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Mar-a-Lago. Credit: Jonathan Becker/Contour by Getty Images
Perhaps Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous apopthegm is his brisk declaration that “there is no second act in American lives”. It’s a brilliant line, but if we take it at face value (and assume he’s talking about a two-act rather than a three- or five-act play) it’s not only off-beam; it ignores that the second acts of American lives are in most cases more fascinating than the first ones.
Think, for instance, of Nixon in his later years — hunched and diminished, shooting his resentful barbs at David Frost. Or of Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond, magnificent in her ruin and delusion: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Think of Cheeseburger Elvis — sweating in the semi-darkness of Graceland amid the fumes of cooking grease and fried bananas. Of Salinger in his haunted retirement. Of Howard Hughes, that once beautiful man, shuffling around a hotel room with tissue boxes on his feet. Or deutero-Brando drinking pint after pint of ice-cream.
And now think of that cruelly compelling new example: Donald Trump, festering and raging in what he once rejoiced to call the Winter White House, issuing sporadic, mad-sounding all-caps communiques and having them only seldom and patronisingly attended to. For those of us who think Oedipus at Colonus the best of the trilogy, secretly prefer Tennyson’s Ulysses (“by this still hearth, among these barren crags”) to Homer’s perky cyclops-botherer, and Milton’s Samson (“eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves”) to the one in his prime, the out-of-office Trump is the version to take real delight in. That delight, I should admit, is on the face of it an unkind one; but it’s an aesthetic preference, and aesthetics have only a glancing relationship to morality and none to kindness.
The narcissist in power is a compelling spectacle — but there’s no real light and shade to it. It’s one-note: a scream for attention, unfailingly answered in the affirmative. The narcissist from whom power has ebbed is an altogether richer and more complicated psychological study. The metaphor that comes to mind, for me, is that of the now Lord Lawson’s diet. In his pomp as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1980s, Nigel Lawson was a Falstaffian figure. But after leaving power he lost five stone in just a few months by eating a diet consisting almost entirely of cabbage soup. It was a wholly admirable achievement but it had a curious side-effect. All of him shrunk except his skin, which remained the same size. It draped around him, pachydermously, like a collapsed tent.
This is a physical image of Trump’s ego: it was inflated and distended by his tenure as one of the most important men in the world, but it was punctured by the 2020 election. His importance wheezed out of him and continues to do so, and the great vast balloon of his ego now hangs deflated in folds and swags. What is he to do with all that baggy drapery?
There’s a website, of course, setting out an abbreviated and distinctly partial history of his achievements in office; as well as offering the opportunity to request a personal greeting or a drop-in at your event. (Shades, here, of Nigel Farage offering to record you a video message saying happy birthday for sixty quid.)
And there are those communiques. Banned from the various social media platforms that gave him the attention he craved, he has taken to press-releasing his thoughts. They will, I hope, be archived in his Presidential Library. Did you catch the one he put out — because that’s what world statesmen are expected to do, and he still imagines himself one — wishing the world a Happy Easter? “Happy Easter to ALL,” read the statement issued to the press on his behalf, “including the Radical Left CRAZIES who rigged our Presidential Election, and want to destroy our Country!” A later, revised version read just: “Happy Easter!”
The thing that I suspect will have pierced him is that the initial, rancorous version was greeted not with outrage and front-page coverage so much as the odd wry little smirk. “Jesus couldn’t have said it any better,” was the response of a writer for the New York Times. The libs are no longer triggered, still less owned. Trump is in the process of sliding gently from the news pages back to the diary columns or the “And finally…” section.
And then there was his wonderfully bathetic intervention at the ceremony of a couple getting married at Mar-a-Lago. The ex-President somehow got hold of the mic and delivered a rambling address to the wedding party, like someone’s drunk uncle interrupting the toast at the wrong wedding in a Richard Curtis movie. Did he say a gracious few words to toast the young couple’s future happiness? Of course he didn’t. He spent several minutes, instead, blethering about how much of a mess Joe Biden was making of policy towards China and Iran, harping on immigration at the US border, complaining (again) that the election was stolen and asking: “Do you miss me yet?” Only finally, did he remember the event at hand, signing off cursorily: “I just wanted to say, it’s an honor to be here, it’s an honor to have you at Mar-a-Lago, you are a great and beautiful couple … have fun.”
The most poignant expression of his state of mind, I think, is his reported intention to start his own social media platform. Here is the grandest of all his remaining delusions. He believed — and with some justice, at the time — that Twitter essentially revolved around him. Indeed, to be fair, it did. It’s a sign of his disconnection from reality that he can’t recognise that that was by virtue of his office (and his uniquely bonkers way of communicating as the holder of that office), not of his person. Yet — in the enduring absence of approval from his stony-hearted neo-Nazi of a father — he desperately needs to believe that an entire information ecosystem would grow up around Donald Trump just because he’s such a magnetic private citizen. He is likely to be disappointed.
I’ve mentioned a handful of literary antecedents, but the one that really seems to fit is Pirandello’s Henry IV — whose protagonist has had a bump on the head and believes himself to be the Holy Roman Emperor. Everyone around him connives in the delusion — dressing his country villa as the Imperial Palace and pretending to be courtiers — for two decades. A Truman-Show coup while Trump was actually in office — bundling the poor maniac off into a replica of the Oval Office, letting him issue imaginary executive orders and feeding him imaginary news — seems to me to have been an opportunity missed.
Of course in this case, the protagonist really was, so to speak, the Holy Roman Emperor for a bit. But not any more. He can only say, with Shakespeare’s Andrew Aguecheek: “I was adored once too.”
questingvole 
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SubscribeWhat an asinine piece of arrogant smug and irrelevant drivel. Disappointed to see such sayings parroted in UnHerd
45 is still living rent-free in the writers head.
Great self analysis.
It’s always better to keep your mouth shut and not reveal how infantile and stupid you are to the world, but evidently that’s one of very many things that you don’t know.
Have you just graduated from kindergarten, Lynn. Well done. You’re full potty-trained now; explains the tone of misplaced self-confidence.
One day you may enter primary education, that’ll knock your sense of superiority a notch or two down.
You wokes are so thick that you’re not even funny anymore.
Yes its interesting how democrat supporting media is still so pleased with itself. There was even an article in Time magazine explaining how they ‘brought back democracy’ by using rather undemocratic ways. They don’t seem to realise that they no longer have a government if this can happen as Biden was definitely not a popular choice , so he is merely working for someone else .Still anyone is better than Trump to some people.
The mindset that allows you to use the g-word derogatorily is no different to those who use the n-word, the only exception being that it is socially safe to do so.
Oh, do run home, there’s a new episode of Peppa Pig on the telly.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with that reaction. I read it to the end and it turned out to be just another expression of the kind of deep, all consumming hatred and delusional belief in their own superiority ‘Liberals’ of a certain kind all exhibit in endless perpertuity. The utter obsession and bottomless loathing they have of a political opposites’ character beyond anything else, and the ever-present ad hominem that is the fundamental hallmark of these people, still baffles me.
