Noonan proceeds to talk about the "elderly, Italian-American, an immigrant" shoe-repair shopowner in her neighborhood who told her last winter that Trump would win, and she says:
In America now only normal people can see the obvious. Everyone else is lost in a data-filled fog.So is it true that "few saw it coming" or that "normal people" saw it coming or just that there are few normal people in her circles?
Noonan somehow manages to get out and about and to encounter people who represent what we need to know now:
The past few days I’ve heard from a young man who fears Jews will be targeted and told me of Muslim friends now nervous on the street. There was the beautiful lady with the blue-collar job who, when asked how she felt about the election, told me she is a lesbian bringing up two foreign-born adopted children and fears she will be targeted and her children somehow removed from her.So... from inside the elite, where people are "lost in a data-filled fog" and did not see what was coming, Noonan is able to report that there's fear and to demand reassurance. Her prescription is: Hire the elite insiders!
Many fear they will no longer be respected. They need to know things they rely on are still there. They don’t understand what has happened, and are afraid. They need—and deserve—reassurance. Trump apparatus: Find a way.
The president-elect should make a handful of appointments quickly, briskly, with an initial emphasis on old hands and known quantities. Ideological foes need not be included but accomplished Washington figures, especially those from previous administrations, should be invited in. It is silly to worry that Mr. Trump’s supporters will start to fear he’s gone establishment. They believe in him, are beside themselves with joy, and will understand he’s shoring up his position and communicating stability.Trump needs help, she says. And these people need jobs and power, she doesn't say. The elite, her people, lost the election, but they should have the victory anyway, because a "young man" and a "beautiful lady" spoke of fear. Throughout the whole political season, Trump was battered with the fear of fear, and now he's won and he's told to pander to the people who said whatever they could to oppose him, the people who stoked the fear that he needs to prioritize calming. As if it could ever be calmed, as if his opponents will ever stop stoking it.
... [T]here are former officials and true experts with esteemed backgrounds who need to be told: Help him.... Donald Trump doesn’t know how to be president...
Not only does Donald Trump not know how to be President, in Noonan's view, he didn't even know how to run for President. He just happened to be there in the midst of a people's movement, an "uprising":
His presidential campaign was bad—disorganized, unprofessional, chaotic, ad hoc. There was no state-of-the-art get-out-the-vote effort—his voters got themselves out. There was no high-class, high-tech identifying of supporters—they identified themselves. They weren’t swayed by the barrage of brilliantly produced ads—those ads hardly materialized. This was not a triumph of modern campaign modes and ways. The people did this. As individuals within a movement.Ah, so it wasn't "high-class"! It wasn't slick in the glossy professionalized style that the elite sell at a high price. These fine people in her circle — the kind of people she'd like Trump to hire on to assuage the fears of the young men and beautiful ladies — these people "lost in a data-filled fog," who didn't see what was coming — since they weren't running the campaign, the campaign that was run could not be the cause of what happened. "This is how you know" it was a movement of the people: The campaign was bad, and therefore what happened must be understood as the people identifying themselves and getting themselves out to vote.
Trump didn't do that. You didn't build that.
"It was a natural, self-driven eruption."
Incredible! Trump didn't run a high-class, high-tech campaign. That's correct. But that doesn't mean he did nothing! He did something bold and unique, combining wild social media — tweeting — with big rallies in the manner of an old-time "whistle-stop" campaign — not with a train but that big Trump plane. How many rallies did he do? I couldn't find a list of all the locations, but he spoke rousingly to tens of thousands of people at a time, in all sorts of places, lighting up enthusiasm, touching off word of mouth.
Who is Peggy Noonan to say this is just "bad"? It's bad because it's "unprofessional"? Maybe it was good because it was unprofessional.
Here was one man who looked at America and saw it his own way, jumped into something for the first time, and played it instinctively, screwing up sometimes, but standing strong and barreling on. It's the most amazing political performance I've seen in my life.
And Peggy Noonan would like to deem it nothing and to say it was the people who did it all. And now, as she sees it, Trump threatens to take his nothing performance into the White House. He didn't know how to campaign, and he "doesn’t know how to be president." So he needs help from the professionals, from Noonan's circle of highly educated, elite, befogged friends. He needed them before, and he's only lucky he won without their help. He stumbled into a people's movement, a "natural" uprising of "normal people." So he'd better bring in the abnormals who didn't see what was coming but who are finding it "somehow... more beautiful" because they didn't see it coming. They didn't position themselves properly to seem as though they belong close to the new President, but perhaps if Peggy strings enough words together Trump will see the strange, wonderful way that they really do belong.
And don't worry. Those people — the "natural, self-driven eruption" that's the only reason you're there to dole out all these jobs — they won't think you've "gone establishment." It's "silly to worry"! Those people are so "beside themselves with joy," they'll accept anything. The idiots. The normal people. The ones who saw what was coming. They'll never notice.
Posts
200 comments:
I fear Trump is the last Victory Lap of the America he speaks of.
Four years, eight years: many Trump voters will be in the Great America In The Sky, the Millennials will take their place as the New Baby Boomers, and the Great Tearing Down will resume stronger than ever.
Martin Luther King Jr. will be seen as little better than an Old White Founding Father, best forgotten.
The Clintons will be remembered as corrupt Conservative Capitalists that stood in the way of the Progressives.
Public Schools will be named after Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin.
Amazon and Google will be Government run, and will run deficits much like today's U.S. Postal Service.
Historians will agree that the cause of the attempted assassination of Trump was that 'he had it coming.'
The children of the Millennials will stage violent protests in the streets because... well, because. The Previous Generation never goes far enough, fast enough.
The silver lining is that no one will give a fuck about the Kennedys anymore. Finally.
I am Laslo.
Noonan should retire. Good grief, she's worn out. Plus, she supported Obama the first time out.
Peggy Noonan demonstrates that deeply stupid, low-information voters liked Hillary too.
Trump's post-debate campaigning really was incredible. Even if he had lost, you knew he had gone down swinging. Hillary was notably less visible (due to continuing health issues?) and seemed remote and out-of-touch.
You're right, but she's probably right too. He will need help, and some of those who will help will need to be from the establishment as he needs help blowing up the establishment from those who know it well.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-09/there-s-no-shame-in-joining-the-trump-administration
And you're right that Trump's performance was incredible, but the people were incredible too. He wasn't a master manipulator - he was a miner who found a rich vein.
Why do so many people think that Trump hates immigrants and LGBT people or that he's racist or misogynistic? He talked about building a wall, but that was to control illegal immigration. I don't ever recall him talking about LGBT policies or disparaging minorities. He did talk about trying to seduce a married woman (unsuccessfully) and he mentioned, in crude terms, that women of easy virtue will let even a minor celebrity use their body willingly, but I don't see how that makes him a misogynist. Especially given his record of hiring and working with women.
Calm down young lady :-). Just remember she works for the WSJ . Follow the money - she wants to keep her job.
It's a pretty good column. So is this one from September which The Atlantic readers probably did not understand.
The 70-year-old Republican nominee took his time walking from the green room toward the stage. He stopped to chat with the waiters, service workers, police officers, and other convention staffers facilitating the event. There were no selfies, no glad-handing for votes, no trailing television cameras. Out of view of the press, Trump warmly greets everyone he sees, asks how they are, and, when he can, asks for their names and what they do.
“I am blown away!” said one worker, an African American man who asked for anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “The man I just saw there talking to people is nothing like what I’ve seen, day in and day out, in the news.”
To paraphrase Noonan, we should worry that people believe they are building camps in Arizona for illegals, ovens in Idaho for Muslims, and miles of new fenceposts in Wyoming to punish gays.
Peggy and her ilk did not see this coming because she believes her own BS.
Still does apparently, her own facts to the contrary staring her in the face.
The Professor gets it. Trump did not ride the Ferdinand Magellan, Presidential Pullman Car, around the country. He took his customized Trump Boeing 757 around the country and "gave em hell" at every stop, many of which were done like whistle stops in airport hangers using his Boeing as the backdrop.
But like HST, DJT raised expense money for this travel himself without help from the FDR/Bush elites of his Party who were openly embarrassed by his style...the Scots Irish style. The same American style that follows a leader with the patriotism that fought to found this country, and fought to expand this country, and fought to protect this country, and now plans to restore this country to Greatness.
We're seeing how hard the journalistic establishment is trying to define what just happened (even though they were complicit in distorting coverage of Trump's rise). They want theirs' to be the official version, so that they can influence what happens next. But if DT was his own man throughout the past 18 months, I doubt whether he'll see the need to change now. He owes them nothing.
One of the wisest things you've written, and I thank you for it.
