Conservatives call it “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Trump calls it “fake news.” Progressives call it their patriotic duty to protect the nation from “a lawless president, a tyrant, a dictator,” the “reincarnation of Hitler.”
President Trump bears a good deal of responsibility for the chasm of political division within our nation. His mercurial temperament, his coarse language, and use of personal insults toward political enemies via social media is un-presidential as Americans have come to understand how a president conducts himself in office. His most ardent supporters love it. They’ve chafed for years as Trump’s predecessors remained stoic as the media, academia, and the entertainment industry mocked them, their policies, and supporters as stupid hayseeds, objects of derision like “those Walmart people” for years. Trump fights back, he hits hard, and never apologizes. The left hates him for this as much as they despise his supporters.
Trump as president has accomplished much, although you would never know it, according to what pretends to be news organizations. They’ve been fixated upon every scintilla of potential scandal, hoping that he will be impeached or resign in disgrace. It’s a bit odd, since for decades Trump was the darling of the media and Hollywood. It wasn’t until he ran for president and upset the plans of the political class that he became public enemy No. 1.
This turmoil is mostly class-based. It has less to do with ideology than with social status. The political upstart and his uncultured family suddenly moved next door in Beverly Hills! The best and the brightest from Harvard, the New York financial districts, and the Hollywood celebrity class, et al., are all stunned that suddenly the commoners are running the country. Worst of all, half the country thinks this is really great!
The political progressives are incensed and determined to destroy the president and anyone who supports him. Their agenda, which really gained momentum under the Obama presidency, is in a ditch. Their long-term goals are being not simply delayed but set back for years.
Trump has been very successful in appointing federal judges, including two Supreme Court justices, and potentially could derail the progressive agenda for decades. That agenda includes massively expanding the control of government over the lives of Americans and reducing the Constitution and Bill of Rights to a mere suggestion rather than a governing document. Their leftist vision eviscerates the First Amendment protections for freedom of speech, the press, and religion and now openly declares their intent to disarm the American people by repealing the Second Amendment.
They demonize anyone with deeply held religious beliefs and persecute them legally and physically, practices for which the original Pilgrims fled old Europe for America. Emboldened, leftists openly declare their intent to impose a socialist dictatorship upon the nation, destroy our free-market economy, and impose draconian reductions on the middle-class standard of living, a class they despise as much as the working-class Trump supporters.
The left uses every opportunity to brand their opponents as racist, ignorant bigots stuck in the past, dangerous to civic order. During the 2016 election campaign, leftist violence against Trump supporters occurred regularly at political rallies, yet the media made it appear that it was only Trump supporters who engaged in violence. The left has utilized anarchist terrorists such as Antifa to bully and physically attack anyone who dares oppose leftist ideology.
Democratic Party officials have yet to agree to brand Antifa as a domestic terrorist group, even though abundant evidence exists that they pose a serious threat to the peaceful political process. The Dayton mass-murderer had Antifa affiliations along with his other twisted thoughts. He and the Gilroy shooter both supported leftist ideologies, although progressive politicians bear no responsibility for his murderous actions any more than Trump is responsible for the sick ideology of the El Paso mass-murderer.
The effort of the national media to tie Trump to these events is intentionally divisive. For instance, ever since the Charlottesville riot between neo-Nazis and Antifa, the press has branded Trump as supportive of the Nazis. Trump was defending the third group of citizens who wanted to preserve historical monuments; Trump specifically condemned the Nazis and other violent groups.
The media continuously reports only the first half of Trump’s statement about there being “good people on both sides,” without his condemnation of the Nazis and violent groups. Former Vice President Biden repeated this mischaracterization again recently, even though a reporter attempted to correct him. The media has repeated this slander so often that most of the public now believes it to be true, and the Democratic Party has picked it up as a major theme, extending it to anyone who supports Trump. They’ve called him anti-Semitic, even though his daughter and son-in-law are Jewish; they call him a racist although he has wide support among prominent black Americans, such as the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King who defends him regularly.
If the press continues their slanderous mischaracterization of Trump and his supporters, they will get their headlines. Any blood in the streets of America will be on their hands. Δ
Al Fonzi is an Army lieutenant colonel of military intelligence who had a 35-year military career, serving in both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Send comments through the editor at clanham@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Education Today 2019.
Thank you Mr. Fonzi. One criticism; some of us with graduate degrees, who are “Beverly Hills” independents and not evangelicals, also love Mr. Trump, whose accomplishments (though ignored by the press) are terrific for our country and its economy. I’m suspicious that an unintended consequence of the MSM bias has created a mythical picture of the electorate, as supporting open borders, expanded government, more welfare and further restrictions on free speech and assembly. The Democrats subscribe to that myth at their peril. .
This is one of the more ludicrous of Mr. Fonzi’s posts, of course. In his eight years in office, President Bush’s name was cited as an inspiration for exactly zero acts of violence; in President Obama’s eight years in office, exactly zero acts of violence were committed by those citing the President’s words as inspiration. In Trump’s brief tenure, however, 38 acts of violence–to date!–have been committed by those who claim inspiration from Trump’s words and views. ANTIFA has killed no one; white supremacists, citing Trump’s inspiration, have killed dozens. And what of DJT’s “great accomplishments?” Soaring debt? Humiliation on the world’s stage? An economy on the brink of recession, threatening to bring down the rest of the world’s economy? Playing kissy-face with the same class of fascist dictators that my father (and Mr. Fonzi) fought to defeat? No, this is a lawless President, surrounded by adoring sycophants, simmering in a stew of corruption and anti-American bigotry, thumbing their noses at American greatness and stoking violence among the cult of personality that believes that Trump, uber alles, represents the forgotten voice of the defeated confederacy. You, of all people, having taken the blood oath of office to defend our Constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic, should know this better than most; unfortunately, you too have been caught up in the MAGA vapor of resentment against those who, at their core, are more fundamentally American than you.
