Thursday, January 06, 2022

Kim Strassel: Trump Erases His Legacy

This is still the best piece I know of from a year ago. The accompanying video is also excellent, IMO.
   It's a bit too much to say that Trump erased his legacy--but he sure as hell did more to erase it in one day--in the eleventh hour--than anyone could have thought possible. He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and handed the unhinged Democrats a victory greater than any they could have hoped for, almost after the clock had already expired. He should probably be seen as a hero of the progressive left on account of the great victory he won them that day.
   Technically he didn't call for the riot, and technically the riot wasn't an insurrection. But it was bad--very, very bad. An abject embarrassment. And, y'know, a little insurrectiony...
   It doesn't compare to the years-long unhinged deluge of crazy that the newly-hard-left Democrats have unleased on the country--but 'tis enough; 'twill serve. It was utterly beyond the pale--not to mention that it put a rhetorical sword into the hands of our opponents.
   Trump very clearly laid the groundwork for the attack on the Capitol. He didn't call for it on that day, and, in fact, admonished the crowd to be peaceful. But that's not enough to make up for his weeks of saying things that made the attack seem like a plausible course of action.
   And his weak, half-hearted request that the mob stand down put the final nail into the coffin of his personal legacy.
   Now, the Dems did cheat. Denying that is just absurd. Illegally rewriting election laws, manipulating the pandemic to make elections less secure, outright lying about Trump and everything he did for four years...Russiagate...two absurd impeachments. the Dems are despicable. But that excuse doesn't go very far.
   And handing the Senate to the Dems...my God...
   Well, we gambled on a guy who's a train wreck. We won a lot. We also lost. The country was left much, much better off than it would have been otherwise. But, as Sowell says, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. 
   The attack on the Capitol was a symbolic atrocity--and symbols matter. Substantively, it can't hold a candle to the harm the left has inflicted on the country over the course of the past six or seven years. Substantively, it can't even hold a candle merely to the BLM/Antifa/Floyd riots--which were also insurrections if the Capitol riot was. But, again, such comparisons only go so far.
   Oh, hell, what do I know?

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