Give Peggy credit for identifying early on what was Trump's power in this election. She is now falling into old habits about who should govern, but she at least is not bemoaning Trump's win.
I certainly hope Linda Greenhouse fowards Althouse's analysis to Peggy Noonan.
I don't ever recall him talking about LGBT policies or disparaging minorities.
He did talk about being their protector. Even the WaPo could see this.
Throughout all of this, though, Trump has refrained from launching barbs at one particular group: gay Americans.
It would be a stretch to call Trump a gay-friendly candidate — he still opposes same-sex marriage — but he supports other LGBT rights and has publicly declared himself a “real friend” to the community. In April, he broke with his GOP rivals by speaking out against North Carolina’s anti-transgender bathroom law. (He later backed off.) And last month in Cleveland, Trump brought in Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who became the first openly gay speaker to affirm his sexual orientation onstage at a Republican National Convention.
“I am proud to be gay,” Thiel said that night, to cheers. “I am proud to be a Republican.”
Most of this is ginned up by the Hillary/Obama coalition.
Ann, she really set you off didnt she?
Yes I agree with you. Noonan pretends to be listening to the "street" but she is still inside the mirror-surface bubble and can't see the obvious outside it.
And the Trump campaign was a feat of genius. And a physical prodigy. The man must have spoken in person to well over 2 million people. No professional would have even contemplated breaking out of the box like that. That sort of creativity tends to be suppressed within professional bodies.
The fear is irrational. My very first tax client in January said trump would take away her SSI! A gay I spoke with Wednesday SSI a trump court would undo SSM! My brother says trump hates POC!
Where does this come from? Buncha no ninnies.
Damn phone...
The campaign that fed the fears of these people about all of these horrible things was defeated. I understand that the Soros crowd will continue that messaging, but at some point when the events that drive the fears do not come to pass people will calm down.
Excellent, Ann.
This is the big chorus now - from ALL corners of the elite establishment on both sides. "Please please Donny - keep the elites in power! It's the only way you can prove yourself as instant insider."
We are all wondering if Trump will cave. Please don't Trump. Fire them all.
This was the election by people who wanted to tell the elites to drop dead.
Thank you for that analysis, Professor. I had read that piece yesterday but to be frank, I had not seen it from that angle.
I was not a Trump supporter, though I do count myself a conservative. One of the things her article demonstrates, when seen in this new light, is the dangerous idea that only the educated are capable of governing. I accept that the political elite already think this about voters and their choices, but I had not seen the subtle difference that the elite feel the same way about all levels of governance.
Thank you for lifting that veil a little more. Let us all hope that Trump rises to the occasion.
Absolutely your best beat down, professor. And, not just your best, the best ever.
Know what else is a "natural, self-driven eruption?"
Masturbation.
I just thought that needed to be pointed out.
Although:
Think of the protests in the streets as a form of masturbation and it all makes sense.
Think of the media elites ejaculating the same old jizz and it all makes sense.
I am here to help.
I am Laslo.
Am I misremembering or did Trump come out for gay marriage back when Hillary's position was still "evolving".
I just don't get this portrayal as all things evil and accusing him of things he never said.
BTW Ann, thanks for the thoughtful analysis.
I'm so sick of all these people who have been wrong about everything telling him whst to do.
Peggy needs to read some Dilbert. Then she should contemplate the fact that while Obama knew how to run for president, he really and truly did not know how to govern. Executive positions require an executive mindset, not a street-fighter community organizer, pit-one-against-another mindset. Peggy has never thought about that. That's bad. A bad thing, Peggy! Hillary has proven to be at least as poor an executive as Obama, in the only two executive positions we know of: SOS and her "position" at the Clinton Crime Syndicate. Like Obama she surrounds herself with yes-men and sycophants and holds no one accountable for poor results, exhibits no LEADERSHIP. Obama was an amalgam of micro-manager and disinterested bureaucrat. So much so that Rush calls it the Obama Effect, in which even his own policies aren't tied to him but seem to have a life apart from him, bringing no blame upon him. (You know this is true because every article critical of Obamacare in the MSM lays the blame at non-participating Republican lawmakers or the distortions in the market caused by the ACA in a circularly reasoned mess.)
Donald can lead an organization. He has years of experience as a true chief executive, able to choose good subordinates to execute his directives, with ample freedom to make decisions. There's a saying among us corporate types that "A's hire A's but B's hire C's and D's." That is, type A managers hire other type A's to get results, but Beta types (looking at you president mom-jeans) hire less-driven C and D types to prevent any of their hires from outshining themselves. Biden's pick is a perfect example, often seen as "assassination insurance" because Old Joe is so damn stupid and creepy that NO NE wanted him in the big chair. He might be more like an L or M if not Z type. Ditto hiring Hillary who Obama knew would be shady but not exceptional in any way.
At least we've hired a real chief executive this time.
What was that comment about the Bourbons of 1814 again?
Noonan pretends to be listening to the "street" but she is still inside the mirror-surface bubble and can't see the obvious outside it.
I always have to remind myself Noonan works for WSJ and not The New Yorker as her point of view is consistently the View from 9th Avenue
After Mitt Romney lost, one of my best friends posted on Facebook "What will we do? Our country can't handle another 4 years of Obama" and a liberal friend replied "You'll be fine"
Why can't we just say this to all these people with all these "fears"? Just because you have a fear, it doesn't mean it's rational, it doesn't mean its legitimate, and it doesn't mean someone else is responsible for it.
So you are afraid. Try this: Go through life and see if your fears are realized, and then do something. But don't thin imagining something might happen means it will happen, or even that it is likely to happy. Don't be so self-indulgent with your fears!
What do you want to bet dollars to donuts that Peggy voted for Hillary? Once an elitist always an elitist. How do fossils like her and George Will keep crawling back after stabbing the republican candidate in the back time and time again?
Trump impressed me with his drive, determination, and stamina. He has everything you need to be a great President. But people need to view the original tapes, not listen to someone's description of what happened. Trump will surround himself with good people that will get the job done--as he has in the campaign and like he did on all those massive construction projects. I don't think people understand just how complicated those are and just how many people you have to get to cooperate to finish one of those. If he could get buildings built in NYC at a time when no one else could, when other builders had given up because of union, mob, and government interference--if he could get them all to cooperate, which he did--he can do this job.
Every election year, the helpful 'election workers' would come through my mother-in-law's nursing home, telling the old ladies that the Republicans wanted to take away their Social Security.
And every election year, gay friends would fret to me that if a Republican were elected president, gay people would be rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
The first time I heard that fear, it was 1996. Remember who was the Republican contender in 1996. It was Bob Dole.
Bob Dole.
Good ol' Sen. Bob Dole. Minority Leader for practically ever. 'Bipartisan Bob' or 'Go Along (to get along) Bob' to more combative R's (which was most of 'em). WW2 vet with an arm maimed in Italy. A thoroughly decent man, who got the nomination because it was His Turn.
How low does a LIV's information level have to be to believe Bob Dole was secretly plotting to send you to Auschwitz 2? Pretty low. And then you have to fall for that same story for the next twenty years.
"Dear Donald Trump:
Now that you won this campaign by convincing people you will be different,
we in the press would like to browbeat you into being more of the same"
The leaning tower of pica.
What Sydney said. People have lost their minds and would be just as scared or panicked if Mitt had won in 2012. They only see caricatures.
I also think what Sale a Ziti, the Pennsylvania reporter, wrote applies over well: Trump supporters take him seriously but not literally. His detractors take him literally, but not seriously.
And, Laslo is also unfortunately right.
The last American generation that read Longfellow or Shakespeare will be gone soon; their replacements will have been forced to read Toni Morrison and have thereby been permanently discouraged from any serious intellectual pursuits, nor virtue, nor courage, nor any serious sense of life. Generations of children. Heck, there are already hordes of fifty-year-olds this silly.
I may seem to be joking about Toni Morrison, seemingly trivial, but that sort of thing is at the root of all your troubles.
Sydney:
"Why do so many people think that Trump hates immigrants and LGBT people or that he's racist or misogynistic? "
Because that's what was convenient to say about him (all Republicans, really) during the election and so they can't climb down now.
The silly Mormon Missionary loser, what's his name, accused Trump of bringing in "Trickle down Racism and Xenophobia." You cannot please the GOP Brahmins.
That leaves loser McCain to throw stones at the winner.
