“Few slanders can stand the wear of silence.” – Mark Twain

A few days ago, CNN analyst Van Jones experienced a moment of self-awareness that epitomizes the cultural hole into which a great many people have buried themselves. After listening to progressive commentator Chris Cillizza thunder on while asking how someone like Donald Trump managed to run an effective campaign, an exasperated Jones replied:

Listen. So, so, everybody keeps, I mean, the problem is, you have a framework in your mind that, “How could Donald Trump? How could Donald Trump? How could Donald Trump?” Guys, can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an idiot. Donald Trump — let me just be very clear. — Donald Trump is smarter than me, you, and all his critics. You know how we know? Because he has the White House, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, the popular vote, he has a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream built around him and for him, and a religiously — a religious fervor in a political movement around him. And his best buddy is the richest person in the history of the world, and the most relevant Kennedy is with him. This dude is a, is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on earth and in our lifetime. And we’re still saying, “Well, how is this guy —?” We look like idiots to ordinary people.

While there is some truth to Jones’ diagnosis, I think his most damning assessment is in that last sentence. For a historical comparison, I turn to Sir Winston Churchill who, after the conclusion of the Second World War, observed that “It was the people who had the courage of a lion, I simply had the luck to give the roar.” As much of a singular leader as President-Elect Trump is (who else gets shot during a job interview and then says Yeah, I really do want that job?), he won by embodying the spirit and decency of a great swath of America. On more than one occasion Mr. Trump remarked that he wasn’t the one that progressives were really going after. They were actually going after the rest of us, and he was just standing the way.

Donald Trump was victorious because a decisive majority of Americans of every race, color, sex, background, socio-economic and educational status stood up and said with one voice, “Enough!” We will have order on our streets and in our communities. We are a free people and we will not be placed into this or that box on the basis of immutable characteristics and then turned against our countrymen. We believe that our actions are dispositive of our character and we have damn little regard for charlatans who teach otherwise. We do not tolerate those who violate the sanctity of our homes, nor will we tolerate those who violate the sanctity of our country. Scream “Death to America” all you want from the safety of your foreign sand trap, but if you so much as attempt to harm a single American we will exact a swift and terrible price. Our government serves us, not the other way around, and it was established to protect our rights first and foremost. We are a kind, benevolent and charitable people, but one should never mistake our kindness for weakness.

The aftermath of such a thunderous rejection of business as usual has not changed the American cultural landscape as much as it has restored it to something much closer to the animating principles of America’s Founders, leaving behind certain influences whose importance has been nullified.

Race Hustlers

Following the acquittal of Marine Corps Veteran Daniel Penney in the death of Jordan Neely — a man with 42 prior arrests who was threatening to kill passengers on a New York City subway prompting Penney to subdue him — former Congressman Jamaal Bowman took to social media to write:

Dear White People,

I don’t know why I feel the need to keep talking to you. I don’t know why part of me still has hope for you and for us. Some of you are too far gone. But maybe enough of you aren’t and will join us in fighting to end white supremacy.

You see, in the world of Jamaal Bowman and others for whom the root cause for every societal ill — both real and imagined — can be boiled down to racism. Racism is everywhere, according to those whose livelihoods depend on finding it under every rock, behind every badge, and in the heart of everyone who by accident of birth is part of the “oppressor class.” Or as Professor Thomas Sowell noted, “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists.’” If a kid robs a store or attacks someone minding their own business while walking down the street, we are told that it is society’s fault, or our fault, anyone and everyone’s fault except the kid of course, who supposedly lacks free agency to make his own decisions.

The problem now is that; A) if racism is as ubiquitous as the very air itself, then the term is meaningless, and B) the definition of racism has been so distorted as to render as racist Dr. King’s yearning for a world in which people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, all of which C) exposes the Social Justice, CRT and DEI movements as intellectual mediocrities at best and societal destruction at worst. The race hustlers can rail at the wind if they wish, but the rest of America has moved on.

Legacy Media

From Yahoo News:

MSNBC’s prime-time audience has taken a staggering 53% hit, dropping from 1.34 million viewers before the election to just 632,000. CNN hasn’t fared much better, losing 47% of its prime-time viewers, down to 398,000. On some nights, these networks aren’t just losing to Fox News – they’re losing to lifestyle channels like the Food Network, where more viewers are tuning into shows like Chopped than CNN’s Anderson Cooper or MSNBC’s Jen Psaki.

I hate shows like Chopped. Hate them with a passion. But I’d rather watch a group of over-stuffed foodies have an aneurysm over whether the Crêpes Suzette is suitable for the royal palate than watch the self-indulgent Jen Psaki or the cast of The View lecture the rest of us on the latest infallible political truths that some obscure radical came up with ten minutes ago. Speaking of supposedly infallible truths, here are some golden oldies we’ve heard from legacy media. Remember these?

