I & I Editorial BoardVirulent Trump-hater George Will penned a column in the wake of the Iran attacks titled “At last, the credibility of U.S. deterrence is being restored.”
Do you think Will turned a corner about President Donald Trump? Hardly.
If you want to know who restored the credibility of U.S. deterrence, Will isn’t saying. You’d think it fell out of the sky.
The most he will concede is that “Donald Trump’s administration has chosen not to wager U.S. safety on Iran’s abandoning its multi-decade pursuit of nuclear weapons, or on Iran’s acquiring them but not really meaning ‘Death to America.’”
Wait. Trump’s “administration” made that choice? To whom in the administration is Will referring, if not Trump himself? The secretary of Agriculture? The EPA administrator? The guy managing the nation’s helium reserve?
Despite admitting that Trump has engineered a profound reversal in the U.S. standing in the world, George Will is sure to go right back to writing about how dangerous and incompetent he and his administration officials are. He will have plenty of company, to be sure.
In Trump’s first term – despite facing a weaponized Justice Department and fending off impeachments – he cut taxes, did more to deregulate the economy than any predecessor, spurred domestic energy production, and appointed solid conservatives to the bench (who then overturned the horrible Roe v. Wade decision).
All had been on conservative wish lists for eons.
Trump is checking off conservative wish list items even faster in his second term – cutting funding to public broadcasting, draining the DEI swamp, setting the course to sunset the Education Department, and now, even as George Will admits, restoring the credibility of U.S. deterrence.
No matter.
Never Trumpers take the wins, then go on telling themselves, and anyone who will listen, that we’d have been better off had Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris been in the White House.
Full disclosure. Back in 2016, when we were on Investor’s Business Daily’s (since disbanded) editorial board, we didn’t like Donald Trump. Of the 17 Republican candidates, he was one of our least favorites.
Not because Trump lacked sophistication or political experience, but because he seemed to be one of the least reliably conservative of the bunch. Decades of experience had taught us that even solidly conservative politicians tend to “grow” in office – meaning they become more accepted by the Uniparty establishment.
As Trump’s first term unfolded, however, we marveled that he seemed to grow more conservative by the day. On his last day in office, we wrote about “Trump’s Top-10 Triumphs: A Last Look At A Remarkable Presidency.”
Do we like everything Trump did then or is doing now? Of course not. Back in the day, we didn’t like everything Ronald Reagan did, or the Bushes, either. Trump’s chaotic tariff campaign has been economically damaging. His inexplicable unwillingness or inability to sell his achievements to everyday Americans puts the midterms in danger. His lack of hawkishness on spending cuts leaves the country on the wrong fiscal road.
But, as the saying goes, those who constantly point the finger of calumny at Trump point three fingers back at themselves.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Paul F. Petrick
“But, as the saying goes, those who constantly point the finger of calumny at Trump point three fingers back at themselves.”
Does this apply to you too?
The columnist says that the tariffs hurt the economy. I don’t understand how? I wish you would have explained that point. First, the tariffs in my opinion didn’t hurt the economy. Inflation went down; GDP went up.
Secondly, without the tariffs I believe a really big problem (supply chains and America never regaining it’s manufacturing base) would have continued to emerge-and its continual emergence in this world of evil countries and evil leaders vigorously endangered America.
To me this is self-evident.
I (like the I&I columnist) am not too crazy about the debt either. However, like I suggested, the GDP is growing and I believe this is the way Pres. Trump wants to fight off our debt.
He wants to grow out of it. I believe it’s a good plan-as the economy grows more tax revenues will come in because both more of those employed and more companies will be paying more taxes. Also, the tariff money coming in shouldn’t be ignored.
It’s unfortunate he has to spend money (for instance on the military and defense) not because of him but because of his lackluster predecessors.
Additionally, he is the only President in my memory who not only talks of dealing with fraud but is actually addressing it- and punishing its perpetrators.. Finally!