Today on 'Brooks & Noonan,' guest host Andrew Sullivan gets hysterical, Jeb! talks about his brother's paintings, and our panel reviews 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'
I alternate between thinking the hysterics will subside, and then between being scared again when well-meaning people start posting on Facebook about all the 'attacks' they see reported on Twitter about the sudden outpouring of hate toward gays and Muslims in 'Trump's America.' It's clear to those of us with a teaspoon of critical thinking ability that those are hoaxes and bullshit easily spread through social media, but people are taking them seriously as though they really happened. And you can't say anything like "maybe take these reports with a grain of salt and ask for some evidence before believing everything you see on Twitter" because then you're a bigot. Maybe I'm a coward, but I don't want my sweet aunts and uncles on Facebook who think they're helping to think I'm a bigot. It's also driving me crazy to see this false reality take hold.
Now what?
Excellent article, Althouse. One of your best.
Noonan reminds me of Tracy Flick. And of all those wealthy Catholic girls who attended the hoity-toity lace curtain Catholic girls' high schools on the North Shore (north of Chicago, i.e.). I have a visceral loathing for that type. Noonan's article reveals that type in all its repellent glory. Althouse gets it, and takes it down. Hard.
The only thing Trump really needs to do, IMO, is remember that he got about as many votes as John McCain did.
Here's hoping he does good for the country. If he doesn't want to be fired in four years, he's got to either hope the Democrats nominate another damaged candidate, or win over a chunk of voters he missed this time around.
Self-aware much Peggy?
Does she carry a clove spiked orange whilst gliding through the unwashed masses of "ordinary" people.
"...with big rallies in the manner of an old-time "whistle-stop" campaign — not with a train but that big Trump plane."
Immediately thought of Truman vs Dewey when I read this.
Watch Peggy Noonan sometime. What you will see is a completely phony person, one who has constructed her "self" to be all the things she thinks she believes in. She's a phony, she got Trump completely wrong, and she deserves no ears to listen to her.
"Gk1 said...
What do you want to bet dollars to donuts that Peggy voted for Hillary? Once an elitist always an elitist. How do fossils like her and George Will keep crawling back after stabbing the republican candidate in the back time and time again?"
God, simple. Who signs their paychecks.
Looks like I might have spoken a bit early, and Trump might be closer to Romney's total than McCain's. Broader point stands - this election actually was a squeaker, the man has to earn it if he wants to stay on for another term.
MoDo's column had me thinking that I'd like to see her brother get her column.
Noonan is an earthquake survivor wandering dazed in the rubble, anxious to keep dinner plans at a restaurant that no longer exists.
@Witness: "The only thing Trump really needs to do, IMO, is remember that he got about as many votes as John McCain did."
There are 8-10 million votes to be counted. Trump will get to 63 million or so. He will have surpassed McCain by 4-5 million and Romney by 3-4. He may even still win the popular vote though it's only about a 6% chance.
If you don't believe me, do a little research.
This is one of the better Althouse essays I've read.
I think we can see Trump already bringing people together, the Jew, the Muslim and the Lesbian, united in fear against the new President. That's some kind of magic voodoo he's got.
This post is excellent.
They fear they will no longer be respected?
Why should they be?
In America now only normal people can see the obvious.
If only people like Noonan were capable of applying this to other things beside election results. (The "non-normals" are lost in a fog, all right, but a good deal of the fogginess results from being in massive denial about facts and data, not from over-reliance on it.)
"It is silly to worry that Mr. Trump’s supporters will start to fear he’s gone establishment. They believe in him, are beside themselves with joy, and will understand he’s shoring up his position and communicating stability."
Uh, no, Peggy. (What is it with the temperamentally true-believin' and their psychological projections?) We understand that Trump has to work with the established structure, and negotiate and compromise with all the entrenched whores, but we're keeping a sharp eye on things, and we're not so "beside ourselves with joy" that we won't be dismayed if he gives signs of delivering nothing but the same old-same old.
They only see caricatures
They see the boogyman their democrat grownups such as Hillary told them about.
Peggy Noonan doesn't know what she is talking about. The RNC ground game was outstanding. They were able to predict turnout to within 1.5% of actual!
That's the problem with Noonan and her ilk. They make a living recycling cliches.
Yes, it is an excellent post. Noonan's logic is the same logic that says Trump can't be elected. Yet, he was. Let's say he does the opposite of what Noonan suggests. Once Jews and Muslims aren't herded into internment camps and lesbians don't have their babies ripped from their arms, all will be calmed. The end result is the same. He didn't need the same old political hacks to win and he doesn't need the same old political hacks to calm people down. He still has two house of Congress filled with political hacks to counter the false fears.
Because Trump, the short-fingered vulgarian, won in spite of Noonan and her friends, it's fair to say he owes them Bubkes.
Trump has a lifelong career managing a huge organization with thousands of employees. She thought Obama was OK with no successful experience running anything. It's all bullshit built to simply say, Trumps not her kind of guy. She would prefer a bureaucrat with a life of failure over a successful executive with coarse language. Stupid.
The last American generation that read Longfellow or Shakespeare will be gone soon; their replacements will have been forced to read Toni Morrison and have thereby been permanently discouraged from any serious intellectual pursuits, nor virtue, nor courage, nor any serious sense of life.
Oh, dear, Debbie Downer ruins another party. Cue the tuba: bhwaa-bhwaaaaa.
You sound like crotchety old Nestor telling the Achaean heroes that they don't measure up to their fathers and the generations that came before them. Mind you, he was saying this to the likes of Achilles, Aias, Odysseus, et. al! Homer was writing about events that happened over 3,000 years ago. Nothing new: every generation laments that the one following it lacks mettle.
I think we can see Trump already bringing people together, the Jew, the Muslim and the Lesbian, united in [false fear's ginned up by a dishonest MSM-DNC] against the new President.
There. FIFY.
IHMMP: I alternate between thinking the hysterics will subside, and then between being scared again when well-meaning people start posting on Facebook about all the 'attacks' they see reported on Twitter about the sudden outpouring of hate toward gays and Muslims in 'Trump's America.' It's clear to those of us with a teaspoon of critical thinking ability that those are hoaxes and bullshit easily spread through social media, but people are taking them seriously as though they really happened.
God, I know. I don't have a Facebook account, myself, but I look at friends' and family's, and they're awash with their earnest, anguished liberal friends putting up post after post of "OMG! KKK on the prowl! Hijab wearers attacked! Men in MAGA hats beating up old black ladies and transsexual women!". As you say, painfully obvious hoaxes and bullshit.
I'd give them a pass if they were all pubescent girls, but these are men and women of middle-age and older. Grown men and women who bemoan Trump voters "lack of education" and "lack of training in critical thinking" in between falling for and sobbing about this hour's Hate Crime That Never Happened.
Beta types (looking at you president mom-jeans) hire less-driven C and D types to prevent any of their hires from outshining themselves.
That was the theory of why Bush 1 chose Quayle and I still subscribe to it.
Witness assumes Trump can't get the economy moving again. The same was assumed about Reagan. We know your Hillary could not have done anything but make it worse. Watch what happens when the Obama EOs are cancelled and the regulations trolled back. The energy industry alone will generate a million jobs,.
Collaborating elites like Noonan should realize that as she drips with contempt for Trump that her compatriots on the fear-mongering wagon deep down have contempt for her as well.
Fantastic post Althouse.
Noonan was outstanding in framing this election as the protecteds vs the unprotecteds but, as pointed out up thread, the gravitational pull of Elite-Land is so powerful when one is in close, low Elite-Land orbit it becomes impossible to achieve full escape velocity which is necessary to gain sufficient altitude to discern the totality of what is happening.
Peggy is trapped, probably for all time, in low Elite-Land orbit.
I will leave the "atmospheric penetration" metaphors to Laslo.
Roughcoat, I defer to you in knowledge in cases where you do know; but in this I think I know. We have just finished putting our kids through the schools and tutoring, etc. besides; and I have spent much time interviewing young fellows in the last three decades.
I am not comparing vs my youth because this was in a place completely alien. I am comparing the US stock of today vs that of three decades ago, and I was a man of experience even then.
I am not impressed. The quality is way down.
What Peggy Noonan should have written:
No one I know, who shares the privileged bubble in which we live, saw this coming because we cannot deign to look.
The election has taught her nothing.
Now THIS is vintage Althouse. Welcome back.
Cokie Roberts was much more succinct.
Didn't she say something like, why didn't they listen to us?
Peggy didn't care when President Mom Jeans killed the medical device manufacturing industry in the USA with Obamacare. The fastest growing manufacturing sector in the country, one of the few bright spots for employment here, was decimated. More like anti-decimated (90% reduced or the inverse of decimated). One of my $1 million customers was building FIVE new stent manufacturing plants in the USA and pulled the plug on all five moving the manufacturing to Ireland. The special med-device tax was a killer, just one "Easter egg" among many that the democrat idiots planted in that horrific legislation.
States that lost huge numbers of medical device jobs: OH, MN, IN ...
It wasn't just coal jobs Obama was killing.
