Berl Falbaum
In his first press conference since being re-elected November 5, President-elect Donald Trump observed: “The first time everyone was fighting me. This time everyone wants to be my friend.”
Indeed, he may have to expand the parking lot at Mar-a-Lago to make room for all the billionaires and media people visiting his estate to make “nice-nice” with him.
And it probably won’t be long before we see Bret Stephens, one of The New York Times opinion writers, paying his respects at the Florida mansion.
For nine years, Stephens was a “Never Trumper,” but he has experienced a conversion and joins dozens of Republicans who castigated Trump but now embrace him with open arms.
In explaining his turn-around, Stephens wrote an essay in which he tells us how he has come to see the light. Never have I read anything so…. (my editors told me to be kind and not characterize his explanations). So, instead, let’s just examine some of Stephens’ pearls.
• He begins by asking: “Could his (Trump’s) second term be as bad as his most fervent critics fear?” He answered “yes” it could, but then follows up with the following question: “Is it time to drop the heavy moralizing and incessant doomsaying that typified so much of the Never Trumper movement…” He answered “yes” to that as well, leaving me, for one, totally confused. If the answer is “yes” to the first part, the second response must be, logically, “no.”
• “Trump is dishonest but authentic.” Stephens really wrote that. So, what’s to complain? Al Capone was an authentically dishonest organized crime boss. I wonder if Trump likes being labeled authentically dishonest vs. inauthentically dishonest. Does it really make a difference? If you are inauthentically dishonest, you are still dishonest. However, inauthentically, of course, may be worse. (I know I am beating a dead horse, but it gives me so much authentic fun.)
• The (Trump) movement is “patriotic” and angry. Yes, he wrote that as well. It is patriotic to attack the Capitol, threaten to hang the vice president, execute the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, describe the fallen in wars “suckers and losers,” create fake electors to overturn the 2024 election, and so much more.
• Stephens finds it hypocritical to investigate Trump’s business dealings while ignoring the “curiously high prices for [Hunter] Biden’s paintings.” Stephens sees no distinction in that comparison. He gets paid — very well we can assume — for that kind of analysis. Okay, we’ll help Stephens understand the difference: No one has to buy Biden’s paintings. On the other hand, real estate fraud — some $465 million worth, according to a judge in one case — is, shall we say, illegal, immoral, and unethical.
• Stephens argues that collusion allegations involving Russia were a smear, but he omits the findings of Russian interference in the 2016 election, interference found not just by the Mueller Report but by a Senate committee controlled by Republicans. Moreover, collusion is very difficult to prove in any crime.
• Stephens writes that he voted for Kamala Harris because of January 6 and Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, but now apparently no longer considers these matters important because, “it’s that ordinary people, not elites (he apparently considers himself one of them) get to decide how important an event like January 6 is to them.”
• Stephens also now believes that “some of our institutions, whether it’s higher education or the F.B.I. are already broken and may need to be reconceived or replaced.” But he does not offer one word on the disfunction of these institutions.
• Stephens does not mention the two impeachments, the 88 charges Trump faced in four criminal cases (he was found guilty of 34 felonies), the former president’s embrace of white supremacists, the 30,573 provable lies Trump told while president, his continued incitement of violence against perceived political enemies, or all the sins, over nine years, that made Stephens a Never Trumper.
• He urges us to give some of Trump’s cabinet picks the “benefit of the doubt.” Who has any doubts about Pam Bondi, an election denier who defended Trump in an impeachment trial, becoming attorney general, or Kash Patel, another election denier and Trump loyalist, F.B.I. director, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine advocate who was disowned by the entire Kennedy family, heading the Department of Health and Human Services. I don’t have any doubts about them at all.
Perhaps Stephens could have shared a taxi with Joe Scarborough and his wife, Mika Brzezinski, both hosts of “Morning Joe,” who after years of criticizing Trump, visited Mar-a-Lago to patch things up with the incoming president.
All this comes from the writer who at the end of 2017, Trump’s first year as president, said the following about Trump:
“[You want] want to preserve your own republican institutions? Then pay attention to the character of your leaders, the culture of governance and the political health of the public. It matters a lot more than lowering the top marginal income tax rate by a couple of
percentage points.
“This is the fatal mistake of conservatives who’ve decided the best way to deal with Trump’s personality — the lying, narcissism, bullying, bigotry, crassness, name calling, ignorance, paranoia, incompetence and pettiness — is to pretend it doesn’t matter. ‘Character Doesn’t Count’ has become a de facto G.O.P. motto. ‘Virtue Doesn’t Matter’ might be another.
“But character does count, and virtue does matter, and Trump’s shortcomings prove it daily.”
And here is what he wrote October 29, just six days before the November election and only some 50 days before his political U-turn last week:
“Trump is worse [than Kamala Harris] in ways that matter profoundly to the rule of law, the health of capitalism and the future of freedom at home and abroad. Conservatives who claim to care about these things should also care about what Trump may do to each of them — and, crucially, do so in the name of conservatism.”
In the conclusion of his recent “conversion” piece, Stephens also asks us to drop “lurid historical comparisons to past dictators,” turning on its head the warning of American philosopher George Santayana who advised us that “those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We can be pretty confident no one will ever quote Stephens on the importance of history.
