The Atlantic Attacks Don Trump Jr. - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
The Atlantic Attacks Don Trump Jr.
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As Ronald Reagan might say, there he goes again.

The “he” in this case is former President George W. Bush speechwriter Pete Wehner, once again attacking, but of course, the Trumps — specifically, this time, Don Trump Jr.

Over there in the far-left Atlantic (where else would a “conservative” hang his writing hat?) the Bush speechwriter launched on former President Trump’s eldest son because … because … apparently Don Jr. violates Wehner’s Establishment GOP sense of style. The headline on this nonsense was, no kidding, this:

The Gospel of Donald Trump Jr.

The former president’s son told a crowd that the teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.”

Say what?

To “prove” his point, Wehner quotes Don as saying the following:

But there was one short section of Trump’s speech that I thought was particularly revealing. Relatively early in the speech, he said, 

“If we get together, they cannot cancel us all. Okay? They won’t. And this will be contrary to a lot of our beliefs because — I’d love not to have to participate in cancel culture. I’d love that it didn’t exist. But as long as it does, folks, we better be playing the same game. Okay? We’ve been playing T-ball for half a century while they’re playing hardball and cheating. Right? We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing. Okay? It’s gotten us nothing while we’ve ceded ground in every major institution in our country.”

And Jesus is mentioned where?

Nowhere.

Ahh, yes. Wehner focuses on Don’s off-hand reference to conservatives having “turned the other cheek.” What he apparently does not understand is that those words from Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount is explicitly saying revenge is wrong. But at no point does Jesus say one should not stand up and fight hard for principled beliefs. Don Trump was not — say again not — talking about revenge. He was quite directly talking about standing up and fighting hard for principle. There is a very, very big difference. A difference Wehner, lost in the visceral hatred that is Never Trumpism, clearly doesn’t get.

But since Wehner is intent on dragging Jesus into this, here are a couple of Bible verses specifically focusing on Jesus and how he dealt with opponents by standing up to them:

Matthew 21:12-13: “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ ”

There is also this on the same moment:

Mark 11:15-18: On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”But you have made it “a den of robbers.” ’

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.”

In other words, Jesus was not opposed to standing up and fighting for principle — he was opposed to revenge. Don was not urging revenge. He was urging conservatives to stand up and fight as hard for their principles as the other side does. In his words, don’t play T-ball, play hardball.

Clearly, straight from the Bible itself, Jesus is portrayed as standing up and fighting back — quite physically in this case as portrayed in Matthew and Mark — against those he sees who have taken the “house of prayer for all nations” and turned it into a “a den of robbers.” He was not playing T-ball, he was playing hardball.

Now. Can we kindly get away from dragging Jesus into this, as Wehner insists? Let’s get back to 21st-century America. Strip away the religious aspect of those Bible verses and apply the central concept of a sacred place being turned into a “den of robbers.”

In today’s America it doesn’t take a wizard to understand that in the quite secular world of American institutions — Washington, D.C., first and foremost, though seen once upon a time by Americans as the repository of, in Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” — millions of Americans believe that government has been replaced by “the Swamp.” They see it as a place filled with self-seeking power-crazed politicians and bureaucrats who have turned what once was the citadel of democracy and cherished ideals of freedom and liberty — into a decidedly secular “den of robbers.” With that understood, one doesn’t need the Bible to understand that millions of Americans have had it up to their eyeballs and are determined to “drain the Swamp” by supporting those determined to stand up for fighting back.

Which was, in essence, Don’s quite obvious point.

He also said the other side was “cheating”: “We’ve been playing T-ball for half a century while they’re playing hardball and cheating.”

Bingo.

The fact that Wehner doesn’t understand the cheating aspect of the American Left boggles the mind. As for examples, let me return to something I have cited many times here in The American Spectator: the repeated cheating by Democrats in the voting process here in my home state of Pennsylvania. Both last year in 2020 and this year of 2021, Democrats in this state have been indicted and convicted of voter fraud by the U.S. attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania for cheating in the elections of 2014, 2015 and 2016. See here, here, and here.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported after the 2012 elections that GOP nominee Mitt Romney received exactly zero votes in 59 Philadelphia voting divisions, a statistical impossibility even in a Democrat city. In October 2008, a retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice joined with the District Attorney for Dauphin County (Harrisburg) and the then-Pennsylvania GOP chairman at a press conference to report that some 57,435 registrations in Philadelphia alone were rejected for “fake social security numbers, incorrect dates of birth, clearly fraudulent signatures, addresses that do not exist, and duplicate registrations. In one case, a man was registered to vote more than 15 times since the Primary election.” The GOP Chairman added, with specific examples, that “Voter fraud is no longer just a Philadelphia problem” and has spread throughout the state.

In other words, exactly as Don Trump Jr. is saying flatly, cheating by Democrats — in this case in Pennsylvania elections — is a regularity. And it is way past time to stand up and fight back with measures to ensure election integrity. He is absolutely right.

And it truly boggles the mind when Wehner says this:

Liz Cheney voted with President Trump more than 90 percent of the time but is now persona non grata in the GOP because she is willing to defend the Constitution and the rule of law and stand against a violent assault on the Capitol and an effort to overturn a free and fair election.

Say what? Liz Cheney has repeatedly stood with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the outright corruption that is the January 6 Committee. As I have noted here,

So the obvious question. When will Vice Chair Liz Cheney request “35 social media and telecommunication companies including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Sprint” to “preserve the phone records” of Speaker Pelosi, her staff, the Democratic Leadership and all Democrats in charge of protecting the security of the Capitol on January 6th?

When will Cheney make “separate preservation requests to search engine and social media companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Signal, Slack, YouTube, Twitch and Twitter” for the communications of Pelosi, her staff, and all Democrats in the House responsible for the security of the Capitol?”

Note well: she has never announced her willingness to do so.

In other words, Liz Cheney has transformed herself into exactly the personification of a Swamp creature, using the January 6 Committee not to protect but to violate the Constitution. She has been completely silent on a quite significant problem, as provided here by my colleague Melissa Mackenzie. With Cheney’s consent, Nancy Pelosi and the committee are using their power to issue

subpoenas [that] include all individuals on the subscriber’s account and everyone those people messaged or spoke to. The time frame the committee demands data on is far-reaching: any and all contact with the individual for two to three months prior to January 6 and all the way to January 31, 2021. This is tens of thousands of moms, children, clergy, reporters, and Republican and conservative influencers who were in touch with everyone from White House aides to prominent activists.

Is it any wonder that Don Trump Jr. is urging conservatives not to play T-ball when the other side — as witness the Stalinesque show trial that is the January 6 Committee — is decidedly playing a wildly dangerous anti-constitutional hardball? (READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and the New American Fascism)

So what do we have here in this attack on Don Trump Jr.? What we have is, ironically, an example of zero self-awareness that in attacking Don for urging and encouraging Americans to stand up to fight for freedom and principle his and President Trump’s opponents reveal themselves to be really all about the Swamp and its benefits to those who will not stand up to oppose it.

This is how the Swamp works.

Sad? Yes? Shameful? Yes. But surprising? Hardly.

Jeffrey Lord
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Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, Swamp Wars: Donald Trump and The New American Populism vs. The Old Order, is now out from Bombardier Books.
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