Trump is also bring the Canadiens, Mexicans and Europans to the table.
The Europeans want him to fly over ASAP.
Because they don't want US to be "isolationist."
And the world needs the US and the EU to be working side-by-side.
What a refreshing change, I'm old enuf to remember when they didn't want US.
Just our money.
Oh, wait.
In America now only normal people can see the obvious.
"The Emperor's New Clothes". Normal people have seen it for years but only the plain speaking Trump had the guts to say it. Now it's almost safe for everyone else to admit that they saw no clothes. Clear away all the bullshit and we still have a country.
Noonan is wrong about -- "There was no high-class, high-tech identifying of supporters—they identified themselves."
The RNC learned from the prior elections and had very sophisticated tech working for them. Watch Wednesday morning's Morning Joe talk with Reince Priebus. The repeated events where 1000s showed up vs. Clinton/Kaine events where they had to distort the crowd shots to hide the smallness and vast empty seats. Give the Trump campaign and RNC some credit Peggy!
Mr. Trump goes to Washington.
This is the same Peggy Noonan that trashed Sarah Palin. She only knows a few things, and the things she knows are irrelevant at the moment. She knows that she wants her friends --those good, wise people--to be in power.Thanks for taking her to the woodshed, Althouse.
“The man I just saw there talking to people is nothing like what I’ve seen, day in and day out, in the news.”
I am holding on to this quote. Trump will not cave. I hope
For nothing else I hope he remembers and people remind him that DC voted 93% to Clinton and 4% to him. They want him to fall. They will sabotage everything he tries to do.
"The quality is way down."
The quality isn't way down. The expectations are way down. People live into the expectations. Inspire and give space, we'll be surprised by what younger generations can do.
Americans have always been willing to do this, and then rise to the occasion when times call for it.
"Her prescription is: Hire the elite insiders!"
And she knows right where Trump should go: to the membership lists of the CFR.
The same people who have engineering our disastrous foreign policy since the 1930s.
Donald, ignore Peggy Noonon.
Good point about medical devices.
Add that to DOE/EPA policy liberaluzation, foreign remittance liberalization, Obamacare liberalization, auto fleet emissions mandate reform, and etc.
If done right and if the new administration survives the pushback from all the breaking rice bowls.
There are Trillions at stake and the battles will be furious.
Roughcoat: Nothing new: every generation laments that the one following it lacks mettle.
Yes, old people always and everywhere think that world is going to hell in a handbasket and that young people aren't up to snuff. But sometimes things really do go to hell, standards really do collapse, knowledge, culture and civilization really are lost. You shouldn't have any difficulty surveying history and noticing that some eras were, as a matter of fact, worse than other eras, and some really bad indeed. That the old farts around when things are going to hell may be right only in the way that stopped clocks are sometimes right, doesn't mean that they aren't right.
Yeah, the DemCong got all the "smart ones", didn't they?
The past few days I’ve heard from a young man who fears Jews will be targeted
By who?
Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism. Her husband is a trusted advisor. Trump is a big supporter of Israel.
If that young man really believes that then he is an hysterical moron who shouldn't be let out alone without a keeper. Why should anyone care what such a ridiculous person thinks?
If Noonan really wanted to help him she should have slapped him in the face and told him to stop being meshugenah and act like a mensch.
Peggy Noonan is free to follow Molly Ivins into the gin bottle.
Posts like this are why I come here every day.
To succeed as President Trump needs to follow several rules:
1) don't listen to peggy noonan
2) don't listen to anyone who was a #nevertrumper#'
3) Find out what Bush II did, and do the opposite.
Trump will need a lot of lower level "nuts and bolts" Republicans to fill certain specialist positions in the Executive Branch but he doesn't need Noonan's "elite" in the cabinet or giving him advice.
Trump has run a billion dollar organization for 25 years. He knows how the run things.
Ah Peggy--and my progressive friends who didn't believe me when I told them how much the common folk hated that pestilential swamp on the Potomac filled with posturing pustulenet poltroons.
Kinky Friedman diagnosed the progressives and pundits problems--a sort of "lack of vision thing" when he wrote the following lyric in his song 'Wild Man of Borneo". The line goes, "They come to see what they want to see, but they never come to know."
There is a lot of projection on the Left; they were afraid that Trump voters would riot in the streets if Hillary won. Well the Trump voters went back to work the next day--that is if they had jobs. And the Clinton voters poured out of their colleges and high schools, went to "safe space sessions" for grief counseling--and rioted in the streets.
I suspect that, had Hillary won, the Trump voters would still have gone back to work with a shrug and a sigh.
Yes, old people always and everywhere think that world is going to hell in a handbasket
Yes, The handicap is that we remember the way they were and see the changes. That's why I am finally giving up on California.
I love the old Raymond Chandler novels with describe Los Angeles before I got here. Dashiel Hammet does the same for San Francisco.
If people start living more than 100 years, suicides will increase as the changes are painful. My kids think it is normal for a house to cost a million dollars and a car to cost $50,000. They don't understand, even though they have degrees, that the dollar is worth 10 cents in 1920 terms. I'm reading Sherman's Memoirs again. His descriptions of California in 1848 are amazing.
Obama did nothing but be a "Community activist" and a state legislator/US senator for a couple years, and had no problems being a day to day President.
Trump shouldn't have any problem.
Let's take another look at those breasts.
Will people ever stop taking this crap seriously. Someone who thinks Jews or Muslims will be targeted because a (R) is elected, should be laughed and mocked at.
People who are constantly being delusional drama queens should be attacked and told to shut up.
But its just like Trolls, some people just have to enable the Troll.
Noonan is thinking that in 1980, even with a significant third party challenge (Anderson), Reagan managed over 50% of the popular vote. Trump didn't even get more votes than Clinton, let alone get close to 50%. So he did underperform for a rightist wave election.
And which is more incredible, that Noonan calls on Trump to hire some people with expertise and experience, or that Trump announces he plans to call on Obama frequently for counsel? Doesn't that make some heads explode?
I am not impressed. The quality is way down.
Point taken. But consider: when you observe, correctly, that the reading of Longfellow and Shakespeare is declining and that the numbers of those engaged in serious intellectual pursuits are also on the wane, you are describing a certain segment of the population, namely the educated segment, in particular those with college educations (or those who were educated at high-quality public or private high schools). But it would be well to remember that there is another segment of the population, a much larger segment, comprising those who did not earn college degrees, who did not attend high-quality public or private schools, who did not excel in the classroom and who were/are indifferent to Shakespeare, Longfellow, and other exalted intellectual pursuits. I do not mean the latter characterization disparagingly; quite the contrary. And I am referring not only to the blue collar elements but to much more than that. I am referring to what I like to call the foot soldiers of civilization: the carpenters, plumbers, and construction workers; the farmers and factory workers and truck drivers; the people who build things and make things work. They are not only the foot soldiers of civilization, they are its backbone: and they will save civilization when it is imperiled. They always have in the past and they always will in the future. Their courage and character and commonsense is not contingent on their formal education, or lack thereof -- and thank God for that. As for the things that make civilization worthwhile -- Shakespeare, Longfellow, e.g. -- these will be preserved, there will always be people who preserve them. Not as many as before, but enough.
"Friends and fighting men of the Danaans, henchmen of Ares, be men now, dear friends, remember your furious valour." They will remember. I am optimistic about the future.
Peggy didn't care when President Mom Jeans killed the medical device manufacturing industry in the USA with Obamacare.
Don't forget the tanning bed industry, too!
Mostly.
"Professional campaigns" haven't generated as many electoral votes for Republicans as Trump got since 1988 --- and even that was because of Ronald Reagan, who the establishment wasn't fond of, either.
Not gonna lie --- looking forward to his State of the Union speech.
God, I know. I don't have a Facebook account, myself, but I look at friends' and family's, and they're awash with their earnest, anguished liberal friends putting up post after post of "OMG! KKK on the prowl! Hijab wearers attacked! Men in MAGA hats beating up old black ladies and transsexual women!". As you say, painfully obvious hoaxes and bullshit.
I've asked friends posting this stuff "Do you actually think America was ready to go after all minorities at the drop of a hat? Then how the hell did Obama get elected twice?"
My Prog friends are upset when I say those stories are almost guaranteed total bullshit. They even put up a few seconds of videos of kids carrying a Trump sign yelling "White Power", as if there is no change it's trolls or progressives trying to gin up hate for Trump.
I stopped buying these stories a long time ago. I was the only one of my friends who thought the Duke lacrosse scandal was a BS story also.
"His descriptions of California in 1848 are amazing."
