trump betrayed his oath of office to allow the Capitol to be overrun for the first time since 1812 by refusing to denounce the rioters for hours and hours.
Just like Jimmy Carter, Biden’s policies are losers. Reagan did not win by insisting that Nixon had been mistreated; heck I can’t remember a single time that Reagan talked about Nixon’s forced resignation in 1974, when Reagan ran in 1980. Reagan ran against Jimmy Carter, not to restore the Nixon Presidency.
We will win in 2024 if that election is a referendum on Biden.
We will lose in 2024 if that election is a referendum on Donald Trump and the 2020 election.
Attacking conservatives who say that we should look towards the future won’t lead us to victory.
Pray tell, what specific federal statute would justify the criminal prosecution of members of the January 6th Committee Hearings. U.S. Code section what? The Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws, so you need to point to a specific statute in the U.S. Code as it exists today. If you cite a statute, I look forward to pulling it up and discussing it.
To be fair, some of them are just monumentally stupid.
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
“bIDen haS BEen a dISaPpoINTmEnT”
Two points. First, I think that the January 6th Committee is doing the right thing. I will die on that hill.
Second, if the January 6th Committee is doing the wrong thing, that policy issue is not against the law, and you can’t go around arresting people just because you disagree with them.
Much better hills to die on. Like marxists trying to separate kids from their families.
I think the actual point is, the institutions are abusive as evidenced by how she won’t have an adversarial committee. Alan Dershowitz says ignore it.
Gary Robbins (View Comment):
As recent events have required me to get very well educated about the fair use laws and copyright rules, let me assure you that quoting passages is fine as long as you are commenting on or responding to each one of the quoted passages and providing information on where the source material is coming from, which was done in this instance. There are no limits on the amount of excerpts allowed.
Photographing a copyrighted column and publishing it (even if you retrieved it from the garbage can) is the same as running a copyrighted photo and while I don’t think the WSJ is going to come after us, we’d prefer you take that down.
Posting a free link to the column on a website is almost certainly a violation of the WSJ’s ToS (terms of service). That link is intended for single use sharing, not for publishing/sharing on a mass market website. For the sake of your pricey WSJ subscription account (I have one too!), you should probably remove that as well. That said, I’ve never tested it, but I’d bet that link will only work once or twice and is then invalid. The WSJ isn’t stupid.
I appreciate the response and I assumed that someone took a look at this before promotion because it is indeed questionable. Note that I did not post the free link and still regard the degree of usage as inappropriate, but time does not warrant a full discussion and it is not my ball game.
We looked at the original post, which as I pointed out is fine from a legal perspective. I’m referring to what’s been posted in the comments today.
That is most unsurprising. The Jan. 6 Committee is illegitimate. In the absence of contrary arguments, it’s not possible for them to do the right thing.
Yes they are. At least where politics are concerned. Otherwise, sharp MFers.
Wait. Maybe I’m the stupid one, what if they are doing all this deliberately?
I’ll just express my appreciation that this post has 41 Likes, while Gary’s on the same subject – and it seems like originally posted a day or more earlier – only has 5, including himself.
I wrote the above.
I did not write what is below.
Thank you Blue Yeti for restating what I thought the law was on “fair use.”
I wanted to point out that I wrote the above first half of the quoted text, but not the second half. I think that Hoyacon wrote it.
Excellent post. Thanks Ole Summers.
It was funny to me that Crazy Lizzie had a temper tantrum when the head of this farce said there would be no criminal referrals. Must be a disappointment when her reason for living is to destroy Trump.
To paraphrase Kamala Harris, “For pete’s sake! It’s just a show. Hagh, hagh, haah! It’s just a show!”
So what? What I wrote is a minority point of view among people are Ricochet. It does not mean that it is wrong, just not as popular with this population.
Among the voting public, I am in the majority, in that a majority of the voters will not vote for Trump, even though many of them like his polices.
Republicans have a choice. Lose with Trump or win with DeSantis. Choose wisely.
News from 2016.
I’m here.
Hummmmmmm. Have you actually watched the January 6th Committee?
Did you watch 2000 Mules?
I answered your question a while back, but since you are half-duplex and stuck in transmit mode, I won’t bother to answer again.
It means “You yokels are too stupid to really love America fully as I do. If you did, you wouldn’t vote for that awful orange man.”