Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said chaos tends to follow former President Donald Trump wherever he goes.
That seems to be true.
But to my knowledge, Haley hasn’t addressed the nascence of the chaos. In other words, who starts it? Trump or his critics?
I believe a strong case could be made it largely begins with his detractors, which include Democrats, the news media, and even some “establishment” Republicans.
Think about when Trump became president. Democrats from the outset talked about impeaching him.
They followed that with claims he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. That turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by Democrats.
Democrats also carried out a phony impeachment related to a 2019 phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats charged Trump threatened to withhold U.S. military aid if Zelensky didn’t investigate possible corruption involving Joe and Hunter Biden dealings in the Ukraine.
A transcript of the conversation showed no such threat was made. Even Zelensky reportedly said about the call “nobody pushed me” and that it was “normal.”
Then, there’s the news media. Remember how rude and disrespectful some journalists were at times with Trump?
And note this statement from a Media Research Center report, cited in an Investor’s Business Daily article from years ago:
“Over the summer, the broadcast networks have continued to pound Donald Trump and his team with the most hostile coverage of a president in TV news history — 92% negative vs. just 8% positive.”
Karl Rove, an official in the George W. Bush administration, once said if “they” had to do over again, they would have pushed back against unfair political attacks.
In my opinion, there are times Trump should limit his responses and social media posts. I don’t like his name-calling of opponents either.
But he’s great at giving Democrats and the media a taste of their own medicine, something they obviously detest.
More Republican leaders today should, as Rove urged, push back. And the way to push back effectively is to bring truth to the American people, and lots of it!
Jeff L. Reed
Ashland, Ohio