I finished re-reading Richard Henry Dana's Before the Mast again about a month ago. Talk about a different world. Then the postscript chapter about his return to California twenty years later. Everything had changed. The semi-idyllic, welcoming world of John Sutter quickly gave way to the chaotic, individualistic stampede of the Gold Rush. Then Hollywood and the hippie movement brought in yet more people from all corners who wanted to reshape the world, drawing in like-minded folk who wanted to trash the rules so that they could become the new rulers. And the conquering of California is now complete.
The weather is still great.
rcocean suggests: o succeed as President Trump needs to follow several rules:
1) don't listen to peggy noonan
2) don't listen to anyone who was a #nevertrumper#'
3) Find out what Bush II did, and do the opposite.
Trump will need a lot of lower level "nuts and bolts" Republicans to fill certain specialist positions in the Executive Branch but he doesn't need Noonan's "elite" in the cabinet or giving him advice.
Trump has run a billion dollar organization for 25 years. He knows how the run things.
Agree. He has far better instincts than do any of his political rivals and, perhaps most importantly, he is pragmatic, as are most successful businessmen.
Ha. Another of the many things warming my heart is the thought of all those eager Clinton workers who bought houses in Georgetown in anticipation of the fat lives they were going to live after their four years in their tiny White House offices were over and they could cash in with new positions as lobbyists or, who knows, authors!! What now for them?
Sorry, Peggy, but we really and truly don't give a shit about the wisdom of those elders who got us to this particular place at this particular time. They can, as they say, go fuck themselves.
I hope that Trump does for Washington what Clinton and Obama did for W. Va.
Anglelyne and Michael K:
Again, point(s)taken. I sometimes feel as you do about where the arrow of history is flying. Certainly, civilization has fallen on hard times and there have been dark ages that were very dark indeed. But civilization has always recovered. Always.
It's a cyclical thing. Past performance is no guarantee of future results -- or future catastrophes. "Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity."
Ron Winkleheimer aptly suggested: If Noonan really wanted to help him she should have slapped him in the face and told him to stop being meshugenah and act like a mensch.
I love it! You should send it to her!
Wasn't this part of Obama's problem. He ran on changing the culture in DC but had to staff so many positions with DC insiders.
Trump should hire experts who are experts. Someone is an expert if they have a track record of predicting certain events or at least being able to analyze things and say we don't really know what will happen or if a proposal will work. There is plenty of shit that has been tried and has not worked well. Maybe it was better than doing nothing but better than nothing should be a high standard
Bravo! Bravo! Maybe your best post ever.
And maybe Lazlo's too.
It's complicated.
The future depends on how well Trump performs as President. He fucks up, and the left is in the saddle forever.
"Trump announces he plans to call on Obama frequently for counsel? Doesn't that make some heads explode?"
Lesson one: recognize bullshit when you see it.
David Begley said...
"I certainly hope Linda Greenhouse fowards Althouse's analysis to Peggy Noonan."
Delicious. Although unlikely to happen, it's the thought that counts!
"Where shall I skewer my peacock?... Nay,
Better for you to have shunned this brawl!—
Here, in the heart, thro’ your ribbons gay?
—In the belly, under your silken shawl?
Hark, how the steel rings musical!
Mark how my point floats, light as the foam,
Ready to drive you back to the wall,
Then, as I end the refrain, thrust home!"
She was making several good obvious points. Trump did not have the Slick commercials that Hillary had nor the ground game that the political analysts are so fond of pointing out. Noonan never has denied that she moves in a rarefied atmosphere and has pointed it out that she does, unlike a Freedman or a Brooks of the NY. Times.
Her use of the Little Italian Schumann repair guy or her grandmother to illustrate a point is a time honoured technique. It used to be cab drivers. The point of her column is that the Trump victory was a Grassroots ground-up revolt and she is correct because I agree.
The current dollar is worth roughly a late Eisenhower dime.
The world in 1920 was such a different place that money equivalences do not make much sense, but if you have to make one, I would say at most a nickel.
I am offended at the idea that Jews have what to fear from Trump's election. I am Jewish and my wife's family lost many relatives in the Holocoust. None of that is happening here regardless of the derangement of some on the left. Trump won fair and square and in four years he will need to win again if he wants to continue in office.
Great insights Ann. Peggy Noonan, who used to be an outsider 30 some odd years ago, has become just another insider. She would do well to get out of the Beltway for awhile -- and BTW what she seems to be saying is that Trump needs to be more like Romney. Except for the part where Romney lost! Keep up the great Blog. Always interesting and infused with
People may want to believe that Trump has no effing idea of what he wants to do as president, but I think they are in for a heck of shock on that issue once they finally emerge from electoral bunkers.
Mr. Market thinks Trump is very, very serious and will make some pretty distinct changes quite quickly.
Mr. Copper, who at least can't be disparaged as a straight white male, feels like his time has come.
It's a hell of a time to be an Italian banker, but the pipefitters are hoosting beers to President-elect Trump, crappy mythical bond assets are dying on the vine, and it is Noonan who knows nothing about being president.
>>Trump announces he plans to call on Obama frequently for counsel? Doesn't that make some heads explode?
Not at all. Trump will ask O what he would do in a certain situation... and thus know what not to do. It's like a test taking strategy: remove the clearly wrong answer and you have a better chance of picking the right one.
It is so great to see you go after Noonan. A few years ago I worked up a bit of a rant about her.
She first became famous because the brain trust around Reagan wanted to show that not everyone in their world was an aging WASP from the country club. Look! An attractive Irish Catholic girl! Her parents were always Democrats and now she's for Reagan! And she's smart! Staff would leak that a particularly good Reagan speech was actually by Peggy. She took this opportunity and ran with it--started her own leaking, especially under Bush Senior. Somehow it didn't hurt Reagan much to suggest someone else wrote his best speeches, but the way Peggy became increasingly famous, it reinforced the idea that Bush Sr didn't have a thought in his head. (Let's not forget Trump's wonderful line: "Maybe she should be running," meaning Barbara Bush the grandmother; haven't we all suspected for a while that she's the best of the bunch?) After Noonan had been at the WSJ for a while, there was a rumour that she was the highest-paid op ed columnist in the country. Maybe she still is.
Then there was Reagan's death, and the accompanying funerals and ceremonies on TV. To my amazement, Noonan kind of farted in church by venting about her days in the Reagan White House: the boys were mean to her, her immediate boss should have been fired (presumably so Peggy could get a promotion), and one writer was useless, constantly going for haircuts. This was a nasty piece of work, almost regardless of whatever little nuggets of truth were in there.
Now she is the loving wife and mother, an all-round wonderful person, on a first-person basis with movers and shakers she could name if she wished to, yet still down to earth: Waltons move to Manhattan or at least Brooklyn Heights. Crapping on Trump and his supporters because she so completely failed to understand or predict, well, anything at all. "Please, hire my friends; please!"
"The past few days I’ve heard from a young man who fears Jews will be targeted"
By who? Muslims?
"Broader point stands - this election actually was a squeaker"
Bollocks. Factoring in the grotesque unhinged media bias and that Hillary spent 3 times the money that Trump did. this was, effectively, a landslide result.
Peggy just can't hold cogent political thoughts for long. Trump's campaign was what was needed. The excesses of the political elite were unnessary.
Noonan evidently thought Obama knew how to be President. Won't we be relieved if Trump doesn't become Obama's kind of President.
Our prayer must be that Trump doesn't forget what kind of President he promised to be.
@Althouse, wow. Just plain WOW.
I read Noonan's piece this morning, and it bothered me. It bothered me, but I couldn't articulate to my personal satisfaction just precisely why it bothered me. And then you went to town on her and you exposed every flaw in her reasoning. Every. Single. One.
I really wish I could ask Peggy a few pointed questions. For instance she has in the past expressed a great deal of affection for the "happy warrior" campaigner. Does that not define President Trump? No one has campaigned harder or more exuberantly than he has within my lifetime. What happened to her affection for the breed?
And considering that her claim to fame is that she was a speechwriter for President Reagan, I'd like to ask her what on earth happened?
One of the best Althouse post-election blogs!! Magnificently cogent and incisive.
I am rapturous that Trump "doesn't know how to be President", because knowing how to be President means blinding oneself to the venality of the Washington establishment — to look away from graft and influence peddling, to blunt one's conscience, to disregard the People and pay homage to the rich and powerful. Since the end of the Reagan era learning to be the President has meant learning to ignore corruption and eventually to embrace and exploit it. Personally, I want to blame the Clintons, but one must be honest and admit that republics have been so plagued since before Brutus expelled the Tarquins. From time to time a Hercules must arise and muck the filthy stables. It was not for nothing that Dante put the grafters and the corrupters much deeper in Hell than even the murderers.
