Donald Trump’s Boffo Speech to Congress
Politically and theatrically brilliant.
March 3, 2017
Bruce Thornton
Move over, Howard Stern. Donald Trump is the new “king of all media.” His address to Congress was politically and theatrically brilliant, confounding his media critics–– even the virulently Trumpophobic ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and the other usual suspects gave it
positive reviews––and exposing the sore-loser Democrats for the partisan hacks they are. You knew the Dems were in a panic when they scurried from the hall at the end of the speech so they could start spinning the journalists waiting outside.
We are witnessing a profound shift in presidential politics, but whether it will lead to significant reform of our soft-despotic state remains an open question.
After a campaign and first month in office filled with caustic tweets, petty squabbles, heated rhetoric, and seeming disarray, Trump spoke in the disciplined, lofty, aspirational, conciliatory tone we expect of presidents. But the Democrats mostly sat on their hands, even when Trump promised to create jobs and help curb the slaughter in blighted black neighborhoods, boons for the Democrats’ constituents. They did rouse themselves when, like Nero in the Colosseum, they gave the thumbs-down to Trump’s proposals to repeal and replace Obamacare, or destroy ISIS, or actually enforce federal immigration laws. Given how much Americans dislike the failing health-care entitlement behemoth, fear metastasizing jihadist terror outfits, and want illegal alien criminals deported and our borders secured, it was bad optics for Dems to churlishly remain seated, their scowls and silence implying to viewers that they value illegal alien murderers, an imploding Obamacare, and avoiding “Islamophobia” over the security and interests of American citizens.
The highlight, of course, came when Trump acknowledged the widow of slain Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, killed during a raid in Yemen. Questions about the raid have been raised by Owens’ father and the Dems, giving the hostile media another pretext for attacking Trump. But all the debate about the value or success of the raid has been eclipsed by the minute-and-a-half standing ovation given to Owens’ widow, who wept as she occasionally lifted her gaze upward and silently spoke to her lost husband. Critics are carping about “exploitation” and “political theater,” something they didn’t mind when Hillary exploited a grieving “Gold Star” couple at the Democrat convention. But their complaints won’t reach a fraction of the millions who witnessed that powerfully moving moment.
Whether Trump cynically planned this political event, or was expressing sincere emotions, or both, is a moot point. Modern politics has been theatrical since the televised Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, the 1964 anti-Goldwater “daisy” ad, and the Time-Life manufactured Kennedy “Camelot” myth. In fact, starting in ancient Athens and the debates in the Assembly, democratic public debate was recognized as a form of theater, conducted by speakers trained in the arts of duplicitous rhetoric by professional Sophists. Thucydides makes this point brilliantly when he has Cleon, the innovator in demagogic speechifying, scold the Athenians for treating debate as they do theatrical productions, and thus becoming “slaves to the pleasures of the ear.”
Given the shameless collusion of the media in creating Obama’s persona by ignoring unpleasant facts and manufacturing non-existent talents and virtues––like the saps in the 1979 comedy
Being There transforming the dimwitted Chance the Gardner into the statesman Chauncey Gardner––their criticisms of Trump’s manipulation of the media are hypocritical and self-serving. What really angers them is that Trump has skillfully exploit the new media to bypass the self-selected traditional media “gatekeepers” and “watchdogs” and address the people directly. Even better, he is a genius at manipulating the progressives’ press-agents by turning their hatred for him against themselves. His tweets and insulting soundbites are squirrels he lets loose for the media to chase while he pursues his policy aims. And then, of course, the progressive reporters and anchors, along with their Democrat handlers, react childishly with hyperbole and hysteria and fake news, once again proving to the American people how biased and untrustworthy they are.
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So one-and-a-half cheer for Trump’s speech. Enjoying the richly deserved agony of the Democrats may make us feel better, but it won’t solve our problems. Hard choices and sacrifices will be the cost of true reform.
Donald Trump’s Boffo Speech to Congress