What did Trump do again? Move the embassy to Israel? Legalize gays in Botswana? Proclaim he wants the most immigrants ever to enter the country? “Prison reform”? Bringing the country closer to war with Iran than it has ever been?
You know, all that stuff people voted him in for….
White nationalist/neo-Nazi domestic terrorists have murdered scores of innocents over the past several years. Anti-fascist protesters have not. Al Fonzi is a despicable lair who would have us believe it’s the other way around. Fonzi i s just another deplorable Trump devotee who stands reality on its head & paints perpetrators as victims & victims as perpetrators. As for his dear leader’s supposed accomplishments, the only thing Trump has actually done–other than to dismantle the rule of law, democracy & the administrative state–is to bring about what the old time Marxist-Leninist lefties of the last century dreamed of doing but could e accomplish; bringing America under the control of Russia.
Jay, “bringing America under the control of Russia.”
You are an idiot or a boomer if you actually believe this.
“Tsankawi” has it right. As a former conservative (now a moderate), it is to me as clear as a Paso Robles noonday in summer that Trump is no conservative in the classic definition of the term. And Col. Fonzi is supposed to represent a “conservative voice” in the New Times!! But I read no reasoned commentary on how to make government smaller and more efficient while granting more political power to state and civic institutions; no justifications for free and fair trade; no interest in policies to advance the kind of economy that will help us meet future needs; no case made for a new and safer generation of nuclear power plants (the most efficient energy producer); and I see no dismay at the wreck Trump has made of our state department and the loss of our geo-political prestige .. and power — etc. etc. All these things principled conservatives stood and stand for. Fonzi’s interests now lie elsewhere.
But this week’s editorial by Fonzi reveals that he, too, has been sucked into sycophancy to the Trump-kult. Fonzi’s moral debasement, not to mention steady stream of lies in his column, shows that all he is left standing for is a simplistic Fox News style resentment against liberals, while ignoring the growing threat of white nationalist terror + murder and the perversion of Christianity into the heresy of christo-fascism via white evangelicals and their sold-out leaders, e.g. Franklin Graham.
Trumps plan may be to have violence escalate to a point where he will have no choice but to enact Marshall Law. (No elections) Trumps insane attempts to escalate Climate Change may be a strategy to further domination of the worlds governments, economics and resources. His overfeeding of the obese Military Industrial (Oil) Complex and stimulating violent vigilantes has me worried.
I think that this may qualify for a red flag comment.
If the press continues their slanderous mischaracterization of Trump and his supporters, they will get their headlines. Any blood in the streets of America will be on their hands.
I keep hearing revisionist state that there was a third group represented at The Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. Ive yet to hear of any individual, or group, step forward to be identified as the very fine people President Trump, and now Mr. Fonzi have presented as fact.
Conversely, every segment of the white supremacist movement was represented that day: Neo-Nazis from the National Socialist Movement (NSM), Vanguard America, and Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP); Klan members from the Rebel Brigade Knights, Global Crusader Knights, Confederate White Knights, and Knights Party; racist skinheads from the Hammerskins, Crew 38, and the Blood & Honour Social Club; neo-Confederates from the League of the South (LoS), Identity Dixie, and the Hiwaymen; Christian Identity adherents from Christogenea; Odinists from the Asatru Folk Assembly. There were also armed paramilitary groups connected to the anti-government militia movement.
Following Joseph Hill’s listing of the white nationalist, racist, militia, neo-Confederate, anti-semitic groups at Charlottesville — ALL from the extreme right, a number of these participants sported red MAGA caps and other pro-Trump regalia.
Mr. Fonzi, I appreciate your opinion. Yet I disagree with your defense of Trump using weak attempts to cast counter-points on his take on racism or white supremacists.
First, dozens of times in his hate filled speeches, hes pontificated about these incendiary issues. And all you can come back with is his daughter is married to a Jew, then the niece of a decades deceased black leader likes him and the media didnt air his denunciation of Nazis enough.
Second, Ive spent time with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and witnessed his narcissism and lies first hand. They are very real and a threat to our democracy.
Heres my first-hand take of Trump
–Draft dodger who wraps himself in our flag but couldn’t run faster or further from service to our country. (As an Army lieutenant, Im saddened you dont see the cowardly action by the leader of the free world.)
–Serial adulterer
–Not a leader, but a liar. Recording over 10,000 misleading statements since taking office
–And on racism, he & his dad twice settled racist charges with DOJ to block African-Americans from renting his NY apartments
–Fails his #1 job of protecting America’s democracy by encouraging Putin and to the day still doing nothing to defend our elections.
Finally, speaking of incendiary rhetoric, help me understand your last paragraph: If the press continues their slanderous mischaracterization of Trump and his supporters, they will get their headlines. Any blood in the streets of America will be on their hands. Pretty telling Lieutenant Colonel.
Is this who we want our daughters and son’s to look up to for leadership?
Mickie McMahon
Would someone, maybe Mr. Fonzi, please explain the incident soon after Trump was in office where he had the two top-level Russians (prime minister and ambassador) in for a visit to the Oval Office with no other Americans allowed. Pictures were leaked from the Russian “press” and Trump has the happiest most sincere smile I’ve ever seen from him. Additionally please explain the in-person meetings with Putin and again, no other Americans or any information allowed. Thank you.