The most generous interpretation one can put on the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama is this: Obama entered the race with the best intentions, but he was too morally weak to resist the temptation to absorb and adopt the malfeasance, the profiteering, the nepotism, and crookedness of the professional political class who swarmed around him, offering riches and power as well as advice.
Following Noonan's advice would be the worst thing Trump could ever do; it would be treason! Washington is indeed a swamp, a slough of parasites and panderers. It needs draining. The heads of the miscreants must roll in the streets, and the gutters must be awash in the blood of the betrayers — metaphorically, of course. The symbol of the Trump administration should be the axe.
buwaya puti
Thank you for the Toni Morrison comment. You are spot on. The tripe that is forced on these kids is so mediocre, so bad. Even if they haven't read them all, my children were forced to grow up in a house that was/is more library than rec room. They have seen and smelled and sometimes even touched them their whole lives. They may not have read Seneca but they have heard of him.
And considering that her claim to fame is that she was a speechwriter for President Reagan, I'd like to ask her what on earth happened?
Noonan has spent a lot more time sipping fine white wine and nibbling exotic cheeses with the worst people imaginable than she ever spent writing for Reagan. (I wonder how many of her drafts the Gipper used for toilet paper.)
Lie down with dogs and awake with fleas.
BTW, I wish I could figure out who keeps telling Jews that they need to fear the American Right. One of my friends expressed a fear that election of Republicans could only mean disaster for Jews, and I pointed out to her that when the pogroms come here -- and I don't think it's an "if" anymore -- they will come from her side of the political spectrum (i.e., the left). I can point to the BDS movement, I can point to Jewish speakers being denied the right to speak on left-wing campuses, I can point to threats and even physical attacks against Jewish students on campus, and nothing changes. They're always looking towards the right for the attack; when it comes it will hit them from behind.
And, you probably need to be careful . It almost sounds like you are getting on Trump train.
because knowing how to be President means blinding oneself to the venality of the Washington establishment — to look away from graft and influence peddling, to blunt one's conscience, to disregard the People and pay homage to the rich and powerful.
As I warned you, you can't believe a thing Trump said. It is already playing out. Look at who he is apparently choosing for his cabinet. Gingrich, ultimate insider, lobbyists, congressmen, former governors. The only draining reason he is draining the swamp is so it is easier to look under rocks to find the slimy things he is stocking his cabinet with.
I wish I could figure out who keeps telling Jews that they need to fear the American Right.
Gee, its not like the right has a history of persecuting Jews.
Peggy Noonan and Bret Stephens were only two of the reasons I cancelled my long time subscription to WSJ.
All of these out of touch editorialists are on their way out along with their sinking ship newspapers.
Good riddance!
Oh, and by the way, great job taking on Noonan's elitist rant Ann!
@Freder, the American right, no. For sheer, raw anti-Semitism one cannot beat a left-wing goy.
Wait! Is it you? Are you the slimeball that is telling American Jews to watch out for an attack from the right so that you lefties can hit them from behind?
A cattle car with a Democrat logo on the side is still a cattle car.
Ya know, I gave up on Peggy some years back (Obama years, mostly), and see no (NO, Zero, Zip. Zilch, Nada) reason to read her again.
@Big Mike
As a conservative Jew, it drives me even more nuts. My grandparents and some of their relatives fled Germany in the 1930s, others did not. I've always been fascinated with Weimar Germany and WW II, which led to my mistaken decision to obtain a degree in history - I should have just read a bunch of books instead.
At any rate, my grandparents really did teach me that a good Jew keeps his passport up to date, and a reasonably supply of precious metals and gems on hand "just in case" he has to make a quick exit. Good rules for anyone, really.
At any rate, once I moved to the US, I also determined that a good Jew should keep a reasonable supply of firearms and suitable ammo on hand too - because if fleeing isn't a good option, then you might as well have the tools to stand and fight. And in a crisis they make pretty good trade goods.
So, to my fellow Members of the Tribe - If the poop hits the rotary air impeller, and you decide you want the tools to stand and fight - oy, I'll make you such a deal!
Wait! Is it you? Are you the slimeball that is telling American Jews to watch out for an attack from the right so that you lefties can hit them from behind?
Google "Jews are destroying America", and tell me which of the various websites expounding on this thesis is left wing.
Roughcoat: Point taken. But consider: when you observe, correctly, that the reading of Longfellow and Shakespeare is declining and that the numbers of those engaged in serious intellectual pursuits are also on the wane, you are describing a certain segment of the population, namely the educated segment, in particular those with college educations (or those who were educated at high-quality public or private high schools). But it would be well to remember that there is another segment of the population, a much larger segment, comprising those who did not earn college degrees, who did not attend high-quality public or private schools, who did not excel in the classroom and who were/are indifferent to Shakespeare, Longfellow, and other exalted intellectual pursuits.
That's just the point, Rough. How does it come to pass that any familiarity with a cultural "canon" constitutes an "exalted intellectual pursuit", assumed to be restricted to people who attended universities or "high-quality" public schools? By that standard, my parents and most of my relatives of their generation were "exalted intellectuals", even though they had no academic credentials beyond high-school diplomas from ordinary public and parochial schools. They'd be amused to have been told that understanding a Shakespeare reference or having some memorized Longfellow rattling around in their heads was high-falutin' intellectualism. These were things that "everybody knew", not rarefied high culture.
My parents' school peers were of the class of "foot soldiers of civilization" you describe. I've looked through their high school books, and there is no question that the standards were more rigorous, and that they would leave even the indifferent students with a greater likelihood of meaningful exposure to "culture" than a student at even highly-ranked university today.
And as for today, I sure as hell wouldn't bet that any random college "educated" individual is more likely to be more genuinely "literate" than any random "foot soldier". In fact, if I had to bet money on who has more knowledge of history, or who is more likely to read history for pleasure, a carpenter or a "gender studies" Ph.D, I'd bet on the carpenter every time. In my experience, they're a much more intellectually curious lot.
Freder, Nazis were a party of the left.
So, fuck you.
You are the reason that we aren't saying 'President Clinton' today.
For that, my most gracious thanks.
Freder Frederson: As I warned you, you can't believe a thing Trump said. It is already playing out. Look at who he is apparently choosing for his cabinet. Gingrich, ultimate insider, lobbyists, congressmen, former governors. The only draining reason he is draining the swamp is so it is easier to look under rocks to find the slimy things he is stocking his cabinet with.
So, you're saying that he's going to be just as bad as Hillary would have been. So, according to you, we won't be any worse off, even if we won't be any better off.
Yet, inexplicably, you seem terribly upset that people selected one shit sandwich and rejected another shit sandwich. It seems terribly upsetting to some people that people ate this shit sandwich, instead of that shit sandwich.
Elections really bring out the fastidious connoisseurs of shit, don't they?
Freder, Nazis were a party of the left.
Even if this were true (and it isn't), we aren't discussing Germany in the 1930's. We are talking about the U.S. in 2016. And neo-nazis, Christian Identity, the KKK, and the vast majority of anti-Semitic groups and individuals are decidedly on the right.
This isn't mine. I appropriated it from someone who likely appropriated it himself, but it hits the nail on the head squarely and succinctly: Our speech is violence. Their violence is speech.
Brilliant takedown, Professor Althouse. You made my day.
And the lie is
...and the vast majority of anti-Semitic groups and individuals are decidedly on the right.
You'll have to do better than that, Freddiekins
I need to clarify a point. Instead of "who did not excel in the classroom and who were/are indifferent to Shakespeare, Longfellow, and other exalted intellectual pursuits" I meant:
"who did not excel in the classroom and who were/are indifferent to Shakespeare, Longfellow, and were not interested in engaging in higher intellectual pursuits."
I agree with your last paragraph and my agreement should be obvious from what I wrote.
As for what you said in your first two paragraphs ... that's a long discussion for another day. Suggest you try re-reading what I wrote from a different, less angry perspective.
A virtual fist bump for Althouse!
WTF is with all this alleged fear? Are these bedwetters really so afraid that a country that twice elected Obama is suddenly so bigoted that we'll return to the dark days of the Bush years when blacks weren't lynched, gays weren't bashed and Muslims saw hardly any retribution for 9/11? I see plenty of bigotry, but mostly it's coming from the left.
One thing we know about Trump. He's not lazy.
Since Freddiekins hasn't bothered to support his screed (has he ever?) I'll do him a favor and support mine with data and names:
The top ten anti-Semitic organizations in America, by membership and resources, are:
1) Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)
2) Al-Awda
3) Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
4) Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA)
5) If Americans Knew (IAK)
6) International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
7) Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) -- Hell, if anti-Semitism is good enough for George "Let Me Help You on the Train" Soros, it's good for all self-loathing Jews
8) Muslim American Society (MAS)
9) Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
10) US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USCEIO)
All of the above are left-dominated organizations that supported Hillary for President.