Criticise someone belonging to the same tribe as the author and as sure a night follows day you’ll be subject to a deeply unpleasant ad hom. One that unmistakably conveys they think you are abjectedly stupid and they are far, far intellectually and morally superior. And that they hold you in nothing but total contempt. They can do all this just in one very short sentence. And it’s inevitable you’ll be subject to it.
This whole article is just one long extension of that single trait. The ad hom attack laced with the spiteful, infantile contempt and the customary unshakeable conviction in their own intellectual and moral superiority.
The man became a billionaire, has a property empire most human beings will never get to accomplish themselves despite how many would like to be in a position like that, became the president of the greatest, most powerful country ever. But to listen to the likes of Leith, you’d think their accomplishments and their intelligence far dwarf that of Trump, and Trump is the saddest, most inept man to ever live.
He’s a man with supreme self-confidence, self-esteem and work ethic most people can only dream of having, he’s reached the very highest level it’s possible for people to achieve in life, and he’s the most honest and forthright leader the anglosphere has ever seen.
Yes, he has many flaws, but the constant memes, the big balloon sactioned by Khan, endless articles expressing nothing but malice, and all the other lampooning go way beyond humour with the ‘Liberal’ left; they literally mean all of that with the deepest of conviction, and it shows the deep, sinister hatred that lies at the heart of their politics.
@John Gleason
A beautiful, succinct and elegantly written response to Sam Leith who laughably wrote the self congratulating “Write To The Point: How To Be Clear, Correct and Persuasive on the Page, Demonstrating, Invective and Hatred In Every Paragraph. It is because of people like this that Trump was so popular and became POTUS in the first place.
Thank you for saying so Ron. They really are indistinguishable from narcissists on most fronts. Reminds me of the title of James O’Brien’s book, How to be right in a world gone mad, the stupid, pompou, delusional t*t. A man who has the ever-present, harried, hound-dog countenance of someone suffering a mental breakdown, apparently because he’s so painfully intelligent that dealing with all the thick people that don’t think identically to him on his radioshow it too much of a burden for him. They are besotted with themelves, quite literally.
Seeing them fumble around in the shocked post-mortem following Brexit to try to find reasons why and how the majority could think differently to them (and reject their carefully orchetrated brainwashing) was one of the most disturbing and unnerving things I’ve ever seen. As before that I had no idea how much the rot had really set it.
It has always staggered me anyway, how genuinely incapable they are of simply listening to the reasons and arguments of opponents and then being able to accurately and faithfully comprehend them and relay them back so you know they understand the points and the arguments and haven’t just totally butchered them, either deliberately or unwittingly, a usual.
But with Brexit all the masks came off, and their kind are in nearly every top position on any political show on TV. They still never grasped why it happened in the majority of cases. As that would take looking at themelves and admitting their many faults, and that just won’t happen. We’ll have decades of them reporting every bad instance that arises out of us leaving, and ignoring the good. And it’s the same with Trump.
I’ve just recently had a nightmare experience with a covert narcissist. They did something so ludicrously out of order a normal person wouldn’t even think of it, and would be ashamed if caught. When I called them they attacked me relentlessly and did not once show any remorse or culpability of any-wrong doing. I can’t think of even out of the hundred of Leith’s type I’ve encountered over the years who were any different from a genuine narcissist in that regard.
And was actually reelected by a great margin.
yes! we all know it. Thanks to the transparency under Trump the Genie will never go back in the bottle. America needs to grow up.
Are you serious? (That is a serious question as I am not in the US)
Sadly in the case of Mr Leith, both Eton and Oxford have much to answer for.
However given the nonsense brewing at Oriel about the statue to the splendid Cecil Rhodes, together with the summary dismissal of a member of Eton’s teaching staff for challenging the Gynarchy, one can hardly be surprised.
This is the greatest tragedy of all. This ideology is simply the most absurd secular ideology this country has ever seen. To see these contant weasal word ”we’re dedicated to celebrating and championing diversity” statements anytime some unhinged, demented, idiotic group of white-hating, shit-stirring mongs scream about their phantom oppression is just so cowardly, or at best good hearted-people trying to do the right thing and taking certain people at face value and just getting manipulated to no end in return.
I think I’d faint if an esteemed Uni finally stood their ground instead of bowing in completely cowed submission, stating something honest and truthful like; ”Our inititution has been producing the most pedigreed and accomplished thinkers throughout our history who have immeasurably shaped the world we live in today for the better. Freedom of speech, empiricism, free and diverse intellectual enquiry, spirited debate, evidence-based arguments, and intellectual honesty are among the principles we hold in the highest regard.
We remain dedicated to upholding those values in the face of the incessant attacks on all we hold dear through the relentless calls to replace those virtues with a regressive, anti-intellectual group-think; authoritarian, totalitarian dogmas; anti-white, anti-British resentment stoked by divisive identity politics; baseless allegations of oppression and systematic racism; infantalistic cancel culture, gratuitous violence, intimidation and aggression; social media bullying, abuse and witchhunts. To name just a few of the many threats we stand against. We hope other Universities will stand with us in upholding these values”.
Any sane, decent person is desperate for someone to grow a pair and come out and say, bollocks to this shit, we’ve had enough. We’re getting back to educating our youth, not indoctrinating them into gormless, genuinely mental far-left fucktard ideology to within an inch of their sanity. Just to appease some shameless racist loudmouth with serious issues who sees all white people as the first generation offpring of the most barbaric slave traders, and happened to make enough noise on social media to get invited on to GMTV to make some ludicrouly and completely imagined allegations of institutional racism, that force people to issue virtue-signalling, jargon-laden, vacuous drivel because they’d be in a world of shit if they don’t.
So much wrong with that. He didn’t ‘became billionaire’ because he is good. He’d have more money if he left his inheritance in the ‘S&P 500’ tracker. He’s leveraged to the hilt and used presidency to enrich himself and family. All of a sudden Qatar underwrites the insane mortgage on the 666?
‘Work ethic’? Displayed by the fantasizing the fvck his own daughter or to play more golf? Only president in living memory not to publish his tax returns.
Seems that you’ve been drinking too much of a Trumpanzee-aid.
here here!
w ell said.
On the contrary. Despite your string of insults and upvotes from Trump victims, this is an excellent and well-written piece.
Move to France then, idiot.
You all act like he’s a cult leader. Non-liberals respect the fact that he drives Libs up the wall and doesn’t tolerate their insane shenanigans for a second. Tragically too rare. We know he’s a brash arsehole. The only difference between him and the rest is he doesn’t try to hide it. And we know the people he is being an arsehole towards are even bigger ones.
Will I ever see one of these ‘progressives’ show any sign that they they can honestly comprehend why other people think differently and aren’t defective for doing so?
Or are we stuck with these dogmatic, unreasonable, irrational, overly-emotive, intolerant ideologues and their childish demonisation and ridiculous strawmen permanently?
So much stupid in that post. That’s fake narative that you are fed. He doesn’t drive anyone ‘up the wall’.
