Any Dem Who Tells You Trump Divided the Country
https://www.wsj.com/articles/good-riddance-to-the-resistance-11604946702 Good Riddance to the ‘Resistance’ Jubilant crowds danced for joy in front of stores that were boarded up in case their side lost. It’s a time to heal, Joe Biden told the nation on Saturday night. “To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.” Mr. Biden, as we well know, is of good Irish Catholic stock, his speeches sprinkled with the emerald argot of his heritage, a lush, hibernian wordscape of shenanigans and malarkey. But he’s an ecumenical sort too, so I know he’ll forgive a little cultural dissonance when I say that this may be one of the finest examples of chutzpah in modern political rhetoric. For four years the bulk of his Democratic Party, a good deal of the permanent government and almost the entire cultural establishment of the country has treated the Trump presidency as an occupying enemy. Donald Trump’s election four years ago was not greeted with civic deference to the urgent primacy of national unity that is now demanded of him and his supporters. It was greeted with the formation of a “resistance,” a political insurgency that refused in practice, if not in formal fact, to accept the outcome of an election its candidate had lost. The members of this resistance spent four years using every lever at their disposal—bureaucracy, law enforcement, Congress, news media—to thwart, disrupt and try to bring down the duly elected president. In the past six months, the country descended into an abyss of pandemic-driven misery and social unrest. Like any good revolutionary movement, the resistance seized its moment. It launched a sustained, rolling campaign of disruptive demonstration and street violence, all dutifully enabled by Democrat-controlled city governments and all conveyed helpfully by a cooperative media as “peaceful protest.” If there’s a single image that captures the hollow hypocrisy of these pleas for unity and healing, it was one I witnessed on the streets of Manhattan on Saturday in the minutes after the television networks had anointed Mr. Biden president-elect: jubilant crowds dancing joyfully in front of stores that had been boarded up in advance of the election in case the result went the other way. It was a neat little tableau of the protection-racket ethos that has defined American politics for the last four years: Vote for us so we can dance and celebrate. Vote against us and we’ll burn down your business and steal your property. Given all this—the rank hypocrisy, the antidemocratic, extraconstitutional campaign waged against the Republicans—it’s understandable that they should be disinclined to take up Mr. Biden’s generous offer of national conciliation. It’s entirely understandable that Mr. Trump should feel cheated, inclined to fight on, to cast doubt and discredit on the election and the corrupted establishment that helped produce it. But they shouldn’t, and he shouldn’t. There are always good grounds for concern about the outcome of a close election. This year that concern is heightened by what can politely be described as the novel circumstances of the voting. It seems that Democratic officials and Democratic-appointed judges in the critical states used the pandemic as an opportunity to bend rules and decades-long norms of voting procedures to maximize turnout in ways that doubtless favored their party. But it’s one thing to harbor suspicions. It is another to prove to a legal standard fraud or malpractice on a scale that would overturn enough votes to wipe out a margin in the tens of thousands. Denouncing the official election results in all-caps tweets or throwing out unsubstantiated accusations at news conferences is not the way to respond to a defeat. There’s another reason Republicans, even Mr. Trump, should resist the natural temptation to resist. They don’t need to. Assuming Republicans can snag at least one of the runoff elections in Georgia, a first-term president has been elected with a Senate controlled by the opposing party—only the third time that’s happened since voters began electing senators in 1914. Republicans also made substantial gains in the House and state legislatures. The election was a clear repudiation of the progressive agenda for which Democrats had sought affirmation. At the same time it showed the contours of a new Republican coalition, built on widening support among diverse demographic groups and lined up in support of a new populist conservatism pioneered by Mr. Trump. If the president wants to, he could be back again to lead it. Above all, perhaps, the result suggests the American genius for making pluralism work is undiminished even in these angry, contentious times. President-elect Biden’s success seems mainly to have been the result of dissatisfaction with the president’s performance, especially on the pandemic. Voters did not regard Mr. Trump as illegitimate, and they didn’t reward the “resistance” by punishing Republicans down the ballot. That should be a lesson for Mr. Trump, his understandably disgruntled supporters, and all Americans.
WSJ
can you paste the text? otherwise kinda spammy due to paywall james mattis also said trump tries to divide ppl. but for me it's the extreme leftists such as kamala that polarized me
I think Trump panders to his target audience, which more extreme Democrats don’t like. He also trolls and the media just depicts him as lying, not saying he doesn’t lie but oftentimes their examples of his lies are hyperbolic statements.
You done crying yet?
Didn’t read it did you?
I agree OP. I disagree with some of the stuff the GOP does, but the left has become a breeding ground of hatred and hypocrisy. There's no reasoning with a lot of these people unfortunately. The media only serves to validate their thinking that anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy and a "traitor" and should be treated as such. There are right extremists who certainly do the same thing but the difference is its become normalized by the media and mainstream society when the left does it and that's a scary thing in my opinion.
