Crazed Partisan Zealotry
Francis Menton, aka the Manhattan Contrarian, was shocked. Shocked! He picked up his copy of the NYT last week off his front stoop. And to him it looked as though NYT had crossed over to the dark side and endorsed Donald J. Trump.
The entire central portion of page 1, covering three of six columns on the top half of the front page, contains what appears to be a huge free ad for Trump for President.
At the Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton includes a photo of the newspaper. As you’ll note, the type is much larger than the norm and there is double spacing between lines along with plenty of boldface.
The Times headline is “If Donald J. Trump wins, he is ready to radically reshape American government from the moment he regains the White House.” (The online version of this piece has a different headline (“If Trump Wins”) and does not include the summary in the photograph above.)
The brilliant editors were probably not thinking this huge article would be viewed as an effective campaign ad for Trump. Clearly, reasons Francis Menton, the NYT editors intended it as a harsh, definitive and irrefutable take down — the final driving of the stake through the heart of this nocturnal monster.
Let’s Start at the Beginning
As Mr. Menton notes, it sure looks like the editors are making a lot of effective arguments to vote for Trump.
NYT:
Trump has said he intends to expand presidential power by bringing independent agencies under his direction . . . .
Francis Menton:
That’s just another way of saying that Trump intends to operate the federal government in accordance with the Constitution, notably the principle that “The executive Power [of the U.S. government] shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”? That quote is the first line of Article II of the Constitution.
The Constitution contains no other grant of executive power. If the so-called “independent” agencies (examples include the SEC, FTC, FCC, CFTC, and many others) decline to follow the direction of the elected President, then they are acting contrary to the Constitution and undermining democracy. (For more background on how the “independent” agencies slipped the bounds of the Constitution, see my post on the subject from way back in 2016 here.)
NYT: . . . stripping employment protection from civil servants and purging officials from security agencies . . .
Francis Manton:
Civil servants who decline to follow the direction of the elected President are equally acting in defiance of Article II Section 1 of the Constitution, and of their oath to uphold the Constitution. The violation of oaths was particularly egregious within the security agencies during the first Trump term. Whichever candidate a voter may be favoring, I would hope the voter would expect the civil servants to honor the wishes of the voters and follow the directions of whoever gets elected.
Of course civil servants who violate their oaths of office should be fired. So-called “civil service” protections date from a more innocent era (1880s) when naive good government types thought that the government could just be staffed by neutral and non-political “experts.” Today that has morphed into a system of a huge bureaucracy of 90+% Democrats who think they are entitled to work full-time to undermine all efforts of an elected Republican to change direction of the ship of state. I have confidence that today’s Supreme Court will uphold the ability of the President to fire civil servants who are actively working to undermine him.
Don’t worry. While that issue gets litigated, the Manhattan Contrarian will remain busy, endorsing this proposal of Steven Hayward:
“Trump ought to have his cabinet officials determine who is useless or obstructive and order them to work from home. Then cut off their email and access to department computer servers the next day.”
NYT: . . . Trump has said he would direct the Justice Department to prosecute his political adversaries, including President Biden and others he perceives as his enemies. . . .
Francis Menton:
The Times seems to think that such prosecutions would be a huge break from norms and are a signal reason to hate Trump. In the real world, of which the Times seems completely unaware, the norm has already been broken by Biden’s multiple prosecutions of none other than Trump. Harris would with 100% certainty continue those prosecutions should she win.
Meanwhile, Trump is unlikely to prosecute Biden, both because it would be a distraction, and because his own recent Supreme Court victory undermines the basis for any such prosecution. And Trump did not prosecute Hillary Clinton after defeating her, despite ample basis to do so. So, if you think that prosecutions of political adversaries are a bad idea, clearly Trump is your candidate.
NYT: . . . Trump plans a drastic crackdown on immigration . . .
Francis Menton: Thank you, NYT, for making that clear. Polls seem to indicate that out-of-control illegal immigration is among the top issues of concern to the voters.
And those are just from the first few lines of the front-page summary of this big article. As you continue reading, you’ll read more reasons to vote for Trump. Here are just a handful of examples from the rest of the article:
- “Push for other countries to take would-be asylum seekers from the United States.”
- “[H]e has pledged to rein in regulatory agencies.”
- “If he retakes the White House, Mr. Trump would be in a far better position to dismantle environmental and climate rules.”
- “Mr. Trump . . . is offering his audiences bespoke tax cuts. For restaurant and hotel employees in Nevada . . . Mr. Trump offered ‘no taxes on tips.’ For the retired Americans who vote in great numbers, he said he would end taxes on Social Security benefits. . . .”
The Manhattan Contrarian is awaiting comparable NYT write-ups on contrary campaign positions of Kamala Harris.
Played for Chumps
Try as they will to spin Harris’s positions favorably to her, the NYT, like all of us voters, first must figure out what Kamala’s positions are. Who is Kamala Harris, and what are her policies? Why didn’t Harris level with the American people about Joe Biden’s cognitive collapse? Harris was a tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which threw gobs of money on green gravy. Harris also co-sponsored the Green New Deal as well as Bernie Sanders’s 2017 Medicare for All Act.
Reports Matthew Continetti in NRO:
Harris and Trump are effectively tied in the RealClearPolitics average, with Harris at 48.7 percent and Trump at 48.5 percent nationwide. Trump is ahead in the RealClear averages of the seven swing states, but often by less than a point. His largest lead is in Georgia. It’s 2.2 percent.
Mr. Menton wishes readers good luck coming up with anything prior to the election.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.