People either laugh at covfefe or despise someone mocking disabled people or fantasizing about fvcking his own daughter. That’s what normal people do. Trumpanzees, on the other hand, are simple minded cultist, easily manipulated third-rate underclass, admiring trumpy’s new clothes.
Still, fun to watch.
You’re attacking a caricature that’s been fed to you by the education and media industry. You need to question any narrative that makes you feel safe hurling insults against people you’ve never met.
FYI the third-rate underclass you speak of is the braindamaged woke mob looting, burning and destroying anything they come across, while barking and screeching their bleeek liice muudder nyeee-nyaaa-nyeee-nyaaa battlecry into their Walmart-issue loudspeakers. They don’t tend to vote Trump, lest you haven’t noticed.
He drives you all crazy. I enjoyed it at first, but there’s something extra unpleasant about ‘progressives’ when they get wound up. It’s not the normal anger or irritation. It’s akin to watching a grown adult’s bottom lip wobble, stamping their feet, talking in giberrish, screaming and shouting and having the most cringe-worthy, emotionally unstable melt-down and EVERYONE has to be subjected to it. They can’t just keep it to themselves.
So here you are, so not ‘driven up the wall’, going around trolling and abusing people, all het up and irate. Acting as if it’s your job to get them to ‘see the light’ and see what an evil person he is.
It’s not a normal level of anger whatsoever. It never is with ‘progressives’. Yes, from your perspective, things seem right.
But what make me sick to the stomach is the idiocy in people who can’t comprehend there exists an endless amount of perspectives to view things from, and it’s ok to have them. They are the most cognitively stunted people around as this basic point alludes them.
Well said. I don’t understand why Americans on the opposite sides politically hat each other so much; you are disagreeing over opinions and had a vote! If the election was rigged that’s the fault of your electoral system.
Why do you feel that those whose opinion differs from yours are not entitled to an opinion. Your rants say more about you than the people you seem to despise.
cheers!
Exactly Joe.
Equally disappointed to learn that Sam Leith is literary editor of The Spectator. I regarded the Speccy as the one single relatively sane broadsheet of the land.
yes i could barely read. ironically the writer trying to be clever about a man who’s had more successful “acts” then most can count. Not selling Trump out just yet or ever. I was never a fan but now a strong advocate; action speaks volumes and Trump still holds the people’s attention. with the best economy, retraction of wars, promises kept, energy independence and not so pretty transparency, no one realized the ugliness (nice word) of the DC Swamp. can’t un-see that.
Remarkable, that he came and improved so many things by applying a businessman’s pragmatic eye, and yet because he wasn’t politically correct or portrayed the ‘right’ image, and also didn’t share their insane views that all immigrants and Muslims are perfect human being who just happen to be victim of the right-wing’s Nazi-like xenophobia, then they genuinely portrayed him as a Hitler-lever evil dictator.
Urgh, I just get so angry and lost for words sometimes that these people, with their child’s outlook on the world, are so widepread and over-represented in so many positions of influence and power. So cogntively stunted, immature, inept, and tupid.
Trump’s flaws are clear to everyone. He wan’t the most pleasant or likeable, but he really did show up the utter uselessness and bullshit of the establishment.
Imagine how much better he would have done without having to contend with the Left doing everything they could out of spite to thwart him. Not work with him and add helpful suggestions and new perpectives, but just outright make a massive, over-the-top furore about eveything he did.
WOW.
This article reminded me of Mark Twain’s book ‘A New York Yankee at King Arthur’s Court’, a perfect match but wordier, to the scene where a Knight has captured the Yankee and has taken him before the court to declare his great deed.
” This Monstrous, Giant, this Horrible Fiend was working his evil magic in the swamp where I captured him by magnificent deeds of sword and shield, and bring him to you for justice”. (the Yankee being a middle aged, medium sized guy in his street clothes, the knight in full armor with sword.) (paraphrased)
And King and all his Knights and the assembled women and servants thought nothing odd at all about this total dis-connect between reality and the image described, as this was just how they were back then in the Dark Ages where magic and sorcery meant nothing had to be as it appeared.
And so your prolonged mocking and twisting the reality of Trump, and all the Liberals reading it will nod their heads in agreement even though the description and situation of Trump by the writer could not be any more made up and false. This is just how Liberal writer and Liberal reader are in the 2020s, they live in an alternate reality of their own making.
Sanford, you echoed my sentiments perfectly.
Deflection and Delusion rule.
Wrong state. It’s Connecticut, one along to the east.
This article is basically the wet dream of the Left. A neutered Trump fulminating and ignored at Mar-a-Lago.
There is much truth to this view. We hear little of Trump these days, but that’s because he has been censored and cancelled by most major news outlets and social media platforms. The story here is not the defenestration of Trump, but the censorship of free speech (yet again).
I would also suggest that the author of this article misunderstands a key aspect of the narcissistic personality (and Trump, whatever good he might have done, is surely a narcissist). The author writes:
“This is a physical image of Trump’s ego: it was inflated and distended by his tenure as one of the most important men in the world, but it was punctured by the 2020 election. His importance wheezed out of him and continues to do so, and the great vast balloon of his ego now hangs deflated in folds and swags.”
But the one thing a narcissist will never do is allow his ego to deflate. He will keep it inflated by every conceivable strategy, even if that means retreating to a fantasy world at his private resort.
A recent Unherd article includes the biblical quotation “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” Before the literary editor of The Spectator, or other cultural glitterati, clamber onto their soapbox to denigrate Trump, maybe they should consider the circumstances that made his presidency possible and why we might need such an obviously flawed man.
The fact it was pure election chicanery which gave the Presidency to the dottering Biden is over looked by the writer.
Well, if he didn’t overlook it, he’d be cancelled. The guy’s gotta eat.
Such chicanery as could be detected — as overlooked by you — was committed largely by Republicans. I know, facts don’t matter in Trump World.
P.S. I think you mean ‘doddering’ but that’s OK, it evidently doesn’t apply to the overperforming current president.
“Such chicanery as could be detected — as overlooked by you — was committed largely by Republicans”
So you haven’t seen any US news since Jan?
“the overperforming current president.”
Even most Democrats don’t think that so you are clearly a troll.
this comment did not age well.
To get along in today’s world, it is vital, if you are not a narcist, to copy some of their behavior and use it where necessary, because this is the age of narcism. So stay ahead, or get pushed away, because almost everyone else is busy in their own interests only.
Correct, perhaps Mr Leith could ask why sleepy Joe still hasn’t got possession of the nuclear codes, or why he isn’t allowed to step foot in the Pentagon. Who’s the Commander-in-Chief these days Sam?…..just a question…
Pentagon? He couldn’t remember its name a week or two back. God help us all.
You could have saved us all a lot of time by just writing “orange man bad”.
Ah, the magic of the simple sentence!!! Bravo!
It’s always entertaining how you can always recognize snowflakes by getting offended on behalf of the Dear Leader. So much council.
You sound offended,buck up little man
You shouldn’t be using words that you don’t understand. Saying that you seem rather illiterate.
