With Trump, Americans get a functional president, not a decorative one
It’s another #NeverTrump attack on Trump’s rough-hewn style. Pfeh! Trump is the perfect American president: a heart-of-gold brawler who puts American first.
In its endless competition with the Weekly Standard to be the outlet the drive-by media quotes most (and whose pundits get the most appearances on MSM outlets), National Review has published an article entitled Americans Want Their President to Have a Little Class. As the title suggests, the article bemoans the fact that Trump, despite being rich (although his opulence is nouveau riche rather than “classy” rich), actually gets down in the dirt to fight his political and media opponents (but I repeat myself).
Frankly, I don’t care about presidential class. Unlike the Queen, our president is not a figurehead. He’s a working executive.
Given the president’s intended functionality, I’m infinitely more interested in his accomplishments on behalf of the American people than I am in bemoaning his pugilistic style. And indeed, to the extent his pugilistic style is serving the American people by (a) exposing media figures for partisan hacks rather than honest reporters and (b) bypassing that same media to bring his message direct and uncensored to the American people, that pugilistic style is an important part of his serving the American people.
I’m also uninterested in all the mean-girls gossip our hysterical media likes. Was he mean to Omarosa and other employees? I don’t care. Does he like to eat two scoops of ice cream? I don’t care. Is he a diet soda freak? I don’t care, although he might care if it leads to kidney stones. Has he been an unfaithful husband? I don’t care. That’s between him and Melania, and it matters about as much as the unfaithfulness of Kennedy, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, etc. Clinton’s unfaithfulness mattered only because (a) he raped and assaulted women, (b) he lied under about his attacks, and (c) with his White House shenanigans, he exposed himself to serious blackmail. His relationship with Hillary was none of my business.
As for lowering the tone of the White House, that ship has sailed. I know that the same conservatives bemoaning Trump’s conduct were equally shocked by Clinton’s even worse behavior. Kudos to them, therefore, for their lack of hypocrisy on the subject. I can’t say the same for the Leftists who once offered blow jobs to Clinton and assured Americans his perjury and vulnerability to blackmail were “just sex,” but who now would put Emily Post to shame when it comes to their horror about Trump’s lack of manners. (And gosh, in an age obsessed with #MeToo and Church pedophilia, their silence about Bill’s friendship with a convicted pedophile and his repeated visits to “pedophile island” is . . . um, surprising, to say the least.)
It’s also a little silly to hear these maidenly shrieks from the same people who have enthusiastically debased our culture. F-bombs, nudity, street poop, obscene name calling, public screaming, etc., are all things that Leftists have brought to American culture. Let me take you on a short walk down memory lane, all the way back to January 2017, regarding Leftists and public culture (NSFW, unless you work in a Leftist workplace):
So no, I don’t think Trump is responsible for bringing down America’s tone.
Also, while Obama may have had a nice crease in his pants, he wasn’t class either. He was, instead, an elegantly dressed thug.
Early on, he encouraged violence:
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
After the BP oil spill in the Gulf, our “classy” chief executive had this to say:
The president defended his talks with Gulf fishermen and oil spill experts, saying their purpose was not academic – rather, they were an exercise in asserting where the presidential boot should be administered, “so I know whose ass to kick”.
I don’t actually have a quarrel with the above statement, which is at worst blunt — but it’s certainly not elevated and classy.
There was also the company Obama kept, both before and after the White House: the antisemitic, anti-white Farrakhan; endless America haters (Rev. Wright, Father Phleger, Bill Ayers, the Democrat caucus, etc.); genocidal Palestinian activists (the video of which the L.A. Times still hides); communists (Ayers, Raoul Castro); and thug rappers (the list is endless). Remind me again, please, how classy and tone-raising his associates were.
And of course, who can forget Obama’s classless, even grotesque, selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service:
Still, having complained about Obama’s ugly-American, ill-mannered thuggery, all of that mostly falls into the “whatever” category. In 21st century America, which is a mannerless, charmless, classless time, Obama’s behavior is to be expected. The only reason I took umbrage at the time and continue to mention it now is because the media arm of the Democrat party, since 2007, has relentlessly assured us that Obama was the classiest man ever to enter the White House. Worse, that same hypocritical chorus has now added to its ranks the social arbiters in the #NeverTrump crowd who faint and blush whenever Trump opens his mouth.
These #NeverTrumpers apparently want to hark back to the last classy president. That would be George W. Bush, who was always the gentleman. He was so gentlemanly that he had no spine whatever. He never took the “kick me” sign off his back. He just politely augmented it to add the word “please.”
Before I wrap this up, I want to go back to Trump’s lack of polish and his unwillingness to let any offense go unacknowledged. He is, in old-fashioned parlance, a brawler. Underneath that brawl and bluster, though, beats a kind heart and one, moreover, unaffected by the trappings of his office:
One of my favorite books ever is Anne L. Macdonald’s No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting
One of the things that stands out in the book is the way in which, beginning in the late 18th century, America’s trend setters (or wannabe trend setters) focused obsessively on Europe. The highest encomium for a 19th century knitting pattern was that it came “from Paris.” Or that it was “the latest in Europe.” Back in early America, for a people forging an entirely new culture, complete with cultural insecurity that entailed, tying things to the old country created an aura of style and sophistication.
What’s pathetic is that, more than two hundred years after America’s founding, socially insecure people still look to Europe to make themselves feel good. Never mind that, for most of the 20th century, America has been the world’s culture leader. Never mind that America has saved Europe from itself three times (at enormous cost in American blood and gold). Never mind that European countries, deprived of that gold with the Cold War’s end, and facing the specter of an aging population and unfunded socialism, are now in a headlong suicide race. To the socially insecure, Europe is still the standard by which they measure things.
Well, I say phooey to that! We’re America. We have American interests that involve putting our citizens (of all races, colors, creeds, etc.) ahead of the interests of countries hostile to us, whether in big ways or little, and whether economically or militarily. Let me hasten to add, because today’s gotcha culture demands that I do, that what I’m describing as “putting America first” does not mean Hitlerian world domination. It means good trade agreements. It means a strong military to deter threats. And it means strong borders.
Most of all, we have a strong and genuine American culture: bold, blustering, egalitarian, standing its ground, with a heart of gold wrapped in rough denim, rather than a heart of ice draped gracefully in silk and satin. And in Trump, the America-loving brawler, we have the quintessential American president. More power to him and long may he fight.
