Judged purely by his achievements, Donald Trump was the best American president in the last 28 years, much better than Barack Obama. Unlike Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush and Obama himself, Trump did not start any stupid war; on the contrary, he tried to withdraw American forces from overseas adventure. Under him the US economy reached record highs and there was record low unemployment, especially among minority groups. He got rid of obstructive regulation and, by lowering taxation, increased business activity.
Judged by his vulgar demeanour, idiotic tweets, boasts, and insults, and his refusal to listen to learned advisors (most of all his refusal to listen to the excellent physicist, Prof William Happer, who could have told him exactly why climate alarm is unscientific rubbish), he was one of the worst presidents in a long while.
Now he is going, and the big event of his final days has brought him disgrace. The storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by Trump supporters was the blackest day for the USA since 11 September 2001. Trump’s behaviour was shameful. He seemed to goad his supporters on by suggesting that the election was fraudulent (there certainly were irregularities but not enough to change the outcome); and he did not raise his voice as soon as he saw the violence in his name. Five people died.
The motives of the rioters do not excuse their outrageous actions – but let me give them. The USA is a highly unequal society controlled by small elitist groups of rich, powerful people, including Big Finance, Big Tech, and Big Media. These super-rich people feel mighty superior to ordinary Americans and assume they are a natural, insider ruling class. They support and control the Democratic Party. Big Media, including the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and CNN, overwhelmingly support the Democrats. They feel that the job of newspapers and TV stations is to present the views of the Democratic Party and censure all other views (this is now known as “cancel culture”). Big Money gave much more money to the Democrats than the Republicans. The super-rich and the super-powerful hated Donald Trump. They thought he was vulgar and low class; they thought his supporters were common and “deplorable”; most of all they hated him because he was an outsider.
Ordinary Americans resented the patronising, disdainful attitudes of Hillary Clinton, Obama, and the New York Times towards them. It made them angry. Trump was on their side; he did not patronise them or speak down to them; he spoke their language and addressed their hopes and fears. So the snobs called him a “populist”. The snobs were determined to get rid of him, and have succeeded. This infuriated some ordinary people, so much that some rioted violently at the Capitol. This must be condemned out of hand.
Trump finally apologised, condemned the riots in his name and accepted the election result. You would think that would end the politics of 6 January. It didn’t. The Democrats were so delighted with Trump’s day of shame, so ecstatic that he had finally done the big wrong thing they had been hoping for for four years, that they now want to impeach him for the second time (the first time revealed it was they not Trump who were guilty of deceit and conspiracy). The joy of Nancy Pelosi, the spiteful, snobbish Speaker of Congress, is sickening to behold as she struggles to contain her delight in announcing the second impeachment. Trump’s successes as president drove her mad with rage, and she wants revenge.
But the most sickening response to the storming of the Capitol came from an unexpected source. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian-born, a bodybuilder who became Mr Universe, a famous Hollywood actor who combined a cheerful, self-deprecating manner with a huge muscular body, and is a former Governor of California. Although nominally a Republican, he ruled California like a Democrat and contributed to its decline, so it is now lovely for billionaires and miserable for everybody else. Last weekend Schwarzenegger came out with a disgusting video claiming that 6 January 2021 under Trump was the same as Kristallnacht under Hitler in Germany on 9 November 1938.
I take this insult personally. Both of my parents risked their lives in World War II fighting Hitler’s National Socialists. I feel Schwarzenegger is spitting in their faces by trivialising the horror of Kristallnacht. If I were Jewish, I’d be far more insulted. Kristallnacht was a deliberate campaign by Hitler’s government to terrorise the Jewish community; it was a sort of prelude to the Holocaust. Jewish businesses and homes were attacked and destroyed, the broken glass everywhere becoming the symbol of the “Crystal Night”. The 6th of January 2021 cannot be compared with it: it was a one-day riot that killed five people, and then ended, with Trump eventually condemning it, with no final damage to civil order, and absolutely no threat to any racial or minority group.
The 6th of January 2021 has caused permanent damage to the reputation of Donald Trump. It has destroyed the integrity of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend