Observations on Election, 2020 by Don Frost

            Finally, the longest presidential campaign in American history is over! Who would have thought, when it began in 2016, that it wouldn’t end until . . . when? Sometime in November, 2020? December, 2020? Surely not Jan. 20, 2021.

            Make no mistake: The campaign did not start in 2020. The press – that entity known as “the media” – declared war on Donald Trump before the Republican debates were over.

            Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: Trump was/is obnoxious. He’s arrogant; he has a cavalier attitude toward the truth; he is incapable of admitting fault; he cannot take criticism; he regards himself as virtually omnipotent; and he is as far from presidential material as is Kermit the Frog. He may not be a racist, but he certainly gave comfort to racists, and his history with women would have ended the political careers of any man except, perhaps, George Washington.

            Gary Hart’s run for president in 1988 was scuttled just because he was accused of having one extramarital affair with Donna Rice. Trump was accused by dozens of women of serious sexual abuse, including rape, and he was caught on tape boasting of grabbing women by the genitals. Yet American voters preferred him as president to Hillary Clinton, who unabashedly promised more Obamaism. Trump was nothing less than the repudiation of eight years of Obama. Yet “liberals” and others on the Left will maintain to their last breaths that Clinton lost because of James Comey, the Russians, sexism, the Electoral College, and “that basketful of deplorables.”

            Rejection of a president, or his designated successor, is a denunciation of that president. As it was true of Trump’s victory over Obamaism, it is true of Joe Biden’s victory over Trumpism. Therein lies the tragedy of this election. It is no exaggeration to say Obama paved the way for Trump. He made a President Trump possible. Likewise Trump paved the way for Joe Biden.

            Because of his personal and political faults American voters repeated what they did in 2016: Rejected everything the incumbent stood for and elected his antithesis, Biden. The ex-vice president now is poised to placate his base, Socialists who tack “Democratic” in front of that name as though there was a difference.

            Remember this, too: Those people who tore up cities across America, burning, looting, and rioting in the wake of the killing of George Floyd were not Trump’s people. If they voted at all, they voted for Biden. They are also an important part of Biden’s base and they, too, will demand to be appeased over the next four years. And Joe will yield to them. They represent votes.

            Four years ago Trump was chosen in the desperate hope he could reverse eight years of Obama’s transformation of America from the world’s “melting pot,” into a disparate conglomeration of warring tribes; all in the name of “diversity,” aka “divisive.”

            Under Obama we ceased to be Americans. He urged us to celebrate our differences, not our similarities, not united in our oneness as Americans. Instead we became Polish-Americans, Swedish-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, German-Americans, and on and on, each nationality coming first, taking precedence over “American.” “Diversity” has become an article of faith in America and its resultant divisiveness will deepen as Biden panders to each “tribe,” each voting bloc.

            It would be naïve to believe good old “Uncle Joe’s” Democratic Party is the party of Roosevelt, Kennedy, or even Johnson. In Congress we have Socialists masquerading as Democrats. In the Senate there’s Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as well as lesser lights. In the House we have The Squad, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, followed by Ilham Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, as well as lesser lights. Their admirers elected Biden and their bill will come due.

            Perhaps Trump’s greatest mistake as president was to ignore Mark Twain’s axiom: “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” What he meant, and what Trump failed to accept, was that no one can beat the disseminators of news for they have the power to strike back with more telling effect than any man, however lofty his position. Presidents are especially delicious targets for the Left-dominated press.

            That the media is solidly Left is beyond dispute. Its hatred of Trump is so profound Left-leaning journalists have cheerfully disregarded the most basic tenet of journalistic ethics: Reporters are never to editorialize in news columns; they are never to offer their opinions as fact; opinions belong on the editorial or op-ed pages, never insinuated into news stories.

            How often have you read news accounts or seen and heard news accounts on radio and television that included lines like this: President Trump said, “without evidence (proof),” Trump made the “unfounded (unsupported) accusation,” Trump made the “baseless claim,” Trump “falsely stated,” and Trump made the “misleading statement”?

            In the days of ethical journalism, if a newspaper reporter turned in a story that included the words, “The president said, without evidence . . .” his editor would have thrown it in his face and ordered, “Fix this! You are a reporter, not an editorial writer! And if you want to remain a reporter with a job you’ll never do it again! If there is no evidence to support what he said, you damn well better find someone to say so, anybody but you!”

            It would have been so simple to write, “President Trump said today that the vote count is tainted.” If the reporter wanted to get across that there was no evidence to support his charge, all he had to do was ask a Democrat – any Democrat – for comment. Nancy Pelosi would have been delighted to add, “he has no evidence to support his charge.”

            But ethical journalism is as dead as America’s dream of avoiding a Socialist future. What killed it was the acceptance, years ago, of “interpretive reporting” as a good thing. It frees reporters of the tedious chore of justifying or supporting their opinions.

            So Trump offended those “who buy ink by the barrel,” and now he and we must pay the price. To those who cheer journalism’s role in his defeat, it would be well to remember the words of Martin Niemoller.

            He was a Lutheran pastor in Germany and a vocal foe of Adolf Hitler. For this “crime” he spent the final seven years of Nazi rule in a concentration camp. After his liberation he wrote this:

            “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.

            “Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist.

            “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.

            “Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

            Those “liberals” who cheer Biden’s victory have not won; they lost, though they don’t know it. In the name of expediency they made a pact with the Devil when they countenanced biased reporting of Trump’s presidency; when they said, “If we have to suspend ethical reporting to get rid of Trump, so be it.” The day may come when the Devil turns on them and the media begins savaging someone or some policy they like. And there will be no one to speak out for them.