I made this myself to make the Trump Russia collusion ‘news’ cycle more entertaining. Enjoy this Trump Russia BINGO card. Fill in a square whenever that event happens..

By Dean L

Monday I posted about the perils of disengagement and then promptly followed it up yesterday by not posting anything.  Oops.  I haven’t been thinking much about the day-to-day ups and downs of the Trump presidency to be honest.  It’s not that I’m disinterested or no longer have thoughts on that, but rather, I believe things have generally started moving in the right direction and away from a national suicide that Democrats (a.k.a. socialists) have been pushing or trying to push the nation in for the better part of 7 decades. In that light, watching a day to day scoreboard on president Trump is not only going to imbue conservatives with a depressed enthusiasm, it sews the seeds for continued long term defeat because we are focused on minutiae rather than the big picture.

President Reagan reversed course on it in highly successful fashion and president Trump will ultimately do the same during his tenure.  But day in and day out, with a radically hostile media (both the press and Hollywood) it’s not going to be a pretty ride.  The fact that there is so much corruption and things requiring overhauling it was going to be a bumpy ride anyway.  But the culture war has been ratcheted up to 11 by the left and Donald Trump’s successes will be ugly at best.  I don’t care frankly.  Winning ugly is still winning.

President Trump deserves the patience of those who supported him because it’s just not possible to get a win every day of his tenure. Much of what he accomplishes will take time and those who voted for him will, for the most part, understand that.  As long as the compass is pointed in the right direction, things will resolve well for America.  

All that said, it does not mean that I am turning my back on commenting on the day to day happenings as they transpire.  However, the election has allowed us on the right to be freed up from that i9n large part to concentrate on bigger picture items – like how to win the culture war in which we are being soundly thrashed by the left and their twin cudgels of the public education system and the mainstream media (near) monopoly.

We cannot win the future if we have teachers force-feeding students rants on assassinating president Trump, global warming hyperbole, anti-vaccination tripe, and literal garbage about which bathrooms people should be allowed to use.  Those things cannot replace math, science, civics, grammar, spelling, geography and history – or rather, should not replace those things.    Liberals will argue they are simply augmenting those things, but global warming inserted into educational doctrine is not augmenting but twisting the learning process towards a specific agenda.

Progressive liberals view education as a highly necessary tool in winning the culture war.  Centralized education further enables them to control the agenda on learning indoctrination.  This is what we have been given breathing room to think about.  Conservatives no longer need to be reactive to an Obama agenda, but rather we have time to be forward thinking on issues like this.  The stealth win for conservatives might be the Betsy DeVos appointment by president Trump.  Time will tell if she lives up to the progressive liberal panic, but let’s hope she does.  But the process of contravening a liberal indoctrination culture will require more than one person, one presidency and one term.  It’s going to take an ongoing effort and an institutional foundation and a systematic repeatable approach that requires constant vigilance and upkeep.

Then there’s the mainstream media.  There’s no FCC appointment or Executive Order that will change the mainstream media from collective far left groupthink. This will require more thought and with millions of conservative bloggers, I believe it’s the type of problem we should devote some of our brainpower towards solving.  We need to get out in front of the mainstream media and find ways to bypass or subvert their stranglehold on what’s considered acceptable and right in Western culture.  This is a long term problem requiring a long term sustainable solution.  In the short term we need to ensure that we continue to dilute their distortions on every issue and every move by president Trump, yes.  There’s venues for that like Fox News or Drudge, or Breitbart. There’s also of course conservative bloggers who can continue to shine a light on the treacherous nature of a highly partisan media.  But let’s not only fight the short term battles; let’s think longer term and try to create a foundation for sustained common sense.

Dean L

Donald Trump has been president for less than two weeks and the opposition – the media and the Democrats – have tried every way to gin up opposition to every single thing he has done. For the most part he has been immune to the pushback.  He wants to be president for all Americans, whether they are political opposition or not.  But with the Obama-administration-driven partial, temporary immigration ban he is facing a mock firestorm of opposition.

This is a fire that is easily put out by a factual rebuttal of the histrionics involved.  Yes, this was done far less smoothly than other president Trump executive orders and it is definitely a learning opportunity for the neophyte administration (not a teachable moment – a phrase I detest and thankfully one that will slowly fade with it’s principal, former president Obama).  President Trump wants progress and he wants it quickly.  There’s a happy medium to be found between speed and forethought.  That balance has yet to be fully realized. 

Nevertheless, there is another learning opportunity at work here that president Trump has already realized – he is going to shift the conversation quickly away from the awkwardness to which the media is now bitterly clinging and towards his next action – his SCOTUS nominee.  The immigration firestorm will fade as the facts about the Obama actions that led to this limited ban become more and more of the conversation.  Shifting the conversation to new ground is an quick win, and president Trump knows it.

What is less clear is whether president is going to double down by selecting Neil Gorsuch over Thomas Hardiman as his first nominee. Gorsuch is better nominee as a rock solid conservative.  Hardiman is likely a good choice but less so.  The advantage towards Hardiman is he is likely to be more easily confirmed than Gorsuch, less likely to face a filibuster.

Indications are that Trump is leaning towards Hardiman.

But here’s the thing – if Trump does appoint the less conservative nominee it will look to supporters and foes alike that he’s buckled.  That will embolden his political enemies that he was able to crack so easily and disenfranchise his supporters that he isn’t going to drain the swamp and instead caved at the first sign of trouble.

You can’t drain the swamp without facing stiff resistance.  Fierce resistance is to be expected throughout the Trump presidency regardless of what he does right now.  So why buckle? Instead president Trump should continue to be bold, very bold.  Maybe even bolder than Gorsuch like surprising everyone by pivoting back to William H Pryor. 

Why?  In addition to agitating his political foes to the point of apoplexia, heartening his supporters, he will be sending a signal that he’s made of sterner stuff than his predecessor – domestically as well as abroad.  And that’s an important point to establish early.  If the president is the dealmaker-in-chief the last thing he needs to do is inform those he will be dealing with that he’s sitting at the table in a position of weakness (i.e. that he can be pushed around).  If Mexico or Russia or China see president Trump as negotiator Obama 2.0 this is going to be a slow, painful and unproductive four years for the president.

Furthermore, president Trump would avoid the nepotistic charges that he’s listening to his sister on Hardiman.  Fiercely independent and not willing to give the media the ammunition to strike at his nominee on the grounds of their choosing. 

And should a Trump nominee face a filibuster, let’s get that done now rather than wait and face a more fierce, organized opposition from Democrats in a few years with a second nominee that might not even come during president Trump’s first term.

President Trump was elected to clean up Washington.  Now is the time to go big or go home – literally – because tomorrow will be too late when all the momentum is gone.  It’s the reason the left is trying so hard with the fierce urgency of now to stop Trump in his tracks before he even gets started.  Hopefully president Trump sees that and acts accordingly.