(source: ADL)
This doesn't include black anti-Semitic groups such as the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam (source: SPLC)
Roughcoat: I agree with your last paragraph and my agreement should be obvious from what I wrote.
It's obvious from your clarification, which suggests it wasn't quite obvious from what you wrote originally.
Still, I assumed we were in general agreement about the value of "foot soldiers".
As for what you said in your first two paragraphs ... that's a long discussion for another day. Suggest you try re-reading what I wrote from a different, less angry perspective.
Whuh? That wasn't written in anything remotely approaching a state of anger. (What about it sounds "angry" to you? I'm curious.) Suggest you try re-reading what I wrote from a different, less assumption-ridden perspective.
Seemed to me everybody commenting on this was coming at it from different perspective points, not yet clear to one another, and we were all just hashing out our own thoughts and letting the other guys hash out his. As one does.
(Of course, you may not have been replying to me at all, since you neither named nor quoted. In which case, disregard the above rambling, lol.)
Freder Frederson said...
"because knowing how to be President means blinding oneself to the venality of the Washington establishment — to look away from graft and influence peddling, to blunt one's conscience, to disregard the People and pay homage to the rich and powerful.
As I warned you, you can't believe a thing Trump said. It is already playing out. Look at who he is apparently choosing for his cabinet. Gingrich, ultimate insider, lobbyists, congressmen, former governors. The only draining reason he is draining the swamp is so it is easier to look under rocks to find the slimy things he is stocking his cabinet with."
You lost. Don't be bitter Freder. Enjoy your shit sandwich.
Sorry, Peg. You missed the boat. Get out of the way and let the people that earned this victory take charge.
And the people you quoted in your story were only parroting what they have been told countless times the past six months by media and democrat elites. Jews, Muslims, Gays, etc, all have a better prospect of being safe going forward. I can't believe you bought all that nonsense, too. Well, on second thought, maybe I can.
Glen observes: One thing we know about Trump. He's not lazy.
Hell, he has more energy than do my grandsons!
Quaestor is right. Aside from the Islamic groups, our leftist universities are the biggest hotbeds of antisemitism.
The interesting thing to me is that anti-semitism has become so pervasive on so many college campuses, and much of it comes from Muslims. And, yet, Jews seem only to look to the right for danger. My theory, right now, is that this would have blown up the Dem party and the left, if Crooked Hillary had won the election, through the egregious cognitive dissonance Jews were experiencing. Part of the problem was that militant. muslims, esp on campuses, were being protected from the consequences of their attacks on Jews and Judaism by the Administration and college administrators. Rationally, Jews, not Muslims, should have been seen as the victims on campus. And, the Dems should have done so too - given how much of their funding comes from Jews.
But, now we have Trump, whom everyone on the left can hate equally, and they can all, Muslim, Jew, or proto-Christian, can come together in their hate, relegating their mutual antipathy to the sidelines. One possible solution might be to split these groups by, for example, prosecuting Muslim (and Black) anti-semitism as a hate crime. Or, at least as a deprivation of civil rights if facilitated by state university employees. Should be interesting.
Angelyne:
We certainly do agree on the value of civilzation's foot-soldiers.
Re: Suggest you try re-reading what I wrote from a different, less assumption-ridden perspective.
I did re-read it, and now I see that you weren't angry. Sorry 'bout that.
P.S.: Everything I learned of value, I learned at my very excellent public high school which I attended in the mid 60s. My high school was more rigorous than any of the three undergrad universities I attended. I am not exaggerating. College was mostly a waste of time and money. Not entirely; but mostly.
@Freder, that's all you have? A handful of web sites?
Even if this were true (and it isn't), we aren't discussing Germany in the 1930's. We are talking about the U.S. in 2016. And neo-nazis, Christian Identity, the KKK, and the vast majority of anti-Semitic groups and individuals are decidedly on the right.
Well, since "Nazi" is short for "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei," or the National Socialist German Workers Party, I think you are simply wrong as a matter of fact. Are there batshit crazy people on the right? Sure, same as there are batshit crazy people like you on the left. But there is nothing like the BDS movement on the right. What's amazing to me is the way the anti-Semitic lefties get Jewish college students to sign up on the grounds that BDS and similar threats to Jews like "Young Jewish and Proud" are really anti-Zionist and not truly anti-Semitic. Uh huh.
@Bruce Hayden, I think you're onto something.
My high school was more rigorous than any of the three undergrad universities I attended.
My [public] high school in the mid-60's was superior, too, in most ways to my college/university experience. I actually had a few teachers my mother had. They were old but very strict and highly dedicated. By the time my sister was in high school, early 70's, the leftists had taken over the faculty and the classics were gone.
OMG! Oh Yes, Trump truly needs all the handsome, tastefully dressed scoundrels and losers (e.g. William Weld maybe?) to "help" his Administration heal the country. No, I think there are a lot of people in this country who need to settle down, grow up, learn to act their age, and get back to work. I know. It's already been quoted on Instapundit: "In the future, everyone will be Hitler for fifteen minutes." (with apologies to Andy Warhol)
Many fear they will no longer be respected.
Well, well, well, at long last we must address the feelings of people who fear they are no longer respected because they need, and deserve, to feel reassured. I guess it doesn't occur to Peggy that the whole Trump phenomenon is based on the disenfranchisement of people who for very good reason (unlike the people she references) feel they are no longer respected.
As I commented over at WSJ, Trump was elected to drain the swamp, not cultivate it. Why in the world would he fill his offices with "old hands and known quantities"? DC needs to be fumigated. There are plenty of people outside the vaunted Beltway who are smart, clever, wise and accomplished including people who have successfully governed. Hopefully, we'll be seeing a lot of new faces in the Trump administration. If I'm not mistaken, it's one of the reasons he was elected.
The top ten anti-Semitic organizations in America, by membership and resources
No wonder you didn't provide a link (not that you ever do). ADL identifies these organizations as "anti-Israel", which is not the same as anti-Semitic.
My [public] high school in the mid-60's was superior, too...
As was mine. In fact, college admissions offices rated it with private and prep schools, not other public high schools. My parents chose our town specifically for the school district. This, of course, was before all the various revolutions of the late 60's after which the public education system went steadily downhill. If I had grandchildren, I would spend whatever was required to keep them out of public schools.
Why in the world would he fill his offices with "old hands and known quantities"?
Yet that is apparently exactly what he is doing.
And of course the reason he would do so is everything he said to get elected is bullshit. Yet you bought it.
Great post, I am sharing it a lot.
I have a friend in the movie industry who is fat, Jewish and gay. Last night he posted that he was at a screening in Burbank and some Trump supporters threatened to beat him up because he didn't support Trump.
In fucking Burbank.
BURBANK!
Yeah, that happened.
What was this the cover letter on her resume? Clearly the "old hand" she was most interested in is herself. Just submit your resume like everyone else and wait for your rejection letter.
And of course the reason he would do so is everything he said to get elected is bullshit
Do you mean he had both public and private positions? I am shocked !
Still you do her about that about people from time to time....
glam1931 claimed Yeah, that happened.
Right. If that were true it would be nonstop news fodder.
Glam1931
Hilarious. Did. Not. Happen.
There aren't 5 Trump supporters within 50 miles of Burbank and none of them have ever been in a screening.
Your fat gay Jewish friend is fucking with you.
Frederson, come back in a year and start criticizing the Trump administration. He hasn't even been inaugurated yet.
I think Peggy has long struggled with feelings of inadequacy as she's striven to be accepted and respected by her peers. Born and raised in working class Brooklyn, educated at Fairleigh Dickinson (or as we called it, Fairly Ridiculous). She wrote some good stuff for Ronald Reagan (someone else short on pedigree) and she still can turn a phrase, but somewhere along the line she went off-track. I noticed a marked difference in her after the events of 9-11 and I stopped reading her regularly after that. Oh well, I doubt she misses me.
The campaign that fed the fears of these people about all of these horrible things was defeated. I understand that the Soros crowd will continue that messaging, but at some point when the events that drive the fears do not come to pass people will calm down.
When do they ever calm down? It's been like this for years. For decades. Republicans want to put you back in chains. Republicans want to push granny off the cliff. Republicans want to take away your birth control. Republicans want to start a nuclear war. On and on. Rinse and repeat.
The fact that none of this stuff ever happens or even comes close to happening makes no difference whatsoever.
Roughcoat: I did re-read it, and now I see that you weren't angry. Sorry 'bout that.
S'alright. Maybe there's such a thing as the posting equivalent of "resting bitch face" - comments look angry even when they're not, lol.
