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Thoughts On Peggy Noonan WSJ - Defuse America's Explosive Politics (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Joe Bryant
- Start date
Henry Ford
Footballguy
It also does not escape me that the right begins its call for deescalation by Democrats two weeks before the election while its constituents are killing people and its opposition has just put Citizen Strong into action.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
FOX hosts an anti-Semite spouting the EXACT conspiracy theory the Pittsburgh shooter acted on, less than 12 hours after he killed 11 people.
But no doubt it's important we work to understand him.
But no doubt it's important we work to understand him.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I really hope the Jewish community and really entire American community flood the sponsors of that show and network about this. It is one of the worst things I have ever seen on TV.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Trump: We must deescalate
18 minutes later:
https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1055871101505622016?s=21
(And oh by the way saying he wouldn’t tone it down, and that if anything he could tone it up)
Next day is today.
18 minutes later:
https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1055871101505622016?s=21
(And oh by the way saying he wouldn’t tone it down, and that if anything he could tone it up)
Next day is today.
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
He is not going to de-escalate. Even today when he read from a speech someone wrote from him. There was a part about about being civil and respectful- he ad-libbed there saying he would still speak his mind.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
It was nothing more than an election tactic. He followed it up with a statement on Twitter that the media is unfair to him and it’s all their fault.
Who else is calling for peace?
McConnell? Ryan? Anyone?
You use to be good nature and quite humorous. Since Trump you have become a bitter partisan.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
What is it you have an issue with? I’ve repeatedly stated that the left needs to lead on making politics less toxic. The right has only spoken out with statements that they walked back less that 20 minutes later. I asked this very board to just all of us be nicer and was told by a Trump supporter what a jerk I was for that and then by another that he simply wouldn’t do that. What is it I should be giving credit for? What is it I’m missing?
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Peggy Noonan has now called for Trump to resign.
******************
On Some Things, Americans Can Agree George Floyd’s killing was brutal. Good cops are needed. And Trump hurt himself badly this week.
George Floyd’s killing was brutal. Good cops are needed. And Trump hurt himself badly this week.
******************
There’s so much to say but my mind keeps going back to New Year’s Eve, when we watched the ball come down and knew the story of 2020 was the presidential election and whatever stray harassments history throws our way. No one that night guessed—no one could have guessed—that in the next few months we’d have a world-wide pandemic, an economic catastrophe and fighting in the streets. The point is not that life is surprise or history turns on a dime, it’s that we’ve been battered. We’ve been through a lot. And with economic and cultural indexes down, with the world turned darker and more predatory, we will go through more. We thought we’d be telling our grandchildren about the spring of 2020. Actually we’ll be telling them about the coming 10 years, and how we tried to turn everything around.
The painful irony of the protests and riots is that for a few days everyone was in agreement. We all saw the nine-minute tape. We saw the casual brutality as the dying man begged for mercy and the cop didn’t care. In the past there were arguments about similar incidents. Not this time. Most everyone concedes the problem—that black men are profiled and cannot feel safe in their own country. Walking while black, driving while black—Tim Scott of South Carolina has been stopped for trying to impersonate a U.S. senator, which is what he is. In an interview a few years ago he told me that seven times in his first six years in Washington he’d been pulled over for “driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood.”
Following the killing of George Floyd, America would totally accept protests and demonstrations, would understand expressions of anger and pain.
What Americans wouldn’t accept was looting, violence, arson. They wouldn’t accept that shopkeepers just out from lockdown were pulled from their stores and beaten. They won’t accept this because they will not accept more battery.
We’re now supposed to hate cops. No. Hate bad cops, help good ones. A great cop does as much to help society as a great doctor or nurse, and is in the line of fire. In New York, one officer was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver; another was stabbed in the neck; two were shot. One cop was shot in Las Vegas and four in St. Louis, where the police chief said someone randomly shot at a police line. Also in St. Louis a 77-year-old retired police captain, David Dorn, black, on the force 38 years, was shot and killed during the looting.