I’m pointing, in particular, at you Obama and Biden. Biden can perhaps be forgiven since he was dementia ridden (as were those who voted for him). Obama also had a handicap (which he forwarded to us): His political instincts came from Chicago as did he.
So he either didn’t see any fraud or he thought the fraud and waste that he did see was normal and should be normalized. Also, in my opinion, Obama wasn’t too rectitudinous in the first place. He nearly succeeded in making America into Chicago. It was Trump who put a damper on that.
It is ironic that the very same man-President Trump-who was touted as the new Mephistopheles by the legacy media and all the gremlins in the podcast world, is the very same man who seems to be rooting out all this “waste and fraud.”
Both Biden and Obama ignored and blinked at our growing problems of inadequate defense and growing crime and doubled down on their poor judgments as far as honesty, integrity and competence are concerned.
Additionally, to fete Donald J Trump, he is the only person in my life-time, who didn’t run as a conservative-but governs conservatively.
He uses “common sense” as a metaphor for conservatism. And I’ll tell you: That’s good enough for me!
Trump’s inability to “sell his achievements to everyday Americans” puts the midterms in danger… With all due respect, I believe your assessment is not accurate. The midterms are never about achievements. Midterms are about voters’ complacency where the voters who put the party in power don’t give a damn about the House races. The opposing party basically always wins. Not to mention the 85+% negativne media coverage of the Trump administration. So, no matter what Trump says or does, he won’t be able to change the outcome.
George Will is old school Republican – pro Wall Street and “free trade.” He doesn’t recognize, or is too old to see, that the Democratic/Wall Street/free trade alliance’s goal of weakening America for their own profit is just stupidity in an era of trillion dollar trade deficits.
what are you talking about
never trumpers took over trump’s administration this time. Good lord. literally trump became everything he railed against. You don’t get to gaslight us and lie.. We all have eyes and most of us can read. Trump is the rino now. is this another Isreali first site.??
This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
No, “Never-Trumpers [Will Never] Ever Admit They Were Wrong”.
Since the bust of 2008, the US middle class has started to realize that free trade isn’t really free (at least for the middle class), cheap overseas labor isn’t really cheap in the long run, and that a debt driven economy (both nationally and personally) isn’t our friend, despite corporate and political class assurances to the contrary. The fact that these realizations were successfully articulated by someone who didn’t dress right, had weird hair, and used the vocabulary of someone who has had a few too many beers, was deeply offensive on an aesthetic level to people like George Will. You have to wonder if these same truths had been articulated by someone with the style of William F Buckley, would they be on board?
George Will is an intellectual schmuck.
calumny
Faithful Catholics have sat in the pews for 50 years listening to priests and bishops telling us that abortion is the most important issue in America. Then Trump gets Roe v Wade overturned, and we never hear a word of praise or thanksgiving. Compare that to all the lectures we hear from Francis and Leo scolding USA for wanting to control our borders and arrest criminals…
George Will is an atheist, who doesn’t care about protecting unborn human beings, nor does he care about any of the moral social ills destroying Western Civilization. When I realized this, many decades ago, long before Trump, it blew my mind. I had been reading Will for many years, in the age of newspapers. Then, when the evolution/creation debate heated up in the ‘80s, Will condemned creationists as uneducated morons who ignored science. Nothing was further from the truth. It was the science that was driving the resurgence of creationism, but Will had no sympathy — not even a nod to human rights being endowed by our creator. That was one of the first times I was disillusioned with someone who I thought was in step with the moral and philosophical foundations of America, but in fact was not. Most of his readers rightfully abandoned him, but by then, he had made his money and didn’t care. His conservatism was simply a means to an end, like many others (look’n at you Bill Kristol and National Review). When Will, et al, were forced to chose, they chose the left, and stabbed their loyal constituents in the back. I would say, rot in hell, George Will, but that’s already going to be a reality for Will. May God have mercy on you, George.
To the question posed in the headline of this article, here’s the answer: No