When President Trump fired
James Comey as Director of the FBI, it was as if the whole world had
exploded. Not only was the firing
unexpected, but so was the extreme reaction from the Washington political
class.
Although both Democrats and
Republicans distrusted Comey, many of the former perceived this as an opportunity
to bash Trump. Before an hour was up,
the president was denounced as a tyrant and would-be dictator. His action plainly bespoke nothing less than
a reprise of the Watergate scandal.
The dismissal was literally compared
with Nixon’s Saturday night massacre and Trump was accused of being
Hitlerian. While he might have had a
legal right to sack the Director, this was depicted as a “constitutional
crisis.” It was clearly done to derail the
investigation into Trump’s connection with the Russians.
Despite a total lack of
evidence of collusion, Democratic politicians spoke as if this had been
proven. The national press corps, of
course, shared the hysteria. They too
spent days and weeks implying treason at every turn.
During the Obama
administration, reporters formed a Praetorian Guard to protect the
president. His misdeeds were covered up
and achievements exaggerated. For Trump,
however, they transformed into a firing squad.
Even the smallest misstep was magnified to epic proportions.
Any objective observer of
the daily White House press briefings had to be impressed with how critical
journalists became. These folks competed
with each other to nitpick every word uttered from the podium. The objective was clearly to find the
subtlest incongruity so that it could be labeled a nefarious contradiction and
cited as proof of the administration’s incompetence.
The question then arises as
to why this non-stop frenzy? Both the
Democratic operatives and mainstream reporters share a liberal perspective, but
why did they become so much more hostile.
Nixon was loathed, Reagan demeaned, and the Bushes mocked, but Trump is
treated as the devil incarnate.
The reason for this intense
hatred has been attributed to many things—most often the president’s own
failings. In a sense this is correct, yet
it is not his shortcomings that are to blame.
The real source of exasperation is his potential achievements.
After Reagan fired the Air
Traffic controllers, onlookers realized he was a man to be reckoned with. No one initially thought he would have the
courage to take such bold action. When
it turned out that he did, they suspected that he might make other audacious
decisions.
It is the same with
Trump. He too has shown unexpected daring. What might be next? Could he institute policies that eviscerated
the liberal hegemony? Given his
unpredictability, might he do things from which standard politicians would
shrink?
Consider the potential
damage to Hillary Clinton and her entourage.
As Sean Hannity has been suggesting, might not a new FBI Director reopen
investigations into their undoubtedly illegal activities? If so, might not a series of convictions rip
the heart out of the Democratic party?
But the implications of this
development are even more serious. If
the FBI or Department of Justice pry into former Nation Security Advisor Susan
Rice’s unmasking endeavors, or the earlier cover up of IRS bias against
conservative organizations, or the Benghazi affair might this not lead to the
doorstep of Obama himself.
The mind boggles as to what
could come of such probes. They might
make Watergate look like a child’s birthday party. The damage done to the liberal cause could be
so immense that it would take decades before its reputation recovered.
And so here we have the basis
for the political panic. If Trump goes
where liberals fear he might, their careers and ideological aspirations will be
in jeopardy. Instead of history marching
majestically toward their idealized future, it would be thrown off course.
And so we get a preemptive
strike. If Trump can be destroyed before
he destroys them, their world will be spared.
If his reputation can be so thoroughly discredited that none of this
initiatives come to fruition, their agenda will survive. In other words, the idea is to turn him into
a failure so that progressive fiascoes are not recognized for what they are.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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