P.S. I’m not ‘offended by your illiteracy.
Not a burn,not even a wet fuse. pfffftt.
Where there is no sense there is no feeling. It’s ok.
Oh looky, it’s one of the pussyhat people! They are real!! Someone call the Wildlife Trust, quick!
Oh looky, it’s one of the pu$syhat people! They are real!! Someone call the Wildlife Trust, quick!
Break free from the hatred. It’s destroying you.
You may call me a coldhearted monster, but i quite strongly endorse anything what could be destroying Joe Lynn and those of his(her?*) likeness.
(Something about the asinine syntax suggests that it may be a ‘she‘. Or a devastatingly effeminate ‘he‘, too many of those these days.)
LOL.People are calling you dimwit. If you listen carefully you can hear gammon falling over his zimmer frame. ‘Looky’ ; still funny.
Speaking of current – you have any idea when “gammon” was last time current? Circa early 2017, that’s when. Keep up, yank.
‘Looky’ on the other hand is an established neologism, originating from “looky-looky men“, a term commonly used for the legion of sub$aharan individuals pestering tourists and natives alike in Mediterranean towns & beaches, peddling their counterfeit sunglasses, acrylic socks, lighters and other such rubbish.
Hope this helps.
Looky trying to be current, ha ha. Like Jim said to Huck looky here who ‘uz it dat was killed in dat shanty?
Lol.
“And then there was his wonderfully bathetic intervention at the ceremony of a couple getting married at Mar-a-Lago”
A pathetic, shambling Trump stumbles in to a random wedding reception, grabs the microphone, goes on an incoherent rant and then disappears in to the night.
Now let’s have the facts.
It was the wedding reception of Nicole Perosi and PJ Mongelli, two Italian Amercans from Staten Island, and passionate Trump supporters.
Nicole had sent four wedding invitations to Trump. The wedding reception was decked out with “Trump 2020” and “Make America Great Again” placards.
Earlier in the day Trump had visited the bride and groom while they were getting ready, shook hands, and bantered with the obviously overjoyed couple. The couple asked Trump if he could spare them a few minutes later on for “something beautifully planned for you”.
Trump kindly did come back later and, according to an actual transcript rather than the, snipped clips on the internet began by saying lots of nice things about the couple and the attendees. With a crowd of his supporters cheering and praising him, Trump went off for a couple of minutes on the awful policies of the Biden administration.
The Author no doubt considers himself a good and righteous truth teller. Perhaps he went no further then reading the article in Vanity Fair that he references rather then doing the 20 minutes research on the internet that I did. Biased Leftists referencing other biased Leftist sources is unfortunately tolerated by Unherd.
Below are two videos. One is of the event and Trump’s interaction with the couple, and the other a radio interview with the couple talking about what actually happened. People can make up their own minds about how honesty the Author characterised the event and how much he troubling himself with even the most basic journalistic research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBTujtu_qk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtLc68LxSmg
I am confused. Didn’t this wedding take place over a year ago, long, and before Biden was elected…
so Trump, as sitting President, was a kind of maitre d, at his own hotel.
Trump has coasted into a number of weddings at his Florida club. No doubt, if you’re getting married at Mar-a-lago most likely you’d more than welcome a visit by President Trump.
I’m not sure Trump is as done and dusted as many desperately try to believe,about one half of America is expectantly awaiting his return.
Even if Trump has lapsed in the 4 years he can be strapped back into his saddle, like Charleston Heston in El Cid, and lead his followers in a magnificent charge on the weak and craven Ibn Biden mob and scatter them to the wind, (if they cannot do their illegal postal vote harvesting again).
(to reply in the style of this writer)
To reply in the style of this writer, you’d have to use at least ten words that practically nobody has heard of, followed by a seventy-word sentence quoting an obscure letter by Proust.
More than the odd million I’d wager, and come the end of this term maybe a few million more the way Biden or rather his puppet masters are going to take the country.
…and with good reason.
Has Unheard been taken over recently by freshly indoctrinated university graduates recently or what?
Pull your head back in to your burrow.
Hey Joe, what happened to Leonardi? What happened in Frankfurt Germany on the night of election? Where is Gina Haspel? What’s that wound she has?
It would be refreshing to see a piece that represents the views of many of the largest section of people -the disgruntled middle. That Trump, unpleasant and gratuitously nasty as he is, represented someone who could actually bring the necessary change needed to the US and to the power play in the world.
The unfortunate fact is that you will never see that view represented in the MSM or the legacy media. And, given those who seem constantly to write for it, I’m afraid we now have to class UnHerd as ‘legacy media’.
Your only hope is YouTube and alt media. Interestingly, in that regard, Freddie Sayers has recently interviewed Tim Pool and Dave Rubin. Here in in the UK the outstanding example is Alex Belfield, Voice of Reason. If you watch these people, the algorithms will bring you to similar voices. And check out Jimmy Dore. He is very left wing but genuinely so, like Paul Embery.
Another option, in a certain way, is the football watch-alongs with people like Mark Goldbridge and AFTV. Even if you’re not bothered about the football you get the voice of nice, intelligent (well, in some cases) real people.
I watched Freddie’s interview with Rubin… enjoyed it greatly. Will check out the others.
Tucker Carlson perhaps too and of course Mark Steyn. As for Trump being accused of being a “narcissist” as he often is, the terms seems more apt in regard to Barack Obama who has published three books entirely devoted to himself.
true enough. however unfortunate Youtube (facebook owned) is banning all and any video content that they personally disagree with. Not based in fact but in Facebooks narrative. So what we have now @ youtube is only voices of the left, the few right or middle leaning voices that stay safe within the algorithms of half truths to out right falsehoods. drip drip drip, The tyrannical flood coming has shown itself and where are the Liberal journalists speaking up for different voices, dialogue or opposing points of view? Silent in the corners thinking they will be saved. With fewer voices representing all sides of the discussion something will break, it always does.
You won’t see it from the likes of this author. Their vision is of govt being full of TopMen (TM) who are infallible, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. And they see themselves as part of the ruling cabal. Thus, when a vulgarian like Trump crashes their garden party, they lack the intellectual honesty to muster a genuine argument, even a weak one. All they have is cheap shots. Orange McBadman broke a lot of people in four years and one more such person revealed himself today.
There’s definitely someone “festering and raging” but it’s not Trump.
Having read his hagiography of Obama in the Spectator, I think I can guess that the Author would not chatacterize the numerous times that Obama broke with convention and attacked Trump, as the actions of impotent saddo, out of power, “festering and raging”.
Given that the Author considers one of Obama’s major achievements being that he “saw off Colonel Gaddafi” – let’s not worry ourselves that the power vacuum it created about the descent in to civil war and lawlessness, the warlords, militias and tens of thousands of dead people- I don’t put much stock in his judgment.
and brought back the “slave market” where is BLM speaking to this? women’s Lib? children’s rights advocates? and so on. the hypocrisy in the world is exhausting to keep up with.
