I&I Editorial
‘Donald Trump poses an imminent threat, not just to another person but to all of humanity.”
That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week justifying an immediate impeachment trial of Trump, right?
Nope. That was from an article published in 2017 about a book by a group of psychiatrists who, having never met or talked to Trump, decreed that for the sake of the human race he had to be removed from office.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, in fact, he’s been described as an “imminent threat” to the future of the country.
Tom Steyer said in 2017 that “he really is an immediate danger to the health and safety of America.”
That same year, a New York Times op-ed argued that “The Past Week Proves That Trump Is Destroying Our Democracy.”
During the impeachment proceedings in 2019, California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff proposed that Trump was an “imminent threat to the integrity of our democracy” and had to be removed as soon as possible.
The ACLU asserted that “President Trump’s continuation in office poses a grave and imminent threat to civil liberties.”
Trump was also repeatedly described as someone who “has in many respects become a dictator” …
… who was setting the country “on the path to World War III” …
… whose policies “will increase terrorism” …
… and who was “making the same trade mistake that started the Great Depression.”
Even before he won the 2016 election, the Washington Post editorial board declared that “a President Trump could destroy the world economy.”
The doom and gloom went on, and on, and on. For four years.
Do we really need to remind readers what actually happened? That, internationally, it was a time of peace, with ISIS destroyed and terrorism all but forgotten? That the economy did better than anyone expected, and produced a middle-class boom? That Trump made a huge impact on the judiciary by appointing constitutional conservatives?
Oh, and that there were national elections, with Republicans losing control of the House in 2018, Trump losing in November 2020, and two Senate runoffs in Georgia in January, in which Republicans lost?
If Trump was as dangerous as his detractors constantly claimed, how could those events have possibly happened?
Now, to be clear, we are not excusing Trump’s personal behavior while in office, or the way he acted after the November elections. We are certainly not making excuses for the criminals who invaded the Capitol and caused one officer’s death.
In our view, Trump was often his own worst enemy. One example: When he could have provided inspiring leadership during the COVID crisis, he came across as petty and spiteful. And while he had legitimate reasons to wonder about the fairness and accuracy of the elections, he could have handled it all far differently and with greater decorum.
Nevertheless, the truth is that the horror stories peddled by the left and the mainstream press throughout Trump’s presidency were just that: horror stories. They were nothing more than an attempt to stop him from enacting his agenda. That’s it.
The horror stories were also meant to distract the nation from the fact that the left actually does want to do the things they kept accusing Trump of doing. They want to trample over the Constitution. They want to deny civil rights to those who aren’t “woke” enough. They dream of having dictatorial powers and want to create a one-party state in this country. They damaged civil society by claiming for four years that Trump stole the election. They, not Trump, were responsible for the death and destruction caused by riots throughout the summer. And they undermined Democracy by using the cover of COVID-19 to knowingly make election fraud easy.
Likewise, the current impeachment push isn’t about protecting the country from Trump, but is an effort to tarnish Republicans more broadly and silence conservative voices.
In a few days, Joe Biden will be president, Trump will be a private citizen, and the country will move on. Even if Trump were as bad as his enemies claimed, this remarkable peaceful transition of power will have once again taken place, showing the strength and resiliency of our nation and the brilliance of our Founders.
So, as the left used to say, it’s time to move on. The question we should be asking right now is whether the nation can survive four years of Biden and leftist Democrats’ policy agenda? That is the real threat we face.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
