by WorldTribune Staff, September 9, 2018
The media “commentariat” continue to go on about how President Donald Trump is unfit for the office. But, outside of the Resistance and the Swamp, America yawns – and life goes on.
With the anonymous op-ed from a so-called “senior Trump administration official” in The New York Times, the major media “failed again to learn the lesson that was so easy to conclude from the 2016 election and Trump’s steady popularity levels since then. That lesson is that the media and the commentariat no longer determine public opinion,” former State Department official Christian Whiton wrote for The National Interest.
“No matter how many outraged opinion pieces or news articles the New York Times produces, no matter how many smarter-than-thou analysts with non-prescription eyeglasses mope about sadly on CNN, no matter how many Obama fan boys and girls left in the White House press corps shriek at the president whenever in earshot, it just doesn’t matter anymore,” wrote Whiton, who served as a special envoy in the State Department from 2003 to 2009.
“The economy hums. Trump keeps us out of foreign entanglements. Wages increase. America’s traditional meritocracy replaces the Democrats’ grievance-based society. Life happens,” Whiton wrote.
“And while the New York Times op-ed was a nice try by the media, they must on some level, deep down, grasp the new reality: no one hears their screams.”
Whiton noted that he spent the past week in Colorado and Utah, “where seemingly no one cares. In the conversations in which I have participated or overheard, this subject has come up zero times. Muted televisions in airports and hotel lounges, which still carry CNN and its angry commentators out of habit, are blissfully ignored as life happens.”
“Most people outside the swamp either know what the media is up to or just don’t care anymore.”
Along with the anti-Trump Bob Woodward book, “whose unattributed fictions have already been refuted by on-the-record statements from cabinet officials, the New York Times and yet-to-be uncovered middlemen trotted out this op-ed simultaneously – somewhat suspicious timing, Whiton noted.
“It would have been easy to find a disgruntled appointee or detailee to write something like this, especially when provided anonymity. Any decent political campaign could orchestrate it – and the New York Times is a very decent political campaign.”
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Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama, during a Sept. 7 event in which he received an ethics award from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said “the policies of resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party.”
During a speech taking just over an hour, in which he blasted Republicans for allegedly stoking fear during these “dangerous” and “extraordinary times,” the former president referred to himself more than 100 times.
“When you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on – when the job numbers come out … and suddenly Republicans are saying, ‘It’s a miracle!’ I have to kind of remind them: actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016,” Obama said.
Obama went on to say that “if you don’t like what’s going on right now, and you shouldn’t, do not complain, don’t hashtag, don’t get anxious, don’t retreat, don’t binge on whatever it is you’re binging on. Don’t lose yourself in ironic detachment, don’t put your head in the sand, don’t boo. Vote.”
Trump was quick to weigh in on the 44th president’s comments. During a speaking event in North Dakota on Sept. 7, the 45th president joked: “I’m sorry, I watched it, but I fell asleep. I found he’s very good, very good for sleeping.”
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