Obama was famous for screwing up and then signaling, “look over there!” playing his half- witted followers like a musical instrument. What’s obvious about Obama is he thinks he’s the smartest person in the room let alone the country and unfortunately his proud followers make him right. America needs to realize they are in quicksand. freedom may be a right in America but you have to fight for rights both figuratively and otherwise. precious things worth having, love, liberty, family, humanity are all worth giving our pound of flesh for.
I miss Trump. I knew what he stood for. And I believed he wanted to do the right thing for his country and her people. More than can be said for any other leader in the Western world.
With the exception of Orban in Hungary, Trump was probably the only world leader to push back against the Wokerati who are destroying the US and – by extension – much of the West. Regardless of his personality, he came across to me as a good president. His policies were for the most part sensible and effective ones. Compare Biden and those pulling his strings.
This is very much my view of Trump. I’m glad he’s gone, since he was pretty ineffective and unfocused and really went off the deep end in the end, but I voted for him both times anyway because he was willing to say the unsayable: the Emperor is naked.
In Trump’s case the imperial nakedness was:
1) Maybe people who say their faith requires them to kill us should be believed.
2) Illegal immigration has real costs for the poorest members of society.
3) American policy should be guided mostly by what’s good for Americans.
4) Why do we have troops in dozens of other countries again?
Later in his presidency, we also got:
5) Men and women can be different without being unequal.
6) Asking voters for ID isn’t racist, it’s common sense.
These are ideas that cannot be spoken of in America even though the vast majority of Americans know they are true to some degree. Now in typical New York narcissist fashion, he was horribly abrasive when stating the obvious, but I do miss having someone who will call a spade a spade.
So why are you glad he’s gone, since you won’t be getting any of that under the current Harris administration?
i have to say it puzzles me every time i hear someone say our leaders “presence” is more important then their deeds. What have we learned?
When you control speech you can control people’s thoughts. America has to find a backbone or it won’t survive. we are either watching the beginning (middle) of the end of the greatest country in the world or the beginning of the roar of the free standing up to tyranny.
Boy the Greatest Generation must be turning in their graves with all the feckless whining going on in America.
He stood for himself and playing golf. You’d have to be particularly stupid to think that someone who wants to cure covid with injecting bleach wants to do ‘best for his country’.
You are as easily distracted as a puppy.
injecting bleach? On dear.
Indeed, ‘oh dear’.
https://time.com/5835244/accidental-poisonings-trump/
Did you actually read the article you related to? Trump’s question (see below for more details) was 23rd April. The Time article shows increase in bleach poisonings from March and April – so 90% were prior to the Trump question – most probably due to an excess use of cleaning fluids as a panic reaction to Covid. ‘Oh dear’ would imply Trump had the use of a time machine – very impressive if true.
Polifact does a good job of laying out Trump’s disinfectant question and notes that “Trump did not say people should inject themselves with bleach or alcohol to treat coronavirus”.
The actual ‘bleach hoax’ story (as it is better known) – was based on a question around a discussion of UV light. It’s not that daft. There are a variety of phototherapies used within pulmonary medicine and its an active area of investigation. Contemporary to Trump’s question, Cedars Sinai had released a press release for “Healight” two days previously – a system which administers UVA light internally (endotracheal device) as a potential anti-bacterial and anti-virus Covid treatment (21st April). So yes, internal disinfectant by light was actually being tested as a product – again before Trump’s remarks.
Sometimes its difficult to appreciate how badly deceived readers were by the poor reporting around the Trump administration, and sometimes how willing anti-Trumpers are to sustain the false stories even when shown to be totally untrue.
I did. I understand that trumpanzees, like your good self, need to read things few times in order to understand. Don’t worry, I’m here to help the less able; what are the percentages of increase for March and April, based on previous year? Go.
I feel charitable, so for a Brucie bonus I’ll give you an opinion of his own task force chief;
https://people.com/politics/dr-deborah-birx-talks-trump-bleach-comments/
So hang on. You’ve ignored that Polifact said your first claim wasn’t true. Plus you’re now doubling down on the claim that a statement by Trump on the 23rd April 2020 applies retrospectively to year-on-year increases from 2019 to 2020 for March and most of April, all but one week of which happened before Trump made his comments. Tell me how that works. Like I said – time-machine?
And you’re now suggesting a second-hand People article from almost one-year later – which also contains the untrue claim that they have left uncorrected (the one rejected by Polifact) – is somehow a useful source or adds anything to the facts. And which would have benefited from some factual reporting including that some medical researchers two days earlier than the statement actually said they were testing devices that “brought the light inside the body”
And finally you call me names – a very bad sign for the quality of your argument, particularly since you have failed at every possible hurdle to realise that your belief was incorrect.
The name-calling leaves three options:
No. On all of that. I asked you a very simple question, I do tailor question to audience. Baby steps; percentage of increase, March and April to previous year. Go.
You have all the subtilty of a troll, you ain’t even fooling a billy goat.
So you’re saying because the media misquoted and downright lied about what Trump said, and edited videos to make it embarrassing for Trump, that somehow Trump is to blame for the consequences? Why? I mention in another comment above to read the transcript or watch the whole video, yes, it is all on video. When you see how you have believed blatant lies (on this but presumably on much other anti Trump fake news) you should feel embarrassed.
I suggest you read what Trump said, and about what.
I miss Trump. We need that Amateur Clown back to replace the Professional Clown now in office. He’s our last chance to save the world from the WHO/Chinese/IMF/Davos meanies.
“from whom power has ebbed”
from whom power was stolen
There, fixed it for you and to many Americans the reason that he remains relevant. A great many Americans still want to hear from their President. They believe he still has their best interests at heart. Not the puppet installed by money, greed and vested interests currently sitting in the Oval Office awaiting his next instructions,
Do you believe OJ simpson to be an innocent man? Most people don’t, yet, he was not convicted in a court of law. lack of proof does not equal something not happening. The only thing we know for sure was the the democrats were not sloppy stuffing the ballot box.
A load of self-soothing, magical-thinking piffle. The correct diagnostic term for it is TDS (not to be mistaken with STD which is an entirely different set of ailments, though allegedly just as debilitating).
It goes uncommented by the author that the man who was president of the US is banned from social media. I suppose this is the kind of world Sam enjoys.
What Leith and his cadre of Trump-snarks don’t get is their obsession with him only reveals their insecurity.
He sounds like a jilted lover talking about his ex, who he ‘doesn’t care about anymore’ yet won’t shut up about her.
Nobody cares, mate.
The irony: the author is selling his book on how to write clearly and persuasively. Perhaps he should read it.
What the author doesn’t seem to understand, is that DJT is akin to the sloppy kid who sits among the powerless nerds (almost all of us) in the back of the middle school bus who belches, cusses, is sexually active, smokes dope and tells dirty jokes. Of course we know he’s a narcissist but we don’t care because he gets one thing right and for that, we love him. What he gets right is this: When the rich kids come back and start shaking the nerds down for their lunch money, DJT stands up, punches them in the mouth, tells them to go ‘F!*# themselves’ and sends them packing. The rich kids have never figured out that the reason we love DJT, warts and all, is because they, the self righteous, sanctimonious, meddling management class are far worse…but, of course, it never occurs to them.