Cops witness the worst things in America. They answer the 911 call at 3:20 a.m. and see things so horrible they can’t tell anyone because if it gets around there will be imitators. They see the violent parents and the kids watching television, checked out at age 8. They see what meth does. They’re often poorly trained and have to get everything right, and they assume between the pols and public opinion no one really has their back except the unions that too often keep cities from weeding out bad cops so that good cops can thrive.
There is a phrase among medical professionals, “moral injury.” Health-care workers who are strung out, stretched to the breaking point, suffer from moral injury.
So do a lot of cops. A lot of black men, too. The thing for all of us now is to keep our moral poise and intellectual balance, try to be fair and make things better. Some cops failed to do that this week—unnecessary roughness, targeting journalists. Some really came through. Among them were the police who were face to face with demonstrators and took a knee. This has been criticized as obsequious, bowing to the mob. No, it is how we are saved, by showing love and sympathy. It happened from New York to Los Angeles. Yahoo News reported on what happened in Flint, Mich., when Sheriff Chris Swanson told protesters, “I took off the helmet and laid the batons down. Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.” Protesters cheered. In Fayetteville, N.C., there was a standoff between demonstrators and the police. The officers, some 60 of them, took a knee before marchers on Murchison Road. The department later said they wanted to show “understanding” for “the pain” many civilians are feeling. Witnesses said some officers and protesters had tears in their eyes.
To the extent things were contained this week, that’s how it happened.
That’s the big story, what happened in America.
As to the president, this week he altered his position in the political landscape. Something broke. He is no longer the force he was and no longer lucky. In some new and indelible way his essential nature was revealed.
It got out that faced with protests around the White House, he hid. Or perhaps let the Secret Service, which might have struggled with realistic threat assessment, talk him into going into the White House bunker. (Mr. Trump later said he was simply “inspecting” it.) He tweeted that he was protected by the “most vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.”
On Monday, he spoke in the Rose Garden. “I will fight to protect you,” he said. “I am your president of law and order.” This was unsubtle, and seemed more aimed at protecting his political prospects than your safety and property.
Then, upset that people might be getting the impression he was a physical coward, he set out to prove he is brave. Protected by a phalanx of police, Secret Service, sharpshooters and what looked like a Praetorian Guard with shields, he marched to St John’s, the church of the presidents. Aides said it was a Churchill moment. And it was just like Churchill during the blitz, if Churchill secretly loved rubble. Upon arrival with his friends, the people who work for him, he brandished a Bible like—who in history?—the devil?
In all this he gave up the game and explicitly patronized his own followers. It was as if he was saying: I’m going to show you how stupid I know you are. I’ll give you crude and gross imagery and you’ll love it because you’re crude and gross people.
And some would love it. But not all. Not most, I think.
He has maxed out his base. He’s got his 40% and will keep it, but it isn’t growing. His polls are down, he has historically high negatives. As for suburban women, they’d crawl over broken husbands to vote him out.
He is proud of his many billionaire friends and thinks they love him. They don’t. Their support is utterly transactional. They’re embarrassed by him. When they begin to think he won’t be re-elected they will turn, and it will be bloody and on a dime.
This will not end well. With his timing he’d know it. He should give an Oval Office address announcing he’s leaving: “America, you don’t deserve me.” Truer words have never been spoken in that old place. And he won’t be outshone by his successor. Network producers will listen to Mike Pence once and say, “Let’s do ‘Shark Week.’ ” But you know, America could use a shark week.
******************
******************
On Some Things, Americans Can Agree George Floyd’s killing was brutal. Good cops are needed. And Trump hurt himself badly this week.
George Floyd’s killing was brutal. Good cops are needed. And Trump hurt himself badly this week.
******************
There’s so much to say but my mind keeps going back to New Year’s Eve, when we watched the ball come down and knew the story of 2020 was the presidential election and whatever stray harassments history throws our way. No one that night guessed—no one could have guessed—that in the next few months we’d have a world-wide pandemic, an economic catastrophe and fighting in the streets. The point is not that life is surprise or history turns on a dime, it’s that we’ve been battered. We’ve been through a lot. And with economic and cultural indexes down, with the world turned darker and more predatory, we will go through more. We thought we’d be telling our grandchildren about the spring of 2020. Actually we’ll be telling them about the coming 10 years, and how we tried to turn everything around.
