In the mid-1970s, our family lived in northern New Jersey, not far from New York City. Like millions, I woke up every morning to the clock radio (there was no Alexa in those days), caught a bit of news and — more importantly for us commuters — the day’s weather forecast. In that area, by far the most entertaining and accurate NYC radio weather forecaster was a guy known as Dr. Bob. (I can’t recall his surname).
Then, one day, the scandal: a skeptical listener poked into Dr. Bob’s educational background and uncovered the ugly truth: Dr. Bob, our go-to meteorology expert, was a phony — he did not have a PhD as claimed, and in fact he’d never even attended college! His embarrassed radio station employer immediately gave him the boot.
Within about 24 hours, a rival NYC radio station had hired him and put out a blizzard of advertising with the great news that their morning broadcast crew had been joined by none other than “just plain Bob”! He stayed with the new outfit for years, popular as ever.
The moral of the story: titles don’t make any difference. Call him whatever you like — we listeners knew Dr. Bob (as we now know Donald Trump), and we would decide if we like him or not.
Fast-forward to today. We have a president who is arguably the most high visibility public figure ever to hold that position — and we can’t decide whether we like him or we hate him, whether he’s the savior of our troubled country or a wannabe monarch — or maybe even a reincarnated Adolf Hitler.
This past week, glued to our TV sets, we watched in real time the stunning breakthrough in the horrendous Hamas/Israeli war — the release of all of the living Hamas-held hostages that until that moment had seemed an impossibility. We watched with pride as the American president took the lead in brokering an end to that ongoing brutality. He crafted a peace agreement, applied pressure to both sides, gathered together the disparate and famously uncooperative Middle East powers and convinced them to unify in support of it.
It’s just the start, there are more daunting hurdles ahead for sure, but Trump’s achievement was a triumph, nothing less, and it was met with worldwide acclaim.
I keep thinking that, sooner or later, even the avowed Trump-haters among us might acknowledge that not everything he does is bad. No such luck. Instead, just five days later, we watched a second “No Kings” event, coordinated anti-Trump protests being held in 2,700 cities coast-to-coast, with attendance reportedly in the millions.
There is some logic to the “No Kings” theme. Trump’s presidency is the polar opposite of that of his low energy predecessor. Trump is a whirlwind, hitting every problem in sight (and then a few), always driving for immediate results, unwilling to wait patiently for the ice to thaw between political opponents. Democrats call it authoritarian, but I’d argue that his aggressive fix-it-now approach is exactly why we elected him and shouldn’t surprise anyone.
As the timely case in point, it should be obvious to all that Trump’s progress in ending the Middle East conflict could never have happened under a Joe Biden or a Kamala Harris administration. Zero chance.
But the grand No Kings protest ignored that completely. In fact, it wasn’t really a protest at all — it was more like a well-funded, very expensive advertising campaign (think Super Bowl), with a simple message: We should all detest the president and oppose everything he does. It wasn’t about kings or dictatorships and certainly was not about democracy. It was about Democrats returning to political power, nothing more.
The broad view: Donald Trump is well on the way to becoming the most consequential president in my lifetime (I’m discounting FDR — I was one-year-old when he died) and arguably one of the most consequential in American history.
In nine rapid-fire months Trump and his administration have re-secured our borders, refocused our military, rejuvenated our energy supply, interdicted drug trafficking, recalibrated environmental protection (no more more trillions on climate change fantasy), and taken on knotty social issues. On the international front, Trump has taken a lead role in stopping wars worldwide, brokered the first critical step in Middle East stability, neutered Iran, and he is relentlessly pursuing an end to the Ukraine/Russia war and trying to build an economically constructive relationship with China.
All are works in progress, none is perfect, and some are controversial — but there is no denying the intensity, scope and impact of Trump’s presidency. He’s doing what we hired him to do.
At the same time, there is a broad swath of American citizenry, the political left, intent on ensuring that he remains the most reviled president in our history, and actively recruiting converts to their hate-Trump camp.
Hating Trump is not a policy and it’s not a viable political strategy. On the contrary, it is the most inherently divisive political posture imaginable. Democrats, if you’ve got a better path, and credible leaders who could actually take us on that path, make your case. Show us. In the meantime, stop pushing the Trump hatred, and stop trying to convince us that he’s bad for our country.
It’s like Dr. Bob on morning radio. Donald Trump is who he is. We know him.
