PrintTrump Critics Need to Stop Complaining about 'Baggage'
The criticisms that some conservative critics of President Trump have is that he had too much "baggage."
The "baggage" is Trump's confrontational style, his "mean" social media posts, and the myriad "scandals" during his administration. They complain that Trump's "baggage" makes him impossible to defend. They complain that Trump often invites trouble.
In Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, they think they have their ideal candidate: someone who purportedly stands for the MAGA agenda but is devoid of "baggage."
So does the "baggage" make Trump a target?
The eminent thinker and military historian Victor David Hanson enumerated the "baggage" that President Trump doesn't have but the Democrats do.
1) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by destroying federally subpoenaed emails and devices in order to hide evidence.
2) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by sending classified government communications on her own, through an unsecured home-brewed server.
3) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by hiring a foreign national, who is prohibited from working on presidential campaigns, to compile a dossier to smear her presidential opponent.
4) Trump did not violate federal campaign laws, as did Hillary Clinton, by hiding her payments (as "legal services") to Christopher Steele through bookkeeping deceptions.
5) Trump did not, as did Bill Clinton, use a crony to search out a high-paying New York job for a paramour in order to influence her testimony before a special counsel.
6) Trump did not, as did Bill Clinton, receive a $500,000 "honorarium" for speaking in Moscow while his wife, our secretary of state, approved a longstanding and lucrative desire of the Kremlin for North American uranium to be sold to a Russian consortium.
7) Trump did not, as did Obama, promise Putin that he would be "flexible" on "missile defense" if during his own reelection bid Putin in return would give him "space". That quid pro quo arrangement led to the U.S. abandonment of key joint missile defense systems with Poland and the Czech Republic, and, reciprocally, less than two years later a Russian invasion, mostly unopposed by the United States, of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea.
8) Trump did not boast publicly, as did Joe Biden, that he used U.S. foreign aid monies as leverage to have the Ukrainian government fire a prosecutor who may have been looking into the Biden family's efforts to sell influence to corrupt Ukrainian interests.
9) Trump did not, as the Bidens did, set up a family consortium to leverage monies from Ukraine, Russia, and China, on their shared expectations that he might soon run for and be elected president and become compromised. Trump is not mentioned, as is Joe Biden, in family business communications as a recipient of a 10 percent commission on such payoffs.
10) Trump did not, unlike Biden, remove presidential papers—without any authority to declassify them—and leave them scattered and unsecured in a garage and various residences and offices.
11) Trump did not, as did private citizen and former Secretary of State John Kerry, meet clandestinely while out of the office with Iranian officials to help them resist current U.S. policy toward Iran—or what the Boston Globe characterized as "unusual shadow diplomacy" to "apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside.
12) Trump did not, unlike Biden patronizingly call Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
13) Trump did not, unlike Biden dismiss two black journalists, respectively with the putdowns "you ain't black" and "junkie."
14) Trump did not, unlike Biden refer to two prominent people of color as "boy."
If the "baggage" made them targets, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and others would have been targeted by the media, probed by agencies, and destroyed. Instead, they are lauded as model politicians and unifying figures.
So what makes Trump a target?
He won the presidential election in 2016, despite a sustained campaign of the establishment on various fronts. He won by standing against the establishment. He didn't crave approval from the establishment. He relished mocking the "saints" of the establishment for their hypocrisy and incompetence.
It was the first time in modern history that a candidate not endorsed by the establishment won the highest office in the country. It was the first time in modern history that a grassroots movement won the White House. Trump had made the Establishment appear irrelevant.
They feared that he might inspire others to repeat what he had accomplished. They now fear that he can win again in 2024 and, with the lessons he learned from his first term, could be much more effective as president.
This is what makes him a target of a sustained campaign by various government agencies. This is why he was baselessly impeached twice. This is why he was and continues to be probed. All of the probes are baseless, unprecedented, and gratuitous and would never have occurred if Trump didn't stand for the MAGA agenda.
The very people who are targeting Trump now once celebrated him. They willingly accepted his political contributions and his endorsements. They enjoyed being associated with the Trump brand. They wrote laudatory letters to him. They invited him to their parties.
The only reason the love turned to inconsolable rage and irrepressible hatred is that he is a challenger to their tyranny.
What were Trump's actions as president?
He secured the border. He withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, which was unfair to the U.S. He liberated nearly seven million people from food stamps. He renegotiated trade deals to benefit the U.S. He made the U.S. energy independent. He lowered drug prices for the first time in 51 years. He rebuilt the military. He added three conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Under Trump, inflation was low, and so was unemployment. Trump didn't start any wars abroad.
These achievements run against the D.C. establishment, whose primary goal is to enrich their cronies, including those in the military-industrial complex, and have a permanent underclass that is dependent on the government for their existence, which forms their voter base.
This is why Joe Biden immediately undid all of Trump's achievements.
Trump was one of those rare politicians whose net worth fell after joining politics.
If Ron DeSantis is a challenger to the D.C. establishment, he will be targeted. Like Trump, they will invent the "baggage" and use them to initiate probes that will push the perception of unprecedented guilt.
The establishment is never going to crouch down, apologize, and willingly dismantle itself following an electoral defeat. The battle to drain the swamp is always going to be prolonged, bitter, and dirty.
President Trump is targeted not because of his "baggage," but because he is a challenger to the status quo in D.C.
It is essential that the citizens who intend to restore order in the U.S. understand this.
