Mark Latham: Leftist media trying to bring Donald Trump down, and failing
EVER since Donald Trump became President, the Leftist media have tried everything to bring him down, says Mark Latham.
Opinion
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IN watching the evening news, I still feel stunned at the sight of Donald Trump striding the world as President of the United States.
Who would have thought?
It must have been a miracle — defeating the might of the mainstream media, the Washington elites and the Clinton campaign machine to hold the most powerful position in politics.
If, as a Trump supporter, I’m still processing the enormity of his achievement, how then must his enemies feel?
For them, the sight of a larrikin male property developer in the Oval Office must be the equivalent of water torture.
Their teeth grating, their fists clenched in white-knuckle fury, they start each day hoping for an assassin’s bullet and, if that doesn’t arrive, they are conjuring up new fantasies of impeachment.
As the kooky Madonna admitted during the Women’s March in January, “I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House”.
There is nothing rational about Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The elites can’t live with the idea of a knock-around guy, a white straight man, occupying the office held by their hero Barack Obama and, up until November 8, seemingly gifted to their heroine Hillary Clinton.
Obama was a lacklustre president, but at least the inner-city luvvies could console themselves that he was black.
Clinton would have been no more effective, but the Madonna types would have idolised her solely for her gender.
This is what left-wing identity politics has become today: a vacuous jamboree cheering on skin colour and genitalia.
At least in Trump, a real-life personality holds the presidency — complex, multi-layered and endlessly interesting.
For years, journalists have been attacking politicians for being too scripted and too predictable — too white bread.
Then a non-politician came along, a whirling dervish of New York brashness and pragmatism, and they attacked him even more.
The media’s default position is to label the new president as “insane”, “dangerous” and “sociopathic”.
But herein lies the true insanity.
By any fair assessment, Trump is one of the most successful individuals in US history.
He made himself a fortune in the world’s toughest property market — Manhattan.
He topped the ratings in the world’s toughest broadcasting market — American TV.
He defeated governors, senators, neurosurgeons and sons of presidents to win the Republican nomination.
He defeated the combined political might of Bill and Hillary Clinton to win what many thought was an unwinnable presidential election.
He has raised four adult children of whom any father would be proud.
Plus he’s married to Miss World!
What’s a guy got to do these days to be regarded as successful?
In the suburbs and regions of our country and his, who wouldn’t give their right arm to be Donald Trump?
So far, he has also been a good president — cutting taxes and business regulation, improving energy security, restoring his nation’s borders, taking a tough line against Islamic terrorism and striking the right balance with Russia and China.
There is no evidence of the Trump campaign or administration acting improperly in relation to Russia.
In fact, when he bombed a Syrian military base on April 6, most likely killing Russian personnel, Trump confirmed his independence as commander-in-chief.
On last week’s overseas trip, he represented his country well, advancing its interests at every stop.
He’s a leader largely free of ideology, an intensely practical man who loves getting things done.
Yet for the Left, he is the most hated and demonised man in history.
It’s now almost impossible to read anything on Trump in the Fairfax Media, ABC and The Guardian and take it seriously.
Their default position is click-bait hysteria about everything he does.
Most of it is from another planet, literally.
Writing last week in The Guardian, Van Badham suggested the “main characters (in the Trump family) were abducted by aliens”.
Even though she claims to be a feminist, Badham attacked Melania and Ivanka Trump as “some kind of pungent deodorant, perfumed with scents preferred by pussy-grabbers everywhere; violets, roses and coerced submission.”
Instead of praising the Trump women for promoting female freedom and dignity on their tour of the Middle East, she argued that women’s rights in the United States were no better than in Saudi Arabia — a country where only men can drive cars.
Ten days ago, Fairfax’s chief political reporter, Peter Hartcher, wrote that Vladimir Putin had created “utter chaos in Washington”.
He said the Russian leader had changed the result of the presidential election through the release of Wikileaks material that had “sent the FBI’s James Comey scurrying to reopen an investigation into (Hillary) Clinton.”
This is a rewriting of history.
In fact, the FBI reopened its investigation because Clinton’s emails had been found on the computer of a former congressman, the pervert Anthony Weiner.
It had nothing to do with Putin or Wikileaks.
Last week the ABC’s Media Watch presenter Paul Barry tweeted of how the “Trump impeachment process (might have) begun”.
He cited a US website claiming the Supreme Court had notified the President about “the formal process of a case of impeachment”.
The US Supreme Court has no role in initiating any such process.
This is not journalism, but a form of group therapy.
The same Trump haters who misled their readers for 18 months about his chances of becoming president are trying to justify their errors by pretending he won’t last 18 months into his new elected role.
Don’t believe a word they say.
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