We are going to make this country so great again, and we’re going to do it fast,” Donald Trump would say during the campaign. “We’re going to do it really fast.”
Promise made, promise kept.
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The president-elect doesn’t take over for another six weeks, but — magically — he has already made America great again.
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Trump’s quick post-election pivot away from calling America a “failing nation” was inevitable. He spent the past couple of years selling the country a load of bull. Now, he’s inheriting a stronger economy and a safer country than the one he left Joe Biden, with the border more secure and crime rates lower, and inflation tamed to below 3 percent. Contrary to Trump’s apocalyptic campaign claims, the world isn’t on fire and the U.S. military is not dominated by woke drag queens.
Follow Dana Milbank
So what’s a defrocked doomsayer to do? Declare victory!
His supporters don’t require much convincing. Post-election polling shows that Republicans immediately revised their opinions of the nation’s health, with sharply more now viewing the economy as good and far fewer claiming it’s getting worse. (Views among Democrats have shifted far less.) Trump, by claiming credit for Biden’s record, has given his followers permission to admit that things aren’t so bad, after all.
America is already great “again” because it never stopped being great. All that’s left for Trump to do is screw it up.
Trump might not be returning the country to greatness, but he’s definitely returning us to the attributes that defined his first term. For example, he has already restored the daily sense of chaos.
Since Matt Gaetz flamed out after an eight-day run as Trump’s attorney general selection, two other Trump picks have been canned before they could serve a single day on the job. This week, Trump dumped his nominee to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, Chad Chronister, three days after tapping him for the post; right-wingers had raised a fuss about the Florida sheriff’s arrest of a pastor for violating public health orders during the pandemic. Trump also shoved aside lawyer William McGinley, 22 days after choosing him to be White House counsel; McGinley had reportedly been recommended for the job by Boris Epshteyn, the Trump aide accused of soliciting “retainer fees” to promote potential nominees.
Then there’s the soap opera surrounding Pete Hegseth, the hard-drinking Fox News host tapped to run the nearly 3-million-person Defense Department despite a lack of significant managerial experience. The Trump team was blindsided by the revelation that Hegseth paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of rape in 2017. This was followed by a series of jaw-dropping allegations, reported by the great Jane Mayer of the New Yorker and others, about Hegseth’s drunken misbehavior, sexual misconduct and financial impropriety over several years. The New York Times even published an email Hegseth’s own mother wrote to him in 2018, saying “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way” and describing her son as one who “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...d=mc_magnet-optrumpadmin_inline_collection_18
On Wednesday, Hegseth promised Megyn Kelly that he would quit drinking if confirmed. “This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said. It was quite similar to the vow John Tower made 36 years ago before the Senate rejected him for the same post over a drinking problem: “I hereby swear and undertake that, if confirmed, during the course of my tenure as secretary of defense, I will not consume beverage alcohol of any type or form, including wine, beer or spirits of any kind.”
But Hegseth has one advantage Tower didn’t: His mother is lobbying for him. Peggy Hegseth has been calling senators to urge them to support her boy. “I have a very intelligent son. I have a leader son. I’ve known that since he was 2,” she said in a Fox News appearance. “I believe he’s the man for the job. I think being a TV news host, I think prepares you for most things in a position like this.”
No doubt! Mother Hegseth also told Fox that she “retracted” her blistering email to her son after a couple of hours and that he’s a “changed man” today. She accused the Times of “almost criminal” behavior.
That accusation will probably find a receptive audience in Trump’s pick to head the FBI, longtime loyalist Kash Patel. Patel is as unqualified to run the FBI as Hegseth is to run the Pentagon, but he did say this about journalists in 2023: “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” Patel also has helpfully published an enemies list of 60 Trump critics — he accuses them of being “deep state” conspirators — that could serve as a road map for future FBI probes.
Promise made, promise kept.
Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter
The president-elect doesn’t take over for another six weeks, but — magically — he has already made America great again.
- He has solved the border crisis. Mexico’s president “has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border,” Trump tells us. “THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA.”
