Essay on Trump, Main Stream Media et al

Essay on Trump, Main Stream Media et al

Our president Trump is about as controversial a figure as we have ever had as president. Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt come to mind, but these men were from different eras and completely different political mind sets than Trump.

It is not easy to like and support Donald Trump, and all of the so called liberal left, and some of his own republican party actually hate and resent him and his uncouth reality show personality. He tweets relentlessly, sometimes bizarrely, and seemingly spontaneously without any consultation with his advisors. He lies and bends the truth to suit his overblown ego, or so it seems to critical observers. But to be entirely honest, the “resistance” hates him primarily because he won the election and essentially ended the hegemony of the Clinton-Obama clique.

In his five months in office, to the consternation of the political left, he has undone much of the nanny state, political correctness and identity politics which were a hallmark of previous administrations, and replaced them with a populist American exceptionalism bordering on isolationism. This was relatively easy to do, since many of the defining edicts were originally executive orders never brought before the legislature and codified as laws.

In spite of the hatred against him, and Trump’s own propensity to “shoot himself in the foot”, the administration has had measurable successes. The business world and the stock markets seemingly like him while still espousing some doubt publicly. Unemployment is approaching a decades-long low 4 percent. The stock market indices are at record highs. Jobs are coming back to the country, including to impoverished areas, in substantial numbers. Illegal immigration is down significantly. A new supreme court judge has been appointed. Travel restrictions from failed countries has been upheld by the supreme court after adverse political decisions in the district courts. Trump has had two successful trips overseas, where he has not only held his own, but took charge of pertinent issues. His speeches in Saudi Arabia and Poland were critical successes.  So was his UN speech yesterday, “Rocket Man” notwithstanding.

One would not know, or would only know peripherally about the administration’s successes enumerated above, if one watched and read only the main stream media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, others). There would be massive coverage in these MSM venues of Trump’s peccadilloes and apparent failures, including some manufactured and retracted ones. There would also be derogatory items and innuendos about Trump’s wife and young son, his adult children and families and his associates; and volumes of coverage on supposed and unproven collusion between the Trump candidacy and Russia.

One would get a reasonably accurate overall story if one read Reuters, USA Today or Pew Research reports.  Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the National Review would give a more positive, but still critical treatment of Trump’s and the administration’s activities.

It is a sad pass when one has to “rate” or “grade” media outlets when reading or watching the news. Once reputable newspapers and broadcasters have become perverted, primarily by elitist left wing politics.  What is “de rigueur” in Coastal New York or California falls on deaf ears in large swaths of the U.S.  Not to absolve the other side, alt-right outlets are equally egregious in perverting the news, so we have “fake news” from both sides vying for public attention.

The American public is not stupid and certainly sees the bias in our media. Not many “rate” the media as I have above, but they are certainly aware when they are being sold a bill of goods whether by CNN or the NYT, or by the “alt-righters”.

Time and results will tell. If and when the country continues to attain some degree of integrity and real prosperity under Trump, it will become time to change, and to become a kinder, gentler America again, hopefully, this time, with real governance and without all of the past’s nanny state pontifications and equivocations.

Ray Gruszecki

July & September, 2017