Trump is also bring the Canadiens, Mexicans and Europans to the table.
They're all clamoring to negotiate trade deals. The UK hopes to be first given our "special relationship" (which reminds me, will the Churchill bust make a reappearance?). The EU is fretful that it won't get to go ahead of the Brits. Trudeau is ready to renegotiate NAFTA. So is Mexico. The TTP is essentially dead. Trump will have many opportunities to demonstrate whether he's truly a master of the art of the deal.
SukieTawdry asks: will the Churchill bust make a reappearance?
I surely hope so!!! That action totally turned me off Obama from the onset.
Thanks for encouraging me to write long posts like this that react in real time to selected readings. It's more work to keep things short, so if you're up for longer things like this, I will do them. Youare really seeing me here just trying to understand, and having your company as I try to read means a lot!
Oh my God, Ann, what a sharp, brilliant post. This abnormal normal bows to you.
People with slow connections appreciate longer posts. I enjoy your skill with words and look more closely at what you write the more of it you present on the opening page. (I have plagiarised in other forums, your comment about the popular vote being a stray statistic from a game not even being played on the same field because it so skilfully encapsulates its point and works on two levels.)
Thanks for encouraging me to write long posts like this that react in real time to selected readings. It's more work to keep things short, so if you're up for longer things like this, I will do them. Youare really seeing me here just trying to understand, and having your company as I try to read means a lot!
Excellent blog entry, Ann! A very thoughtful analysis. I don't mind wading through a long post....unless it's more stuff about Bob Dylan. ;-)
@Althouse, we appreciate. It's clear how you became the occupant of an endowed chair.
Frederson, come back in a year and start criticizing the Trump administration. He hasn't even been inaugurated yet.
If you are magnanimous enough a year from now to admit that "hey, you were right, I can't believe I bought his bullshit", then I will admit I was wrong if we are creating 250,000+ jobs a month and the economy is growing at 4+ percent. He is a con man who has just achieved the ultimate con.
What a great take-down of Noonan. Well done!
That was genius Anne.
Ann that was a great analysis. I love how you dissect Noonan's article.
I have been waiting for a businessman to come to Washington for 30 years. The inefficiency and waste there is stunning, and I think someone who thinks rationally and questions the conventional wisdom might surprise everyone with quantum leaps in results. After all, look at the VA… it is hard to explain how anyone could have screwed that up so badly.
It always helps to succeed a poor performer and Obama's hapless incompetence should remind us of how nobody could finish that ice rink and then Trump came in and got it done.
If he can start ticking off improvements people will soon get over the pervasive divisive ennui that have strangled America in the Obama era.
I also like this kind of post.
Michael, he actually posted about it on Facebook, not to me specifically. Just a lame-ass plea for attention. Of course many of his friends rushed to comfort him and prop him up. Not ONE of them questioned his story.
At least out loud.
Noonan still thinks she's in the bubble after it's popped.
Livermoron
Freder, Nazis were a party of the left.
NYT copy
HITLERITE RIOT IN BERLIN
Beer Glasses Fly When Speaker Compares Hitler and Lenin
New York Times, November 28, 1925
BERLIN. Nov. 27. РThe National Socialist-Labor Party, of which Adolf Hitler is a patron and father, persists in believing Lenin and Hitler can be compared or contrasted in a party meeting. Two weeks ago an attempted discussion of this subject led to one death, sixty injuries and $5,000 damages to beer glasses, tables, chairs, windows and chandeliers in Chemnitz. Last night, Dr. G̦bells tried the experiment in Berlin and only police intervention prevented a repetition of the Chemnitz affair.
On the speaker’s assertion that Lenin was the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between communism and the Hitler faith was very slight, a faction war opened with whizzing beer glasses. When this sort of ammunition was exhausted a free fight in which fists and knives played important roles was indulged in. Later a gang marched to the offices of the socialist paper Vorwärts and smashed plate-glass windows. Police made nineteen arrests.
This is my favorite type of Althouse post. What a delightful take-down of Noonan's pretentious blatherings.
will admit I was wrong if we are creating 250,000+ jobs a month and the economy is growing at 4+ percent.
It might take two years. He's got to get the regulations and EOs cancelled.
I really hope he hires only a few insiders, enough to clue the others in but not enough that they are part of he Washington elite. It is imperative that he clean out the IRS, the FBI and shrink government.
He spent roughly half of what Hillary spent. He won. Hopefully he can translate that skill to government.
Brilliant. Peggy's nose has been in the air far too long. Althouse Amazing Analysis
Let us talk about the Transition Team.
Pence replacing Christie is a very hopeful sign. Pence seems like a decent man and not a creature of DC.
Christie was retained as a vice chair of the team, along with several of Trump’s most visible campaign advisors: Dr. Ben Carson, a former GOP primary rival; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
Any team where Giuliani and Pence are the squishiest links is probably as good as we can hope for. Christie I will consider a non-entity. Ben, though a nice person, is an actual doctor and Flynn, Sessions, and Gingrich are 3 out of the top 5 people I would want in that position. Now if Trump could find Robespierre and Torquemada and put them in charge of "attrition" the team would be complete. Darth Vader would be a nice addition too.
Because she must have planned it, I hope that one day we can discuss Hillary's hypothetical transition team.
This was excellent and why I read Althouse.
No, their commitment is to be of service to that most oppressed and forgotten group of Americans, the wealthy. Trump’s tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan’s tax plan is even purer — it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent.
But one thing it will not be is a threat to the establishment, or the system, or whatever you want to call it. The wealthy and powerful will have more wealth and power when he’s done, not less. There’s a lot that Trump will upend, but if you’re a little guy who thinks Trump was going to upend things on your behalf or in order to serve your interests, guess what: you got suckered.
If you voted for Trump because he’s ‘anti-establishment,’ guess what: You got conned
By Paul Waldman
Gretchen said...
I really hope he hires only a few insiders, enough to clue the others in but not enough that they are part of he Washington elite. It is imperative that he clean out the IRS, the FBI and shrink government.
He spent roughly half of what Hillary spent. He won. Hopefully he can translate that skill to government.
11/11/16, 9:54 PM
hope springs eternal
Pence not an outsider? He's a supporter of trade deals such as NAFTA and TPP.
So what, though right? It's only the heart of Trump's appeal.
HT said...
"Pence not an outsider? He's a supporter of trade deals such as NAFTA and TPP.
So what, though right? It's only the heart of Trump's appeal."
Still not getting it.
I got it. The seriously literally divide.
You're the one who's not seeing what is in front of you.
So Noonan thinks I am more "normal" than she is? Because I saw Trump winning the Rust Belt-- Mich., OH., PA., IA. and the South-- NC and FL. from a mile away? Those 6 states meant game set match. It was brilliant in its simplicity, and Trump's message was geared to that--- classic game theory and the art of the deal.
The fact is, Noonan, so assured of her moral and intellectual superiority, is STILL clueless. She thinks the media and pollsters just "made a mistake". It was not a "mistake", it was propaganda, and the very definition of propaganda implies knowledge of the lie. It was all done to discourage Trump voters, whom they knew were winning.
GET OUT OF THE POLITICAL PARTY BOX. That box is designed for divide and conquer. Look with your eyes, not your ears. Be a Constitutionalist. Political parties were never mentioned there.
it was propaganda, and the very definition of propaganda implies knowledge of the lie. It was all done to discourage Trump voters, whom they knew were winning.
I guess it worked like a charm. Clinton won the popular vote instead of the 15% you claimed she was going to get.
HT: hope springs eternal
The dumb repetitive troll niche is already adequately filled by the likes of shiloh et al. Your usual shtick of posting meandering incoherent comments at least adds something to the diversity of this commenting ecosystem. (Same genus as sunsong, except that species sunsong does write posts that hang together logically, however loopy the overall viewpoint.) You should stick with that.
Freder Frederson said...
it was propaganda, and the very definition of propaganda implies knowledge of the lie. It was all done to discourage Trump voters, whom they knew were winning.
"I guess it worked like a charm. Clinton won the popular vote instead of the 15% you claimed she was going to get".
Where did I say 15%? Popular vote is the trophy of losers. We live in a Republic, where the idiots that live in the most populace states cannot impose their will on the rest of the country. It was the genius of the founders that they weighted the electorate. It was an electoral college and geographic Landslide.
"I guess it worked like a charm. Clinton won the popular vote instead of the 15% you claimed she was going to get."
And at least 10% of those votes were from dead people and those voting more than once. It took massive support for Trump to overcome the cheating.
HT said...
"I got it. The seriously literally divide.
You're the one who's not seeing what is in front of you."
If you did you wouldn't have posted what you did. That's OK .
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