Why Trump Routed the D.C. Establishment, Again

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James Bovard
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After the media complained nonstop for months about Donald Trump offering a dark message on the presidential campaign trail, a New York Times headline bewailed his election victory on Wednesday morning: “America Hires a Strongman.” So anyone who cast a ballot became the moral equivalent of a mafia don hiring a hitman?

The Times news analysis lamented, “This was a conquering of the nation not by force but with a permission slip. Now, America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history.”

Well, at least never-before-seen by journalists whose knowledge of history does not extend back beyond Taylor Swift’s first best-selling album. The notion that Trump was a unique threat in American history entitled the media to ignore all the civil liberties abuses of the Biden-Harris administration. Coincidentally, that spared many reporters and editorial writers the difficulty of comprehending the policies which they tacitly endorsed.

The media betrayed freedom of speech—at least for Americans who do not have a journalism degree. Biden administration officials conducted potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history,” a federal judge concluded, and a federal appeals court condemned Team Biden for “suppressing millions of protected free-speech postings by American citizens”—mostly by conservatives and Republicans. But most of the media was the Sherlock Holmes’ “dog that didn’t bark” when federal agencies browbeat social media companies with endless demands to muzzle and blindfold average Americans. Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance raised the censorship issue during his debate with Gov. Tim Walz, but it got little or no traction beyond his spiels. Instead, censorship was championed by the media in recent years as part of a holy crusade against “misinformation” (i.e., facts that are damned inconvenient for the ruling class). Did progressives discover a hidden asterisk to the First Amendment that nullifies constitutional rights for anyone who jokes about covid vaccine mandates?

Because it was a self-evident truth that “Orange Man Bad,” most reporters and pundits exerted little or no effort to comprehend or expose Biden administration follies and frauds. Almost all the media campaign coverage ignored the risk of World War III thanks to the Biden-Harris escalation of the Ukraine-Russia war. Why was there no controversy about Biden providing F-16 jets to Ukraine—potentially enabling Ukraine to attack practically anywhere in Russia with US bombs? Or did the media believe they had a moral duty to blindly support Ukraine because its president—unlike Putin—supports transgender rights?

Journalists who retained jobs at top papers continue to be paid very well. On the Friday before the election, the feds released the worst jobs report since the covid lockdowns, confirming a net loss of private jobs. A few hours after that report hit the wires, a Washington Post headline chirped: “The economy is strong heading into Election Day. Will it matter?” The article’s subhead assured readers: “The last batch of economic numbers before the election are in, and they’re looking pretty good. So why aren’t voters feeling them?”

Presumably because voters were fools or liars and refused to admit how Washington is making their lives wonderful. Most pundits dismissed or disdained people who complained about how the 20+ percent inflation of the Biden era harmed their families. The average mortgage payment has almost doubled since Biden took office—pricing millions of Americans out of their first home—but that was apparently an illegitimate consideration on Election Day. As Mises Institute fellow Tom Woods noted, leftists “are now mocking people who are concerned about price inflation by using the expression ‘burger too expensive.’” I predicted in the New York Post in early 2022 that inflation would politically bankrupt Joe Biden and the Democrats and plenty of voters agreed on Tuesday.

The Harris campaign believed that perpetually championing the right to abortion would guarantee them more than enough votes from women. But it turned out that “women buy milk and eggs more often than they get abortions.”

That fact of life enraged many media commentators. As a female panelist on ABC’s The View asked other panelists on Wednesday morning: “Why do you think that uneducated white women voted against their reproductive health freedoms, and why do you think Latino men voted in favor of someone who says he will deport a majority of his community?” Perhaps that panelist wasn’t aware that most Latino men in this nation are American citizens.

Democratic Party poohbahs and their media allies could not have shown more contempt for the American people. Until his disastrous debate with Donald Trump in June, doddering President Biden was perennially defended as fit for another four years of ruling America. After Democratic Party bosses pushed Biden out the window, they pretended Vice President Harris was entitled to be the candidate even though she got zero votes in the primaries.

Party bosses presumed that her candidacy’s “coronation-by-Establishment” would assure victory thanks to Harris’s gender and race. And anyone who failed to fall in line could be denounced as sexist or racist. That explains why a senior Harris campaign official told MSNBC early on Election Day that “we are optimistic that we are literally about to turn the page… and install Vice President Harris as the next President of the United States.”

That “identity push button” failed thanks to Harris’s astounding incompetence in interviews. As a journalist, I have interviewed many government officials and politicians over the years and learned to watch for tell-tale signs. From her first media interviews after her designation as presidential candidate, Harris radiated fear except when she was exuding dread. She turned down a chance to be interviewed by Joe Rogan, whose exchange with Trump garnered more than 37 million views. Instead, she went on a vapid “Call Me Daddy” podcast run by a woman who usually talked about topics such as sex toys. A Slate columnist noted that she was “afraid that the host was going to ask Harris her favorite sex position.”

Harris turned down the chance to meet with Time Magazine reporters and editors to discuss her views on policy. She never held a press conference. She felt no obligation to explain why she reversed her positions on fracking and other issues. Instead, she acted entitled to the presidency simply because of who she was—or perhaps because of her resume. She offered voters the strangest policy trifecta in presidential campaign history: “joy,” “positive vibes,” and “Trump is Hitler.”

The 2024 election was a defeat for Kamala Harris and progressive authoritarianism. But it would be naïve to equate Trump’s victory with the triumph of liberty. Trump’s bizarre view of tariffs as an economic magic wand could be disastrous for America and the world. Trump does not appear to recognize that the soaring national debt is a ticking time bomb that could detonate beneath the economy. There is a broad strand of Washington conservatives who are championing paternalist economic interventions, making the Republican Party look like it is morphing into the old-time Tory Party of England. But, unlike the downtrodden commoners of nineteenth century England, average Americans have not been taught to stay in their place—which helps explain why Trump defeated Harris.

And that is the ultimate problem for zealots who believe lofty SAT scores give the Washington elite a divine right to run everyone else’s lives. PBS pundit Jonathan Capehart whined after midnight on election night that, because of Trump’s victory, “I can’t help but wonder if the American people have given up on democracy.” A better synopsis of Tuesday’s results came from columnist Bridget Phetasy: “I can sum it up. He’s not Hitler. I’m not racist. F**k you.”