When You've Lost Peggy Noonan

When you’ve lost Peggy Noonan….

OK, Donald Trump never had Peggy Noonan, but he could have had John McCain. Now that Senate Republicans have failed to repeal even a few pieces of Obamacare the world looks in wonder at John McCain, a man who rose from his hospital bed to return to Washington to save Donald Trump and then… to teach him a lesson. If you don’t think that McCain’s vote was payback for Trump’s disparagement of McCain’s military service, you are not thinking.

Peggy Noonan’s analysis of Trump’s leadership style predated Anthony Scaramucci’s profanity laden rant to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker. We do not know whether the Mooch was speaking on or off the record, but a communications chief ought to know that New Yorker reporters are not his friends. It’s the minimum.

Coming after the Mooch’s decorous press conference last week, his tirade against Reince Priebus and Steven Bannon should have happened out of press earshot. Now that Trump is being forced to eat his tweets and comments about Attorney General Sessions, he and his administration should have learned when to shut up. Failing to do so, they come across as entertainment, not governance.

Somehow the Donald Trump missed the Biblical text which says: A White House divided against itself cannot stand.

Anyway, many people will be talking about Noonan’s critique today, so I will share some parts of it, the better to give you the chance to discuss it.

Noonan attacks Trump where it hurts. She begins by declaring that Trump’s antics undermine his claim to be more masculine:

The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.

He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. 

Uh oh. She continues to analyze all the president’s tweets—one adds that a majority of the president’s supporters want him to cut down on the tweeting.

Noonan writes:

Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their president.” The brutes. Actually they’ve been laboring to be loyal to him since Inauguration Day. “The Republicans never discuss how good their health care bill is.” True, but neither does Mr. Trump, who seems unsure of its content. In just the past two weeks, of the press, he complained: “Every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!” Journalists produce “highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting.” They are “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY.” They “fabricate the facts.”

It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: Nobody’s nice to me. Why don’t they appreciate me?

According to Noonan, Trump’s version of manliness is not traditional American. It is the therapy culture version of masculinity. It’s Woody Allen, she says, but without the humor:

The way American men used to like seeing themselves, the template they most admired, was the strong silent type celebrated in classic mid-20th century films—Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda. In time the style shifted, and we wound up with the nervous and chattery. More than a decade ago the producer and writer David Chase had his Tony Soprano mourn the disappearance of the old style: “What they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings they wouldn’t be able to shut him up!” The new style was more like that of Woody Allen. His characters couldn’t stop talking about their emotions, their resentments and needs. They were self-justifying as they acted out their cowardice and anger.

Of course, you heard much of this here first. Some of you did not like hearing it. But, Trump is in touch with his feelings and he speaks whatever is crossing his mind. One suspects that he never underwent therapy, but his behavior looks exactly like what therapists have been promoting. They will never admit it, but… he is a New Yorker, a proud proponent of New York values. I am sure you are not surprised.

Noonan wants Trump to offer young men a better male role model. Trump believes that he must shake things up and that he cannot get things done if he does not play the role of boisterous, vulgar macho hero:

“It’s so easy to act presidential but that’s not gonna get it done,” Mr. Trump said the other night at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. That is the opposite of the truth. The truth, six months in, is that he is not presidential and is not getting it done. His mad, blubbery petulance isn’t working for him but against him. If he were presidential he’d be getting it done—building momentum, gaining support. He’d be over 50%, not under 40%. He’d have health care, and more.

Noonan concludes:

Meanwhile the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it’s a good time to cause some trouble?