Greg, I agree with your post. He could be aloof, spouting things that many snarled about but the one thing you could be secure in was that he wasn’t shy about saying what he thought.
Like saying that he is fantasizing about fvcking his own daughter? You find that a ‘quality’?
Yup, He certainly always called in Roy Cohn, or an expensive lawyer, when he didn’t like the pushback.
“ The ex-President somehow got hold of the mic and delivered a rambling address to the wedding party, like someone’s drunk uncle interrupting the toast at the wrong wedding in a Richard Curtis movie. “
At least he didn’t sound confused like sleepy Joe Biden.
Sound confused? You mean was confused..
‘Perhaps Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous apopthegm is his brisk declaration that “there is no second act in American lives”.
I just knew this article would start with this line – journos are nothing if not lazy and predictable. It is a line that is always misinterpreted and relates to his difficulties in writing a play clled The Vegetable. He was not saying that nobody comes back in American life, he was saying that there are no periods of transition or development in American lives, but only huge ups and downs.
It never ceases to amaze me how those who fashion themselves as elite must always initially burnish their literary “creds” but continue to end sentences in prepositions and are incapable of constructing a simple sentence, perhaps the most elegant of all written communication, to make a cogent point. Add a heaping helping of vitriol, a tablespoon of bile and the resulting bit of piffle leaves one wondering whether the alleged cognoscenti are cognizenti. Yet, they still wonder how Orange Man got elected in the first place; oh the irony of it all!
Piss off, Leith. We don’t want commies here.
He is not a Communist. He is a devotee of the toxic combination of utopian Socialism, Postmodernism and identity politics called Leftism.
Our universities have for a number of years become processing plants for indoctrination of impressionable, naive, young people in to this poisonous ideology.
Like religious fanatics, the believers have formed an impenetrable mental wall that will not permit them to countenance that their beliefs are fabricated nonsense.
Sorry, but it was all that I could be bothered to type in response to his drivel 🙂 But if the left think it’s fine to call conservatives ‘fascists’, then ‘commie’ will do for me. Maybe inaccurate, but to the point.
I agree. While Marcus Leach is technically correct, we don’t bother with exacting taxonomical fineries in spoken everyday language so i call them ‘commies’ too. Or ‘wokes’, lately – apart from jazz (which i love), the word ‘woke‘ was the other valuable contribution black culture ever contributed to human civilisation.
You’re right – however, ‘comm¡e‘ is a colloquial used for leftist in general. A tad archaic / outdated perhaps, as now we have ‘woke‘ to address the cult in question, which i find more accurate / better suited to current times. I also like to use ‘¡nternaz¡‘ [international socialist], reminding the comm¡es to naz¡sm’s inherently socialist nature always gets under their woke skin.
I feel this style of article is a bit: “I am so glad I got rid of my ex. I hate that guy. Don’t miss him a bit. Have you seen him lately? What’s he doing? Did he mention me?”
A lot of that kind of energy.
Given the fact that the legacy media response to Trump was curated and coordinated behind the scenes for the length of his presidency, the real question we need to ask ourselves is, do we even know what Trump actually said, actually believes, and actually accomplished?
We are living though the greatest propaganda campaign in the West since 1945, let us not be too cocky in our self regard and intellectual confidence. Skepticism and reevaluation should be the order of the day.
It is a reasonable enough thing to put in a literary quote or a comparison with a person from the past in an article. But how many times do we have it here? Again and again!
He even combines them with Lawson being like Falstaff!
Such a nasty and pointless article.
This article does not belong here. An Unherd audience wants discussion about real politics, not more of the tiresome character assassinations of political individuals. Rather than being “Unherd” it’s more typical of “The Herd”.
It doesn’t belong here as usual simpletons, like your good self, are too upset that someone is not the biggest fan of trumpyturd.
Do you want to cancel the author because you don’t agree with him?
Scroll up to my answer to Jim McNeillie
Meaningless waffle. If it was about Biden there would be a pile-on. Unherd, like most other places are just respective echo-chamber where people come for confirmation of their own prejudices.
What a load of bile
Got your references in about classic literature to show your the intelligent intellectual good sort that knows what is true, right and correct.
Your head must not fit through doors and your human waste must smell like flowers.
Oh to be a saint like you
I’m at a loss as to what the point of this article is.
Jesus H Christ, these liberal-lefty journo hacks never seem to learn anything from history, and it’s also clear that this clown hasn’t done a days “investigative” journalism in his bubble-coated life. The enormity of what Trump achieved is yet to be presented to the world, because the media have been unrelenting in dissing everything he has done and hiding the truth from the public, but I’m afraid, your little globalist echo chamber world is about to come to an abrupt end very shortly Mr Leith. I predict that the fraudulent Biden election will be overturned, (null and voided) and Trump will be returned to power as the default president before the summer. You read it here first Mr Leith.
“Sam Leith is literary editor of The Spectator and the author of Write To The Point: How To Be Clear, Correct and Persuasive on the Page'”
Alas, Sam has revealed himself to be neither Clear. Nor Correct. Nor Persuasive. Either on the Page or anywhere else.”
I wonder what Leith hated most about the Trump administration. The peace or the prosperity?
Yes! I miss Donald Trump. I would much rather have a narcissistic president of the United States who loves his country and believes in the people who elected him than a vacuous swamp creature like Joe Biden.
Unlike the writer, I know Joe Biden. Joe Biden was the commencement speaker at my high school graduation 47 years ago. I am sure you would love to know what words of wisdom Joe had for the class of 1974….none that I recall. He did have a rather incredulous story of a discussion he had with his milkman about Richard Nixon and taxes. The gist of the story – Joe’s milkman paid more taxes than Richard Nixon. The story stuck in my head all these years because I didn’t know anybody still had a milkman deliver to their house in 1974.
As someone who has observed Joe Biden’s political career for some time I would sum it up like this. Joe Biden’s political career is like socialism. Socialism seems to work until the government runs out of other people’s money. Joe Biden’s political career seems to work until he runs out of other people’s ideas.
it’s a bit pathetic that a private citizen has such control over another person’s thoughts. The amount of rent-free head space that Trump occupies is perhaps the greatest real estate empire in existence. Then again, when a walking case of dementia nominally holds the office and waiting in the wings is a woman who Dems themselves rejected, deflection is to be expected.
Since history is apparently joining math as something beyond journalists’ comprehension, Nixon spent his post-Watergate years writing one book after another, all of which were read by the very people who professed to hate him.
You haven’t got this right, and in an article that has only one idea, which is an assumption, shared by many, but not explored well here, that is a problem. Trump’s story and contribution, and the reason for his popularity are more nuanced than most writers here in the UK understand. If you want to write meaningfully about him, do some research.
There’s something pathetically parochial about the way British commentators define Richard Nixon’s post-Presidency by the Frost interviews.
In reality, Nixon became a highly respected elder statesman and arguably the most accomplished author of all former Presidents. His analysis of Russia and China in particular has proven prophetic.