As a moderate I agree with parts of this post, particularly that the far left agenda of some elected democrats is concerning for the country and that republicans will continue to dominate congress as things move along. However, the updated voting rules for this election did not favor democratic turnout - they favored turnout among all voters during a pandemic. There only ended up with more democratic mail in votes because Trump said 'dont vote by mail'. As someone who doesn't support Trump and believes he represents everything that is corrupt about our society, I also find biden's 'lets heal' rhetoric annoying. Let's be honest about dancing on trump's soon to be political grave.
By every lengthy quiz I’ve taken I’ve come out as a centrist leaning libertarian but I find myself strongly identifying more with Republican Party. I don’t think the intent of new voting standards was to favor Democrats. I think it does favor Democrats a little just bc very generally speaking Democrats would be more afraid of voting in-person with COVID and are looking more for the new trendy thing to do more than Republicans, think that’s a compliment if anything. I can’t stand to hear the hypocritical speeches about uniting the country. While I agree with the sentiment it’s like a young child throwing a tantrum who finally gets his way and takes moral high ground. It’s mystifying how some Democrats can’t reflect on some of their own antagonistic behavior over the last 4 years and take responsibility for their part in destabilizing the country. The only silver lining that I had thought about before seeing this piece was how more and more people aren’t buying into more of the far left’s agenda and I was happy to see that with how voting turned out.
This is not new, Obama lived to something similar, even in scale. W. Bush as well to a lot lesser degree. I was not paying attention to what was happening to the US prior that, so this might be how things always worked.
I remember Obama did but it was a little more tame due to less voice given to radicals. I remember hearing mumblings about how Obama was born in Kenya still but back then if you seriously believed that on either side you’re seen as crazy. Bush got slammed a little but part of that was his own fault for caving in I think the transition from Bush -> Obama -> Trump -> Biden shows how things have progressively gotten worse with disinformation and the ability to just make stuff up and run with it.
The first BLM protest started under Obama, they were less violent, mostly because everyone had hope then that something would be done. I think the main difference is that both Obama and Bush were better at managing the dissent, selecting when to ignore, mock and open dialog channels. It also helps that they were not reacting on real time to the latest memes via Twitter.
"It seems that Democratic officials and Democratic-appointed judges in the critical states used the pandemic as an opportunity to bend rules and decades-long norms of voting procedures to maximize turnout in ways that doubtless favored their party." Ugh, give me a break. If "making it easier to vote" is "bending the rules", sign me up. This was the first year I voted by mail - It was totally painless. Making voting easier is something everyone should support. You can still make it secure, something that people always fail to remember when talking about mail in voting. As far as the "the left is mean to Trump" rhetoric goes, ask yourself why Bush didn't get the same screeching at the time? Don't get me wrong, he had plenty of critics, but Bush acted like a human being and didn't take every moment as an opportunity to antagonize his opponents - Something that Trump spends nearly every other tweet on. Being president of this country is about more than what policies you enact. It's about being a good role model and unifying the people. It's something Trump failed to do in his 4 years as president.
I think he is a role model in many ways and the Democrats wish they had a rockstar like Trump so they didn’t have to settle for Joe, the only reason Dems nominated Joe is bc they knew if they put anybody further left up they’d lose. Bush was a pushover patsy. Not saying he wasn’t a likable guy but the left preferred Bush bc he caved more to Democrats. I’m not denying trump antagonizes, just the hypocrisy of blaming tensions on Trump. Trump has mostly been ridiculed for taking strong stances against left that only grows further left. Democrats would lie, cheat, steal, etc to get Trump out of office and I don’t see anything inherently wrong with that, all part of the game, except they then turn around and act like they’re doing it all to get Hitler reincarnated out of office, and now that he’s out we’re all good.
Come on, Boeing. It is true that i wish that we had a better candidate but never Trump or anyone like him. I'm not a fan of Republicans or whatever they call themselves these days, but the last thing that we need is a divisive piece of sh*t tweeting nonsense all day. Biden is not amazing but at least he bears some semblance or normalcy.
Omg. This is completely delusional. Article and your arguments. 🙄
Gerard Baker is a moron and a hack. Who cares what he has to say?
One of the most respected news papers in the country that is known for being politically unbiased overall
The opinion section of every newspaper is biased it’s literally composed of opinions selected by an editorial board. The WSJ is widely considered to lean right outside of their news reporting and there’s nothing wrong with that for an opinion section. But, as a long time reader of the WSJ opinion sections I can confidently say that Mr. Baker is a hack just like many other opinion writers at other papers.