Indeed, he may have to expand the parking lot at Mar-a-Lago to make room for all the billionaires and media people visiting his estate to make “nice-nice” with him.
And it probably won’t be long before we see Bret Stephens, one of The New York Times opinion writers, paying his respects at the Florida mansion.
For nine years, Stephens was a “Never Trumper,” but he has experienced a conversion and joins dozens of Republicans who castigated Trump but now embrace him with open arms.
In explaining his turn-around, Stephens wrote an essay in which he tells us how he has come to see the light. Never have I read anything so…. (my editors told me to be kind and not characterize his explanations). So, instead, let’s just examine some of Stephens’ pearls.
• He begins by asking: “Could his (Trump’s) second term be as bad as his most fervent critics fear?” He answered “yes” it could, but then follows up with the following question: “Is it time to drop the heavy moralizing and incessant doomsaying that typified so much of the Never Trumper movement…” He answered “yes” to that as well, leaving me, for one, totally confused. If the answer is “yes” to the first part, the second response must be, logically, “no.”
• “Trump is dishonest but authentic.” Stephens really wrote that. So, what’s to complain? Al Capone was an authentically dishonest organized crime boss. I wonder if Trump likes being labeled authentically dishonest vs. inauthentically dishonest. Does it really make a difference? If you are inauthentically dishonest, you are still dishonest. However, inauthentically, of course, may be worse. (I know I am beating a dead horse, but it gives me so much authentic fun.)
• The (Trump) movement is “patriotic” and angry. Yes, he wrote that as well. It is patriotic to attack the Capitol, threaten to hang the vice president, execute the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, describe the fallen in wars “suckers and losers,” create fake electors to overturn the 2024 election, and so much more.
• Stephens finds it hypocritical to investigate Trump’s business dealings while ignoring the “curiously high prices for [Hunter] Biden’s paintings.” Stephens sees no distinction in that comparison. He gets paid — very well we can assume — for that kind of analysis. Okay, we’ll help Stephens understand the difference: No one has to buy Biden’s paintings. On the other hand, real estate fraud — some $465 million worth, according to a judge in one case — is, shall we say, illegal, immoral, and unethical.
• Stephens argues that collusion allegations involving Russia were a smear, but he omits the findings of Russian interference in the 2016 election, interference found not just by the Mueller Report but by a Senate committee controlled by Republicans. Moreover, collusion is very difficult to prove in any crime.
• Stephens writes that he voted for Kamala Harris because of January 6 and Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, but now apparently no longer considers these matters important because, “it’s that ordinary people, not elites (he apparently considers himself one of them) get to decide how important an event like January 6 is to them.”
• Stephens also now believes that “some of our institutions, whether it’s higher education or the F.B.I. are already broken and may need to be reconceived or replaced.” But he does not offer one word on the disfunction of these institutions.
• Stephens does not mention the two impeachments, the 88 charges Trump faced in four criminal cases (he was found guilty of 34 felonies), the former president’s embrace of white supremacists, the 30,573 provable lies Trump told while president, his continued incitement of violence against perceived political enemies, or all the sins, over nine years, that made Stephens a Never Trumper.
• He urges us to give some of Trump’s cabinet picks the “benefit of the doubt.” Who has any doubts about Pam Bondi, an election denier who defended Trump in an impeachment trial, becoming attorney general, or Kash Patel, another election denier and Trump loyalist, F.B.I. director, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine advocate who was disowned by the entire Kennedy family, heading the Department of Health and Human Services. I don’t have any doubts about them at all.
Perhaps Stephens could have shared a taxi with Joe Scarborough and his wife, Mika Brzezinski, both hosts of “Morning Joe,” who after years of criticizing Trump, visited Mar-a-Lago to patch things up with the incoming president.
All this comes from the writer who at the end of 2017, Trump’s first year as president, said the following about Trump:
“[You want] want to preserve your own republican institutions? Then pay attention to the character of your leaders, the culture of governance and the political health of the public. It matters a lot more than lowering the top marginal income tax rate by a couple of
percentage points.
“This is the fatal mistake of conservatives who’ve decided the best way to deal with Trump’s personality — the lying, narcissism, bullying, bigotry, crassness, name calling, ignorance, paranoia, incompetence and pettiness — is to pretend it doesn’t matter. ‘Character Doesn’t Count’ has become a de facto G.O.P. motto. ‘Virtue Doesn’t Matter’ might be another.
“But character does count, and virtue does matter, and Trump’s shortcomings prove it daily.”
And here is what he wrote October 29, just six days before the November election and only some 50 days before his political U-turn last week:
“Trump is worse [than Kamala Harris] in ways that matter profoundly to the rule of law, the health of capitalism and the future of freedom at home and abroad. Conservatives who claim to care about these things should also care about what Trump may do to each of them — and, crucially, do so in the name of conservatism.”
In the conclusion of his recent “conversion” piece, Stephens also asks us to drop “lurid historical comparisons to past dictators,” turning on its head the warning of American philosopher George Santayana who advised us that “those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We can be pretty confident no one will ever quote Stephens on the importance of history.
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