I would recommend watching his address to the Oxford Union in 1978, available on YouTube. Far from being “hunched and diminished” or “resentful”, he comes across as thoughtful, gracious, and, amidst the open hostility of his surroundings, rather courageous. A stark contrast to the leaders of today.
https://youtu.be/1gl84ilI8Do?t=3512
Biden the shoe in until the Marxist nutter Kamala wreaks more havoc.
USA the new banana Republic..
Not read the article yet, but, I wonder, do we REALLY need to use “apopthegm” as the opening salvo to set the tone?
Why yes but of course! The author being the Spectator’s literary editor, he absolutely must make sure that none of us mistakes him for the janitor or for that nice but a bit dim lady at catering; a mistake most of us (myself included) would have easily made by reading the twaddle he wrote, wasn’t it for the ‘apopthegm’ entrée.
America misses Trump.
Cleverly written piece and whilst true about Trump the “former” President, it fails to state what Trump as President got right. President Trump was correct about border controls, as Biden is discovering to his cost, President Trump was right about Iran and the Trump administration was right about the Warp Speed vaccine programme.
Of course Trump is a narcissist and often an embarrassment. But Trump’s biggest failure was his inability to build an international coalition for reform of the mess the international consensus has built on topics from the broken asylum system to the WHO becoming a lapdog of China.
Yes I miss Trump, I miss his common sense and effective approach to the Middle East, which took proper account of the extreme danger presented by Iran and the reality of the Israel/Palestinian situation. I miss his refusal to allow Wokeness to take cotrol of the US Government, I miss his very successful focus on job creation, I miss his rejection of the globalist agenda so beloved of the Common Purpose sect. I miss the lack of a massive humanitarian crisis on the US/Mexican border. I also miss having a US president who didn’t have dementia and isn’t a sock puppet for his VP and the radical left, unlike the present incumbent.
So take the piss out of Trump as much as you like Sam Leith, the world is worse off for his losing/being cheated out of re-election and we will all suffer for it as time passes.
In answer to your question Sam, yes I do. Talking to a liberal “aquaintance” after yoga yesterday she also expressed passing relief that The Donald had gone. I pointed out how Oprah Winfrey had begged him to run for POTUS in the days when everyone thought he was a cool and quirky sleb – a well worn and weary fact – she had no idea… Why don’t people who don’t know anything just close their lips!!!
Take it you don’t like him then? Did you mother never teach you its really not nice to kick a man when down, anyone that is? Shame on her.
See below
What a sore loser. You know Trump and his followers are winning the war so you attack with a spineless fake news diatribe.
LOL. What the fcuk is he winning? Whining more likely. Saying that you have to give him; Managed to get over $200m of dim maga crowd to ‘fight the election fraud’, spent $10m and pocketed the rest, and they still adore him.
He does know his trailer park audience.
I was looking forward to a bit of Trump bashing. What a lot of self indulgent posturing. Get to the point, man.
Wake me up when the madness ends, please.
This drivel is awful. Apparently I missed the wedding story so that was news or perhaps a creation. Trump isn’t quite a has-been yet but his ego can be a distraction. Some wishful thinking in this piece written, I suppose, so we might respond.
Pathetic, lazy, did this guy get paid to write this? The President was loved by half of America, the other half being unequipped to experience that emotion.
I never saw such a political miracle and I’m rather old, of course he is missed, and he or someone in his image will return, because people need someone to respond to with all their heart and we saw that happen every day with the 45th President of the USA.
Corporate America 1 Trump 0 (half time score). Not entirely convinced that Sam Leith – or Douglas Murray for that Matter – are being entirely straight. Could it be that both fear cancellation? Surely not ..
Sam, are you still triggered?
this bilge says more about the author than about trump. mind you i don’t want him back because he screwed up the election with bad behaviour, but his policies and sentiments about America and the middle class were stellar and if the pubs are clever they will take his policies and run with them via a new person with more appeal and less bombast.
The author has completely missed the point. Oedipus is the hero for all time and all ages whereas history constantly flicks spiteful little insects off its back with disdainful flicks of its tail.
We were promised normalcy post-Trump. Biden is about as abnormal as it is possible for a leader to be since Chernenko died. This administration is not normal; it’s just different and endowed with a media that is guaranteed never to ask a nasty question. When did you last see Jim Acosta, CNN’s slayer of the Trump dragon.
The fact that Biden can hardly finish a sentence which didn’t make sense when he began it is, however, accepted as normal by those who write the narrative we have no way of contradicting. Democratic government hasn’t even brought the civility Pelosi promised. The party is still pounding to dust every Republican it finds with lies and inventions.
The fact is, the failings of Trump are irrelevant when discussing the even greater flaws of his successor. Trump, yesterday’s man, can play Nero for all I care. What matters is what Biden and the people who actually run his presidency are doing today. Is it better?
The entire article screams of a humble-brag flaunting of the author’s erudition – seriously, don’t try so hard.
Judging by this word salad, there would seem to be few who miss President Trump quite as much as the writer of this piece- and his cohort of expensively (if not well) educated journalists.
It will be far less easy for them trying to cover the growing inadequacies of the present incumbent of the White House, particularly as his decline becomes harder to ignore, and so they’ll keep returning to the well of indignation and outrage at Trump that has sustained them these past 5 years.
This article feels premature and stale. Trump will give the keynote speech this weekend at the RNC unity retreat; He has hardly been abandoned and in fact he remains the lead voice and inspiration of the ‘common man’s party’. Not to mention that Republicans have been taking in record sums (per Kimberly Strassel in WSJ. Apr. 10), not from corporations many of which have gone ‘woke’ but from ordinary folks who are concerned about the mess Joe Biden is making of things. For sure, this author has jumped the gun; reports of Trump’s demise “are greatly exaggerated” said one rascal to another : )
Can’t agree that aesthetics should be divorced from kindness or morality. And nor would Aristotle et al.
What a Sewage of an article. Your ideas make me want to vomit. What an Ode to Unfreedom of speech and Bad ideas. President Trump was a good President, despite all his shortcomings and Who in the right mind doesn’t acknowledge the Fact that, had it not been for the Covid Pandemic, President Trump would have been re-elected.
Why the need to inflate a sharp piece of journalism with self-puffing Boris-ish references to classical literature?
Much better without
The author uses words like “Apopthegm”, “deuteron”, and “pachydermously”, as well as the fifty-eight-word sentence: “For those of us who think Oedipus at Colonus the best of the trilogy, secretly prefer Tennyson’s Ulysses (“by this still hearth, among these barren crags”) to Homer’s perky cyclops-botherer, and Milton’s Samson (“eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves”) to the one in his prime, the out-of-office Trump is the version to take real delight in.”
His by-line refers to him as the “the author of Write to the point: How to be clear, correct and persuasive on the page”. I would refer to him as something else. Something like “arrogant ponce” might be a start.
Anybody who regards Trump as being worse than the present POTUS (the legitimacy of whose election I very seriously doubt) really appears to have lost the plot.