• The Assassination Attempt(s) on Trump were staged by the Trump campaign
• Suckers & Losers
• Russian collusion
• Trump pee tape
• Mischaracterizing Trump’s “very fine people” comment after Charlottesville as praise for neo-Nazis
• The A-OK Hand Gesture Is A White Supremacy Symbol
• Trump has Dementi
• Biden is sharp and doesn’t have Dementia
• Kamala Harris is coherent
• COVID-19 lab leak theory as a conspiracy when it was initially suggested by Trump
• 51 Intelligence experts claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”
• KC Chiefs’ child fan with face painted is racist for half red half black face paint
• Covington teen kid is racist after Indian man got in his face, beating drum
• Jussie Smollet “This is MAGA Country”
• Bubba Wallace Garage Pull was actually a hangman’s noose
• It was a Chinese Weather Balloon loose over America
• Steele Dossier
• Border Patrol agents whipped migrants
• Al-Bagdhadi was an “austere religious scholar”
• Putin caused inflation
• BLM / Antifa were “mostly peaceful protesters”
• Kavanaugh gang rape Hoax
• Climate Change (Global Warning rebranded) is the most existential threat to humanity
• The US Border under Biden is Secure
• Trump wants to execute Liz Cheney (he called for her to fight in wars she starts & supports)

They lied. Over and over. Not only did they lie, they accused those of us who called them on their lies of engaging in “misinformation.” They tried to censor, cancel, and defame those who countered their lies to the point that they “fact-checked” those who told the truth. Their credibility is in tatters, as are their ratings. Having reduced themselves to propagandists, they’ve rendered themselves irrelevant.

Never Trump

I once referred to this brigade of malcontents as Spitball Conservatives. They were the ones who insisted that conservatives put aside their misgivings and vote for the Mitt Romneys, John McCains, George W. Bushes and various GOP lawmakers who spent a great deal of time reaching across the aisle to assure radical leftists that their relationship with conservatism was strictly platonic. They were the Old Guard of Republicans whose primary means of exercise, as Professor Sowell observed, was running for the hills when things got tough.

I used the term Spitball Conservatives because, for the better part of the last decade, they’ve spent their time shooting spitballs at Donald Trump and those of us who supported him. These were the same people who in previous decades beseeched us not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We were to suspend our misgivings, they said, about these tenaciously timid and weak-kneed politicians who spent more time generating excuses than results for conservative voters.

From my column on Spitball Conservatism:

Question: What’s the difference between a progressive politician and God?

Answer: God doesn’t think He’s a progressive politician.

Having watched the superhumanly progressive Barack Obama amass ever more power in a centralized federal government (a power he even admitted was not constitutionally permitted), and faced with an obviously corrupt Hillary Clinton — Republican voters gambled 2016 on an unknown and brash candidate. Displaying no sign that he was versed in the details or the foundations of conservative thought, Donald Trump proved a quick study in what does and does not actually work in public policy and the result was surprisingly conservative both domestically and in foreign affairs. The result was — until Covid — peace and prosperity.

Then, insisting that the perfect must be the enemy of the good, Never Trumpers helped hand the country over to the progressive project in 2020, though they were uncharacteristically quiet about taking credit all for the destruction that followed that election. They helped open the borders to millions of unvetted illegal aliens and allowed violent predators to enter our country only to attack and rape and murder our citizens. They helped replenish and restore a bloodthirsty Iran in its mission to arm its proxies in Gaza to slaughter over a thousand Jews, to murder Americans and to take Israelis and Americans alike hostage while pursuing nuclear weapons. Never Trump’s support of Joe Biden made possible the most disastrous and bloody retreat in American history, and handed the Taliban billions of dollars in American weaponry and supplies. They helped embolden Vladimir Putin to pursue new and murderous territorial ambitions in Ukraine.

Never Trumpers were no longer just spitballers. They were the authors and enablers of bloody disasters both abroad and in American cities and communities. Ever short-sighted, the sheer scale of the disasters they helped inflict on America had the unintended consequence of motivating such a colossal voter turnout that it overwhelmed their influence to the point that they are now little more than the electoral equivalent of a fart in a thunderstorm. They are, in a word, irrelevant.

Conclusion

The President-Elect held a press conference a few days ago and announced his intention to help usher in a “New Golden Age of America.” His intention, he explained, was to unite a divided country and put the safety and happiness of Americans front and center in his administration. His agenda is both dynamic and assertive as he sets about taming the federal leviathan and returning power and sovereignty from the federal government to the American people.

In this endeavor, Donald Trump aims to help all Americans regardless of party or ideological affiliation. This is as it should be. All the same, we should remember the Race Hustlers, the Legacy Media, and the Never Trumpers who were perfectly content to sit and watch the mayhem continue unabated; who refused to lift a finger to stop the marauding gangs, the violent anti-semitism on our campuses, and the blood running in the streets; and who could not be bothered to register a vote against weak leaders who trudged like zombies toward a Third World War. Their irrelevance is earned, and their political counsel should be neither sought nor followed ever again.