Today's commendable edition of "Meet The Press" offered insightful perspectives from every guest and panelist. The down side is that while generous in their means to inform, alas it all falls to the wayside and no one listens because it all comes back to the only individual that matters in this entire conversation and that is Mr. Donald Trump.
The overriding question in discussion of the president is whether or not he lost his moral authority this week, and if so, can he regain it?
To quote The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan and The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson respectively, "No" and "no." Ms. Noonan explained that you can not lose something that you never had as a candidate nor as president. Mr. Robinson does not see how he regains it due to the lack of any kind of moral center, nor does Julius Krein, editor of the American Affairs blog, on whom there are more comments to come in a moment. "Disastrously amoral," is the phrase that Mr. Robinson used. But as fmr. Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) explained, Mr. Trump never understood the magnitude of what it meant to be president and Mr. Trump, by his words, seems to have decided that he will only be the president of red America, as Chuck Todd noted, which in and of itself is obviously problematic for the nation.
Mr. Trump, indeed, is not the calm in the center of the storm, as Peggy Noonan opined as how the president should conduct himself amidst such tragedies as Charlottesville, and once again its all about the president. One of things that people forget is that in order to be good president, let alone a great one, is to be able to show humility in the face of humanity, like Eugene Robinson noted about President Reagan's speech (that Peggy Noonan wrote) when the Challenger exploded. Mr. Trump has not shown himself to have this quality in the slightest, at least not publicly. This is further evidence that he could never regain or achieve a moral authority. But then again, according to editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes, the president is happy with the position he's taken.
The president called some of the protesters who opposed the removal of the General Lee statue "very fine people," and explained that they weren't all neo-Nazis, during his press conference this week. That's what he really thinks and by that fact all his credibility as a voice of reason and morality is lost, which again keeping sight of the larger fact that it does none of us any good. Despite agreeing with fmr. congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD) that the country has maintained its moral center, it's difficult to succeed as a country with a president not holding it as well.
Now, it's interesting Mr. Krein who once strongly supported Donald Trump and his ideas and who now is staunchly in opposition to the president, especially on a character basis, is getting so much attention. When asked by Chuck Todd if there was any way of getting him back into the fold, a flat 'no' was Mr. Krein's response. "They torched it," (no pun intended) he said. To that, one can only ask, "Where was your head to begin with?" From the first day of Mr. Trump's campaign when he ridiculously called out Mexicans as rapists, you knew where he stood on race. So when Mr. Krein says that Charlottesville was the last straw, I would reply that he's a day late and twenty dollars short.
More directly in terms of what to do about white supremacists and neo-Nazis, Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook explained that violence is necessary to rid the country of this scourge because its so vastly different from other forms violence. Conversely, Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center said that that was not the answer at all. He said that the most effective way to combat hate speech is with even more speech [in opposition]. It would be a mistake to see these two views on a sliding scale, the violence isn't the answer, but many times speech is not enough. So what to do?
Enter civil right leader, fmr. UN ambassador, fmr. mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young who could not bring himself to completely condemn white supremacists. (The magnanimous nature of this man is staggering, from which we could all learn.) Instead, he talked about the poverty of these people and how they should unjustly be happy with a black-lung job and not health care, for example. He explained that these people needed help as well. Wow.
Which brings us to this crazy notion... Mr. Trump has decimated his credibility as president with his own words, there is little doubt. However... There are still deeds. In the spirit of Mr. Young, the president could turn the health care debate on its head and decide on Medicare for all would be the way to go, giving millions of working poor health care. As implausible as it would be, it is only such as deed that would begin to scrub away the words.
Panel: Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Donna Edwards, fmr. Congresswoman (D-MD); Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; Stephen Hayes, The Weekly Standard
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