I have enjoyed reading Unherd quite a lot over the last year or two. However, this author seriously lowers its standards.
As Johnny Lydonn (formerly known as Johnny Rotten) recently said, “I never thought I’d live to see the day when the right-wing would be the cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment and the left wing become the snivelling self-righteous ones going around shaming everyone”
‘Nuff said?
What happened to the Wall, and the infrastructure promises made by Trump. Why didn’t they actually happen ?
The wall is now a good idea: https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-restart-border-wall-construction-trump-pledge-gaps-2021-4
It’s amazing how that happens, almost like the left is not troubled by any sort of principles, just an opposition to Orange McBadman.
Interesting. The article does not convey that is the message from new Administration, but I am glad they are tidying up a shoddy unfinished piece of work.
Uh huh. After incessantly howling about how terrible an idea the wall was, they now embrace it. About the only Dem who is even remotely consistent is Omar, who remains opposed to it.
Certainly unfinished – as expected, many more years work yet. Shoddy? So they’ll be continuing the work AND renewing these ‘shoddy bits’? You sound exactly like the type of person Alex alludes to.
Most construction work has been paused, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on Tuesday.
“Wall construction remains paused, to the extent permitted by law,” she said. “So some has already been funded through a congressional authorization and funding allocation. But as agencies develop for a plan – it’s paused while agencies are developing a plan for the President on the management of the federal funds.”
Seems that a wall was a good idea around DC, what with all the insurrectionists running around. The border is an absolute mess, as the hordes don’t listen when Grandpa Joe tells them not to all come at once.
Seems there were a number of disappointed Trump fans drawn here by the title of the article. Obviously they did not find what they came for.
Could be. I would like to think the reaction would be similar if there was a character assassination of Joe Biden. Personally I would prefer to see intelligent discussion, for example which approach is correct over immigration issues or Chinese global hegemony. Neither Biden or Trump has any “magic wand” on America’s problems. The problem with moralistic jumping on character flaws is that all politicians could be seen as bad, and the rest of us not far behind!
Not quite sure if you’re aware that the vast majority of Unherd’s readership are rather pro-Trump than anti-. The articles themselves are a mixed bag (some excellent, some – like this one above – utter rubbish), but the commentary below them is quality material, by-and-large.
Lots of downvotes: I rest my case.
Excellent piece. That has made my day and the answer to the question is “God no!”
I love a good drivel. I am sure that there are many in Trump-land, that mythical planet in which all real looking glasses are to be removed, who will find the sarcasm of this piece objectionable. For me, I can only hope that soon all mention of Trump will be filed under fiction or disgust.
Afraid you will be very disappointed.
There is a kind of underclass that adores someone who’s on record of wanting to do his own daughter. So tragic and entertaining at the same time.
There is a flakey upper crust as well that adores,well it’s own flakiness.
Cheap gutter shot, not to mention ludicrous.
Biden may be a bozo, but Trump was a unique threat to the rest of the world. Thank God he is gone.Trump’s policies sabotaged any hope of effective action on climate change – anyone who opens their eyes to nature around them can see the effects of climate warming.. The USA has fantastic wilderness areas, and Trump opened them up for strip cast mining. drilling and pipelines. He pulled out of nuclear arms treaties, and the threat of nuclear war is now estimated to be greater than at any time in the Cold War. Reckless assassinations of Iranian generals have greatly increased instability in the Middle East. His disastrous handling of the pandemic has cost American lives. The world is a slightly better place with him gone.
Thanks for the chuckle. Biden is ramping up the wars and ignoring Eisenhower’s sage advice, the border with Mexico is in crisis, money is being splurged irresponsibly, productive American industries are hammered, ordinary Americans are funding Green subsidies through increased taxes, enemies are giggling at his manifest dementia and plotting their own attacks, and the race battles are encouraged.
Still,Orange Man Bad.
Trump was the first president since Carter not to start a new war or exacerbate an existing conflict. He actually brought a degree of peace to the ME and got rid of ISIS, at least for a while. Biden is a neocon who supported the invasion of Iraq and every other disastrous military adventure over the last 30 years. And I could go no…
The rules were changed during Trump’s administration, such that the increased number of civilians killed by US military drones, worldwide were no longer reported to Congress.
Exactly, a vote for Biden was certainly a vote for ‘war’.
Reckless assassinations of Iranian generals have greatly increased instability in the Middle East.
One general who was responsible for numerous American and other deaths. And “greatly increased” must explain the numerous peace deals struck by Arab states and Israel. But, don’t worry; Joe’s gonna change all that.
His disastrous handling of the pandemic has cost American lives.
Oddly, the highest per-capita deaths are in the blue states, the ones that don’t like Trump. I guess they showed him. Just like you showed your acute TDS to us.
Trump had the right idea in killing an Iranian general rather than bombing cities, killing innocents.
‘Numerous peace deals’? Between countries that were not in war with each other? I’d ask if you knew how dumb you are, but I’m all out of rhetorical questions.
“I’d ask if you knew how dumb you are…”
Oh, the irony.
No irony. As much as trumpanzees would like there to be one. ‘Peace deals’ aka ‘please sign this peace of paper so Kushner can refinance 666 5th ave’. Saying that you can sell anything to a trumpanzee.
I wonder if you will say the same things when the Ukraine attacks Russia this summer and in 2022 when Assad is overthrown and the massacre of non Sunni citizens, about 10 million souls, begins. Perhaps we will never know. The Western Media has become quite apt at disappearing world events. The Tigray in northern Ethiopia have just been literally decimated by their tribal and ideological enemies. Not a peep. It never happened. We’ve already forgotten Armenia. So much better for the movers and shakers of DC.
Trump’s fault was that he wanted to be loved and that he believed in institutional America – Pentagon, FBI, CIA, etc… That and his own self regard, his inability to build and keep a team doomed him to failure. Jered Kushner’s appointment was the lid on the coffin of his Presidency.
The rot at the heart of the USA will not be cured until a President comes to power who sees its institutions for what they really are, rather than what Americans wish they were. Trump lacked the required ruthlessness to Make America Great Again. The man or woman who comes after him will not.
we can hope…
Since WW2, the US has interfered in 81 different elections in foreign countries. attempted 57 coups and succeeded 38 times, has over 800 military bases in other countries (UK, France and Russia have 30 total). The world is in quite enough peril from normal Presidents. let alone an unstable narcissist with the intellectual and emotional abilities of a child bully. Let us hope America never becomes ‘Great Again’.
Ian,
You don’t understand. A Great President will bring the agencies to heal and cut the bases down 2/3 As President Trump attempted to do before he was castrated, Bannon was ejected and Kushner installed.
Right and Left are losing their hard borders of meaning and I find many a progressive who has a hard time seeing the reality before them with clear eyes. The pamphlets and essays of the early 80s wont suffice anymore. If you are a true man of the left I would give you sources that speak your language. Please look up Jimmy Dore on You Tube or Glenn Greenwald on Substack. Matt Tabbi is also very good on substack a real truth teller.