Noonan: "He really has no one but those who voted for him"

"In the Bible, David used a slingshot and slew Goliath, the giant who protected the Philistines. Our modern media Goliaths protected the federal government."

-- "Trump the Press," 2016

Our 21st century David slung his biggest shot yet in his inaugural address on Friday.

The Philistines are nervous. They beg their Goliath to save them.

From Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal:

The inaugural address was utterly and uncompromisingly Trumpian. The man who ran is the man who’ll reign. It was plain, unfancy and blunt to the point of blistering.

A little humility would have gone a long way, but that’s not the path he took. Nor did he attempt to reassure. It was pow, right in the face.

Most important, he did not in any way align himself with the proud Democrats and Republicans arrayed around him. He looked out at the crowd and said he was allied with them.

He presented himself not as a Republican or a conservative but as a populist independent. The essential message: Remember those things I said in the campaign? I meant them. I meant it all.

How dare Trump say in front of the Philistines: “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished—but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered—but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country.”

That's just not polite.

From Noonan:

It was an unmistakable indictment of almost everyone seated with him on the platform.

No, the indictment was in July at the Republican National Convention when he accepted the nomination, transforming the Republican Party into The American Party.

The conviction was on November 8, when the jury came back with its verdict: President Trump.

On January 20, the sentence of four-to-eight years of Trump officially began.

Noonan wrote:

We have never had a political moment like this in our lives. We have never had a president like this, such a norm-breaker, in all the ways we know. We are in uncharted seas.

Had she paid attention, she would have known the norms have failed the American people.

Failure has consequences.

This rebellion came from the geographical -- if not genealogical -- heirs to the Whiskey Rebellion, when the frontiersmen stood up to President Washington.

As a Virginia plantation owner, he was all too happy to have the people in the wilderness pay taxes on their corn instead of levying a property tax on his slaves.

Albert Gallatin negotiated a settlement, and Appalachians have been moonshining ever since to avoid the tax.

The rebellion surfaced from time to time over the next 225 years.

When the political heirs to Washington fail the people, Appalachians rise. This led to the election of presidents Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and now, Donald Trump.

Otherwise, these voters go with the flow. Take care of their modest needs, and they will leave you alone.

Noonan wrote:

Normally a new president has someone backing him up, someone publicly behind him. Mr. Obama had the mainstream media—the big broadcast networks, big newspapers, activists and intellectuals, pundits and columnists of the left—the whole shebang. He had a unified, passionate party.

Mr. Trump in comparison has almost nothing. The mainstream legacy media oppose him, even hate him, and will not let up. The columnists, thinkers and magazines of the right were mostly NeverTrump; some came reluctantly to support him.

His party is split or splitting. The new president has gradations of sympathy, respect or support from exactly one cable news channel, and some websites.

He really has no one but those who voted for him.

Do they understand what a lift daily governance is going to be, and how long the odds are, with so much arrayed against him, and them?

How divinely clueless. 

He really has no one but those who voted for him.

Guess what?

We are all he needed.

He won without "the mainstream media—the big broadcast networks, big newspapers, activists and intellectuals, pundits and columnists of the left—the whole shebang."

In fact, Donald Trump won because of "the mainstream media—the big broadcast networks, big newspapers, activists and intellectuals, pundits and columnists of the left—the whole shebang."

The mainstream media (her words, not mine) may be the least trusted institution in America.

He faces long odds now?

Mainstream media poll guru Nate Silver once gave him a 2% chance of winning the nomination.

On Election Night, Nate Silver gave him a 22% chance of winning the presidency.

Betting against Donald Trump is like betting against the Road Runner.

As for the heavy lifting of daily governance, the man has run a corporation for 45 years. He is not some community organizer plucked from Chicago by the Democratic Party to front eight years of socialism and the corruption that goes with it.

But as a figurehead, Obama had all that insulation from his party, from Congress, and from "the mainstream media—the big broadcast networks, big newspapers, activists and intellectuals, pundits and columnists of the left—the whole shebang."

Trump has none of that.

David stood alone on that day 3,000 years ago, a shepherd boy with a sling. Reciting what we now refer to as Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd...") he twirled his sling like a lasso, and then let the rock fly.

One shot. Whoosh. Down went Goliath.

The modern David made a promise to the modern Philistines in Washington on Friday.

It is my hope that they are going down.

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Please read "Trump the Press," in which I skewer media experts who wrongly predicted Trump would lose the Republican nomination. "Trump the Press" is available as a paperback, and on Kindle.

It covers the nomination process only. The general election will be covered in a sequel, "Trump the Establishment."

For an autographed copy, email me at DonSurber@GMail.com

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