Trump more of a realist than he gets credit for
If the headlines that greeted Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s nomination acceptance speeches at the Republican and Democratic national conventions are anything to go by, you’d be forgiven for indulging in conspiracy theory.
The American news media seemed to speak with one voice in denouncing Trump’s speech as paranoid and “dark.”
By comparison, Clinton’s speech received mostly laudatory reviews in the mainstream media. NBC touted her appeal for “healing” and “togetherness.” The New York Times reworked the darkness metaphor, declaring “Trump’s tone was much darker than Clinton’s.”
Do we have a conspiracy here? No, conspiracies require thought and effort. What we’re getting here is the complacent monolithic mind of progressivist ideology.
I’m no fan of Trump’s. The man lacks the temperament, knowledge and experience to be commander-inchief. His tawdry performance in disparaging the Muslim parents of a U.S. Army captain killed in Iraq is a case in point. Despite her tarnished history and unpopularity, Clinton offers a steadier, if uninspiring, hand at the presidential helm.
Nevertheless, the contrasting judgments of the two candidates demonstrate how the western media have largely succumbed to progress derangement syndrome and the assumption that voters must be made to feel good lest they vote for the opponent. Only positive messages — “hope you can believe in” and “sunny ways,” for example — are legitimate. Clinton reflected this mindset with her banalities on “optimism,” “unity” and America the “good.”
Trump offered another message. “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” he told Republicans. Americans’ “way of life is under threat by radical Islam and Hillary Clinton cannot bring herself to say the words.”
Is this fearmongering or realism? Consider recent events.
Two teenage ISIL wannabes cut a priest’s throat; a Syrian refugee butchers a pregnant Polish woman with a machete; a petty criminal of Tunisian background kills 84 and injures dozens with a truck in Nice.
Police officers are assassinated in Dallas, Baton Rouge and Kansas City. A maladjusted security guard of Afghan parentage swears allegiance to ISIL and guns down more than 100 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
We have upheaval in Africa, the Syrian civil war, Saudi Arabia reportedly acquiring nuclear weapons in response to Iran’s nuclear program, and China and Russia building up their militaries. Pope Francis admits “the world is at war,” although he wrongheadedly insists religion has nothing to do with it.
Even Clinton acknowledged a bit of darkness by admitting the Democrats haven’t done a “good enough job” addressing Americans’ economic anxieties. Her promise to punish unpatriotic corporations and never allow “Wall Street to wreck Main Street” was tacit recognition of the reality behind Trump’s popularity.
As for Trump’s speech, it wasn’t unduly dark. He devoted 350 of his 4,400 words to “crime.” He mentioned “terrorism” half-a-dozen times. The greater portion of the speech dealt with economics, the national debt, free trade, immigration, unemployment and poverty. He even offered hope: “We will lead our country back to safety, prosperity and peace.”
It wasn’t a Reaganesque morning-in-America speech, and it wasn’t from the progressivist songbook, but it was realistic, which is what we should expect from an unbiased media.
Of course, that would require progressives removing their blinkers.