Wars Visible and Invisible

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Front Page Magazine

In mid-March, as America became the nation with the most cases of the coronavirus (if you trust the Chinese statistics), Trump declared himself “a wartime president,” fighting “an invisible enemy,” which he described as the most dangerous enemy of all.[1] But anyone paying attention to the political battlefield recently knows that there are actually two wars engulfing the country, posing dire threats to its future.

The second - visible - war was launched four years earlier by Democrats and their deep state allies to prevent Trump from being elected, then to sabotage his presidency through a vaunted “resistance,” and finally to remove him from office through several failed partisan impeachment attempts.

The first principal of psychological warfare is to attack the moral character and credibility of the adversary’s commander-in-chief. If their leader is convincingly portrayed as being driven by ulterior motives, which have nothing to do with the common good or winning the war, or worse as being a compulsive liar, he is effectively crippled in the task of mobilizing a united front in the war. Most people understand this, which is why there are so many calls for “unity” and working together in America’s current war with the invisible enemy.

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Wars Visible and Invisible, Part II

Trump’s task in leading the country’s defense against the coronavirus pandemic has been made immeasurably more difficult by the Democrats’ disloyal attempts to undermine its commander-in-chief at every turn. These attacks are summed up in the absurd caricature Democrats have created of the president as a “pathological liar,” a “narcissist uninterested in anything but himself,” and “out of control,” “incompetent,” “bigoted,” “anti-scientific,” and of course an anti-immigrant racist. And, therefore, a threat to national security rather than its guardian. These attacks have been carried to such extremes that perfectly sensible measures adopted by governments all over the world, such as closing borders, are characterized as “racist” when enacted by him – and carried out in a particularly advantageous fashion, such as his ban on travel from China within days of the virus being designated a global health emergency by the World Health Organization.

Since Trump is a leader who relies on his instincts, a bold risk taker who is willing to buck opposition from all sides if he feels his instincts are right, but is also ready to correct course if his instincts prove wrong, he is an exceptionally easy target for hostile critics. He is particularly vulnerable in the midst of a crisis which calls for alarm and calm simultaneously - for a realistic assessment of the threat but also for a leader who can convincingly provide a basis for optimism to those dependent on him lest they succumb to panic and despair.

This balancing act is made far more difficult in an environment where basic facts are still unknown because of the failures of the CDC and previous administrations to prepare for such a pandemic. Trump’s antagonists have exploited these fault lines to maximum advantage in their campaign to destroy him, seizing on one element to the exclusion of others. When judgments are driven by irrational hatreds any outcome is possible. The victims of the malodorous judgments that follow from these hatreds are all Americans who are dependent on him, since he is and remains the duly elected leader of the country.

[Geee]

Wars Visible and Invisible, Part III

n the middle of a war with an invisible virus capable of taking the entire nation down, America’s commander-in-chief is faced with a rear guard campaign to undermine his authority, paint him as an enemy and cripple his efforts to defend us against the attack. This second war is being prosecuted by leaders of the Democrat Party who spent the previous three years sabotaging Trump’s presidency and plotting his removal.

The principal focus of these campaigns has been the president’s rhetoric and character, demonizing him as “unfit for the office,” “racist,” “incompetent,” and a “threat to national security.” While these and other wild complaints have been indispensable weapons in the effort to destroy him, their deployment in the war against the virus exposes a much deeper fault line in the body politic, one that threatens the nation’s future.

Mark Cuban is a highly successful entrepreneur and was a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and opponent of Trump in 2016. A week before the election he called Trump “a threat to the stock market” and within months of his presidency declared that Trump had “no leadership skills.” But evidently Trump’s performance caused him to change his assessment. In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, Cuban gave an interview to The Daily Caller in which he said Trump should “get all the credit in the world” for his handling of the pandemic.