The painful irony of the protests and riots is that for a few days everyone was in agreement. We all saw the nine-minute tape. We saw the casual brutality as the dying man begged for mercy and the cop didn’t care. In the past there were arguments about similar incidents. Not this time. Most everyone concedes the problem—that black men are profiled and cannot feel safe in their own country. Walking while black, driving while black—Tim Scott of South Carolina has been stopped for trying to impersonate a U.S. senator, which is what he is. In an interview a few years ago he told me that seven times in his first six years in Washington he’d been pulled over for “driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood.”
Following the killing of George Floyd, America would totally accept protests and demonstrations, would understand expressions of anger and pain.
What Americans wouldn’t accept was looting, violence, arson. They wouldn’t accept that shopkeepers just out from lockdown were pulled from their stores and beaten. They won’t accept this because they will not accept more battery.
We’re now supposed to hate cops. No. Hate bad cops, help good ones. A great cop does as much to help society as a great doctor or nurse, and is in the line of fire. In New York, one officer was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver; another was stabbed in the neck; two were shot. One cop was shot in Las Vegas and four in St. Louis, where the police chief said someone randomly shot at a police line. Also in St. Louis a 77-year-old retired police captain, David Dorn, black, on the force 38 years, was shot and killed during the looting.
Cops witness the worst things in America. They answer the 911 call at 3:20 a.m. and see things so horrible they can’t tell anyone because if it gets around there will be imitators. They see the violent parents and the kids watching television, checked out at age 8. They see what meth does. They’re often poorly trained and have to get everything right, and they assume between the pols and public opinion no one really has their back except the unions that too often keep cities from weeding out bad cops so that good cops can thrive.
There is a phrase among medical professionals, “moral injury.” Health-care workers who are strung out, stretched to the breaking point, suffer from moral injury.
So do a lot of cops. A lot of black men, too. The thing for all of us now is to keep our moral poise and intellectual balance, try to be fair and make things better. Some cops failed to do that this week—unnecessary roughness, targeting journalists. Some really came through. Among them were the police who were face to face with demonstrators and took a knee. This has been criticized as obsequious, bowing to the mob. No, it is how we are saved, by showing love and sympathy. It happened from New York to Los Angeles. Yahoo News reported on what happened in Flint, Mich., when Sheriff Chris Swanson told protesters, “I took off the helmet and laid the batons down. Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.” Protesters cheered. In Fayetteville, N.C., there was a standoff between demonstrators and the police. The officers, some 60 of them, took a knee before marchers on Murchison Road. The department later said they wanted to show “understanding” for “the pain” many civilians are feeling. Witnesses said some officers and protesters had tears in their eyes.
To the extent things were contained this week, that’s how it happened.
That’s the big story, what happened in America.
As to the president, this week he altered his position in the political landscape. Something broke. He is no longer the force he was and no longer lucky. In some new and indelible way his essential nature was revealed.
It got out that faced with protests around the White House, he hid. Or perhaps let the Secret Service, which might have struggled with realistic threat assessment, talk him into going into the White House bunker. (Mr. Trump later said he was simply “inspecting” it.) He tweeted that he was protected by the “most vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.”
On Monday, he spoke in the Rose Garden. “I will fight to protect you,” he said. “I am your president of law and order.” This was unsubtle, and seemed more aimed at protecting his political prospects than your safety and property.
Then, upset that people might be getting the impression he was a physical coward, he set out to prove he is brave. Protected by a phalanx of police, Secret Service, sharpshooters and what looked like a Praetorian Guard with shields, he marched to St John’s, the church of the presidents. Aides said it was a Churchill moment. And it was just like Churchill during the blitz, if Churchill secretly loved rubble. Upon arrival with his friends, the people who work for him, he brandished a Bible like—who in history?—the devil?
In all this he gave up the game and explicitly patronized his own followers. It was as if he was saying: I’m going to show you how stupid I know you are. I’ll give you crude and gross imagery and you’ll love it because you’re crude and gross people.