- He has brought peace to the Middle East. “Former NATO chief says Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire a ‘direct result’ of incoming Trump admin,” was the headline Trump posted on his social media site on Monday.
- He has scored a breakthrough against the opioid epidemic. He announced that he had secured the “commitment” of the Canadian government “to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families.”
- And he has already turned the U.S. economy into the envy of the world. “The Stock Market Just Recorded Its Best Month This Year in the Wake of Trump’s Landslide Victory,” proclaimed the headline of another Trump social media post.
ADVERTISING
Trump’s quick post-election pivot away from calling America a “failing nation” was inevitable. He spent the past couple of years selling the country a load of bull. Now, he’s inheriting a stronger economy and a safer country than the one he left Joe Biden, with the border more secure and crime rates lower, and inflation tamed to below 3 percent. Contrary to Trump’s apocalyptic campaign claims, the world isn’t on fire and the U.S. military is not dominated by woke drag queens.
Follow Dana Milbank
So what’s a defrocked doomsayer to do? Declare victory!
His supporters don’t require much convincing. Post-election polling shows that Republicans immediately revised their opinions of the nation’s health, with sharply more now viewing the economy as good and far fewer claiming it’s getting worse. (Views among Democrats have shifted far less.) Trump, by claiming credit for Biden’s record, has given his followers permission to admit that things aren’t so bad, after all.
America is already great “again” because it never stopped being great. All that’s left for Trump to do is screw it up.
Trump might not be returning the country to greatness, but he’s definitely returning us to the attributes that defined his first term. For example, he has already restored the daily sense of chaos.
Since Matt Gaetz flamed out after an eight-day run as Trump’s attorney general selection, two other Trump picks have been canned before they could serve a single day on the job. This week, Trump dumped his nominee to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, Chad Chronister, three days after tapping him for the post; right-wingers had raised a fuss about the Florida sheriff’s arrest of a pastor for violating public health orders during the pandemic. Trump also shoved aside lawyer William McGinley, 22 days after choosing him to be White House counsel; McGinley had reportedly been recommended for the job by Boris Epshteyn, the Trump aide accused of soliciting “retainer fees” to promote potential nominees.
Then there’s the soap opera surrounding Pete Hegseth, the hard-drinking Fox News host tapped to run the nearly 3-million-person Defense Department despite a lack of significant managerial experience. The Trump team was blindsided by the revelation that Hegseth paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of rape in 2017. This was followed by a series of jaw-dropping allegations, reported by the great Jane Mayer of the New Yorker and others, about Hegseth’s drunken misbehavior, sexual misconduct and financial impropriety over several years. The New York Times even published an email Hegseth’s own mother wrote to him in 2018, saying “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way” and describing her son as one who “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...d=mc_magnet-optrumpadmin_inline_collection_18
On Wednesday, Hegseth promised Megyn Kelly that he would quit drinking if confirmed. “This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said. It was quite similar to the vow John Tower made 36 years ago before the Senate rejected him for the same post over a drinking problem: “I hereby swear and undertake that, if confirmed, during the course of my tenure as secretary of defense, I will not consume beverage alcohol of any type or form, including wine, beer or spirits of any kind.”
But Hegseth has one advantage Tower didn’t: His mother is lobbying for him. Peggy Hegseth has been calling senators to urge them to support her boy. “I have a very intelligent son. I have a leader son. I’ve known that since he was 2,” she said in a Fox News appearance. “I believe he’s the man for the job. I think being a TV news host, I think prepares you for most things in a position like this.”
No doubt! Mother Hegseth also told Fox that she “retracted” her blistering email to her son after a couple of hours and that he’s a “changed man” today. She accused the Times of “almost criminal” behavior.
That accusation will probably find a receptive audience in Trump’s pick to head the FBI, longtime loyalist Kash Patel. Patel is as unqualified to run the FBI as Hegseth is to run the Pentagon, but he did say this about journalists in 2023: “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” Patel also has helpfully published an enemies list of 60 Trump critics — he accuses them of being “deep state” conspirators — that could serve as a road map for future FBI probes.
