‘Voices together cannot be ignored’

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‘Voices together cannot be ignored’

 

Wall Street Journal editorial columnist Kimberley Strassel. | Flikr

When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, a tumultuous campaign season foreshadowed the aggressive “Resistance,” as Wall Street Journal editorialist Kimberley Strassel calls Trump haters in her newest book “Resistance (At All Costs)” released Oct. 15. This “Resistance” movement would violate ethical codes and due process in an attempt to impeach the president.

Strassel’s book is a timely and thorough rendition of the events following the 2016 election, with the Mueller probe, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, and the rampant behavior of the mainstream news media overshadowing any positive legacy the Trump administration could leave behind. The administration has sought to embrace the checks and balances of the branches, and remain true to the intent of the Constitution.

“Unlike his predecessor, [Trump] has not governed by executive orders. He has dramatically reduced the size of federal government – not expanded it. He has appointed judges on the basis of their fidelity to the clear language of the Constitution and law,” Strassel wrote. “It is instead the reaction to Trump that is new and alarming, and that threatens to leave enduring marks.”

With her evidence, Strassel tells the narrative of the aggression and obstinate behavior that earns Trump haters the name of the “Resistance.”

Through detailed reporting and investigation, Strassel shows her audience how the Resistance has fundamentally altered American society with its hateful disposition toward the sitting president. At all costs. Including using one source with two pieces of speculative evidence as the only basis for the Mueller probe, or Christine Blasey-Ford’s inability to answer questions during the Kavanaugh hearing about her own personal experience against her alleged assaulter.

Of her own book, Strassel writes that it’s “a book of more radical elements of the Resistance, and how their reaction to Trump is causing significant damage to our institutions and political norms.”

Strassel doesn’t use the book to reiterate the news or reinterpret events we already know. Instead, she fills in the information gaps with details the public never seemed to hear on mainstream media in the original reporting, providing clarity to the defining events of Trump’s first years in office.

“Trump at most will be in office for eight years,” Strassel writes, but added that “we may be living with the wreckage of the Resistance for much longer.”

In “Resistance (At All Costs),” as well as her reporting for WSJ, Strassel isn’t afraid to criticize or recognize the wrongs on both sides of the political aisle. Strassel openly discusses the insensitive ad hominems and mockery Trump showed his opponents during the campaign of the 2016 election. 

“He’d taunted his primary rivals – making fun of Carly Fiorina’s face, calling Jeb Bush ‘dumb as a rock,’ and ridiculing the size of Marco Rubio’s ears,” Strassel writes.

But as Strassel points out, most of the Resistance’s slights against Trump were either exaggerations based on these unflattering comments or completely made up. Labels such as ‘homophobe’ or ‘racist’ had never been used to describe a president prior to Trump, yet this behavior opened avenues to nothing less than libel.

“They accuse Supreme Court nominees of rape. They break Senate committee rules,” Strassel writes. “They breach government rules and regulations, and even statutes (see all those leaks of classified information).”

“Resistance (At All Costs)” brings to the surface a serious epidemic facing American society today: the breakdown of tolerance, and refusal to commit to the constitutional and democratic process of justice. 

But Strassel doesn’t leave her readers asking the question, “What can be done?” In the conclusion of her book, she offers a solution. Strassel recognizes the difficulty of the present state of politics, but says that true change “requires a legislative or administrative response.” This may feel unreachable by the average voter and reader, but Strassel encourages her readers to not only attempt to be engaged in local political matters but national as well.

“You might think that one voice is nothing. But you aren’t one voice,” Strassel concludes. “Millions of Americans feel the same fervor about keeping our country on a strong, viable, constitutional path. All those voices together cannot be ignored.”