And some would love it. But not all. Not most, I think.
He has maxed out his base. He’s got his 40% and will keep it, but it isn’t growing. His polls are down, he has historically high negatives. As for suburban women, they’d crawl over broken husbands to vote him out.
He is proud of his many billionaire friends and thinks they love him. They don’t. Their support is utterly transactional. They’re embarrassed by him. When they begin to think he won’t be re-elected they will turn, and it will be bloody and on a dime.
This will not end well. With his timing he’d know it. He should give an Oval Office address announcing he’s leaving: “America, you don’t deserve me.” Truer words have never been spoken in that old place. And he won’t be outshone by his successor. Network producers will listen to Mike Pence once and say, “Let’s do ‘Shark Week.’ ” But you know, America could use a shark week.
******************
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Encumbrance
Footballguy
Fatigued. By every bit of it.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
^^ Peggy Noonan, 2018 WSJ article.
I think the original takes on this article were wrong. It was very much about Trump. Noonan certainly seems to be suggesting Trump resigning would be the best thing for America now. Obviously not going to happen but there it is.
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I did not write or say what you're quoting me saying above. Must have been from an article I pasted.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
It was. Sorry Joe, I've clarified with a note above.
My point was how Noonan 's view from 2018 has moved to her calling for him to resign in the WSJ.
My only thought about your OP (not a criticism btw) was that the question - "Defuse America's Explosive Politics" - was posed as somehow not involving the President, while Noonan was saying that the President is incapable of leading, and I think in retrospect and seeing things now this issue of defusing American politics very much involves the President.
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The Commish
Footballguy
Just read this thread for the first time. In my view, the largest problem we have is fear. Fear of being "wrong". Fear of holding a belief others might not agree with. Fear of being in a minority view. I'm not exactly sure where in human nature we acquired such traits, but we did. Politics plays on that. The guy in the oval office takes it to an extreme we've never seen and even paints not taking it to that extreme as "weak". I've mentioned here the "might is right" philosophy and that's exactly what I see happening.
So how do we fix it? We need to recondition ourselves to be self aware enough to be ok with being wrong from time to time. We aren't failures if we're wrong and it's not a bad thing to be on an island when it comes to issues. It's not "weak" to ask for help and it's not a negative if we don't have all the answers. There was a time where our forums had good, honest discussions and disagreement. We would read each others words and take the time to understand what the other person was saying and then address actually what the other person was saying. Now? Person A says "hey, that ball is blue" and Person B says "I don't know why you think that truck is black, clearly it's green dummy" in response. A lot of times that's because agreeing that the ball is blue means that Person B has to admit something they believed was wrong. People will do whatever they can these days to avoid being wrong even if it means completely twisting the words of another in bad faith. Or they are trying to change the subject away from the original point to avoid having to focus on it. We have some pros in this arena. Watching them work is pretty amazing.
The mentality has to stop. It's filtered up to all aspects of our leadership and our current president is probably the best representation of "average American", in this regard that I have ever seen. He is a direct reflection and perfect example of the mentality I am speaking of.
So how do we fix it? We need to recondition ourselves to be self aware enough to be ok with being wrong from time to time. We aren't failures if we're wrong and it's not a bad thing to be on an island when it comes to issues. It's not "weak" to ask for help and it's not a negative if we don't have all the answers. There was a time where our forums had good, honest discussions and disagreement. We would read each others words and take the time to understand what the other person was saying and then address actually what the other person was saying. Now? Person A says "hey, that ball is blue" and Person B says "I don't know why you think that truck is black, clearly it's green dummy" in response. A lot of times that's because agreeing that the ball is blue means that Person B has to admit something they believed was wrong. People will do whatever they can these days to avoid being wrong even if it means completely twisting the words of another in bad faith. Or they are trying to change the subject away from the original point to avoid having to focus on it. We have some pros in this arena. Watching them work is pretty amazing.
The mentality has to stop. It's filtered up to all aspects of our leadership and our current president is probably the best representation of "average American", in this regard that I have ever seen. He is a direct reflection and perfect example of the mentality I am speaking of.
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