It's this kind of stuff - today's edition

You're probably aware of this quintessential display of the Very Stable Genius's least savory traits, but  in the interest of being clear about what I'm discussing, here's what went down in Ohio yesterday:

At a speech at an Ohio tank factory, President Trump complained that he wasn’t thanked for giving John McCain “the kind of funeral he wanted.”

“I gave him the kind of funeral he wanted which as president I had to approve. I don’t care about this, I didn’t get thank you, that’s OK,” Trump said, to a crowd of workers at the Lima Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio.

The audience, which had applauded and cheered through much of the speech, sat virtually silent during the attack on the late senator and decorated war hero.

Trump’s remarks about McCain’s funeral and his burial at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., last September came in a speech that was marked by a long list of grievances about the former Arizona senator, part of a days-long assault.

“A lot of people are asking, because they love me and they ask me about a man named John McCain,” Trump said. “If you want me to tell you about — should I or not? Yes?”

A handful of workers in the audience obliged the president, shouting, “Yeah!”

“So I have to be honest, I’ve never liked him much. Hasn’t been for me,” Trump said, the room descending into awkward silence.

“I’ve really probably never will, but there’s certain reasons for it and I will tell you, and I do this to save a little time with the press later on, John McCain received a fake and phony dossier, did you hear about the dossier? It was paid for by crooked Hillary Clinton, right,” Trump continued, to a smattering of boos. “And John McCain got it, he got it, and what did he do? He didn’t call me. He turned it over to the FBI hoping to put me in jeopardy, and that’s not the nicest thing to do. You know when those people say, because I’m a very loyal person...”

Trump proceeded to bash McCain for campaigning on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act but voting against a Republican bill that would have done just that.
“And the other thing is, we’re in a war in the Middle East that McCain pushed so hard,” Trump said, the silence seeming to grow. “He was calling Bush, President Bush all the time, ‘Get into the Middle East, get into the Middle East.’ So now we’re into that war for $7 trillion, thousands and thousands of our people have been killed, millions of people overall, and frankly, we’re straightening it out now but it has been a disaster for our country.”

Trump said the war was “worse than it was 19 years ago.” The invasion of Iraq actually began 16 years ago. The United States was not at war in the Middle East in 2000.
“So John McCain loved it,” Trump said.

With the tension on the factory floor growing with each passing insult, Trump finally wound down the McCain section of his remarks.

“Now we’re all set. I don’t think I have to answer that question, but the press keeps — ‘What do you think of McCain? What do you think?’ — Not my kind of guy, but some people like him and I think that’s great.” 

Now, I'm no McCain fan. And one of the reasons the VSG cites here is one of my reasons why: casting the vote that kept the "A"CA alive.  (The Steele dossier matter seems to also fall into this category, but we still have much to discover about why McCain did it.) I have several other reasons, particularly the absolutely lame way he campaigned for president in 2008. "Let's remember that those on the other side of the aisle are not our enemies." There was absolutely no reason to say that in the heat of that race. And suspending his campaign to deal with the financial crisis, also at a crucial moment in the race. Calling Ted Cruz and Mike Lee "wacko birds." And let's knock it off with this lionizing of him on a personal level. I know Megan McCain is sincere in her outrage at the VSG and her devotion to her father. And I'm sure that devotion was earned. I would imagine John McCain became a better husband and father by the time he had Megan. But he was a thoughtless cad earlier in life, a behavior pattern he continued after returning from Vietnam.

All that said, and speaking of completely unnecessary utterings, Trump's excursion into his dislike for McCain was so over the top it made the audience present for it squirm.

I think a tweet by David French sums up my concern about how Trump's loathsome personal traits have a spillover effect into the policy realm:

This is disgusting. The president's defenders frequently underestimate the malignant effect of such a toxic person on a nation and a political party.

I've been following the back-and-forth between the Hudson Institute's Gabriel Schoenfeld and the Hoover Institution's Victor Davis Hanson over Trump. Schoenfeld's Bulwark piece that initiated the dust-up is here. Hanson's National Review response is here.

Again, a bit of what might look at first glance like hair-splitting is called for here. Schoenfeld goes a little over the top, insinuating that Trump has the faint-or-maybe-more-than-faint odor of antisemitism wafting off him, and that his cult following likewise faintly smells of the rise of various totalitarian leaders. There's no doubt about it: The Bulwark is off to a shaky start as an outpost of Trump-skeptical conservatism. Even Charlie Sykes seems to be breathing in a little too much of Bill Kristol's weirdness.

But its main point is still well taken. (I'm anxious to see what Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg are putting together. Hopefully, they are taking to heart the lessons to be learned from The Bulwark's foray into the conversation to date.)

And Hanson, in a piece at CNN, states his case - as effectively as he has in the last four years - for his basic position, namely, that the Trump phenomenon has been on balance quite good for America:

1. Voters appreciate that the economy is currently experiencing near record-low peacetime unemployment, record-low minority unemployment, and virtual 3% annualized GDP growth. Interest andinflation rates remain low. Workers' wages increasedafter years of stagnation. The US is now the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas. And gasoline prices remain affordable. The President continues to redress asymmetrical trade with China, as well as with former NAFTA partners and Europe. He jawbones companies to curb offshoring and outsourcing. The current economic recovery and low consumer prices have uplifted millions of middle-class Americans who appreciate the upswing.

2. Trump does not exist in a vacuum. Many supporters turned off by some of his antics are still far more appalled by an emerging radical neo-socialist Democratic agenda. If the alternative to Trump is a disturbing tolerance among some Democrats for anti-Semitism, the Green New Deal, reparations, a permissive approach to abortion even very late in pregnancy, a wealth tax, a 70-90% top income tax rate, the abolition of ICE, open borders, and Medicare for all, Trump's record between 2017-20 will seem moderate and preferable. Progressives do not fully appreciate how the hysterics and media coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings, the Covington teenagers and the Jussie Smollett psychodrama turned off half the country. Such incidents and their reportage confirmed suspicions of cultural bias, media distortions, and an absence of fair play and reciprocity.

3.Trump can be uncouth and crass. But he has shown an empathy for the hollowed-out interior, lacking from prior Republican and Democratic candidates. His populist agenda explains why millions of once traditional Democratic voters defected in 2016 to him -- and may well again in 2020. Some polls counterintuitively suggest that Trump may well win more minority voters than prior Republican presidential candidates.

4. Trump may come across as callous to some, but to others at least genuine. He does not modulate his accent to fit regional crowds, as did Barack Obama,Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. He does not adopt particular outfits at state fairs or visit bowling allies to seek authenticity. Like him or not, his Queens accent, formal attire, odd tan, and wild hair remain the same wherever he goes and speaks. Voters respect that he is at least unadulterated in a way untrue of most politicians. Big Macs convey earthiness in a way arugula does not.

5. Even when Trump has hit an impasse, his supporters mostly continue to believe that he at least keeps trying to meet his promises on taxes, the economy, energy, foreign policy, strict-constructionist judges, and the border. So far his supporters feel Trump has not suffered a "Read my lips" or "You can keep your doctor" moment. 

6. Voters are angry over the sustained effort to remove or delegitimize a sitting president. Many of the controversies over Trump result from the inability of Hillary Clinton supporters to accept his shocking victory. Instead they try any means possible to abort his presidency in a way not seen in recent history. Trump voters cringe at such serial but so far unsuccessful efforts to delegitimize the President: the immediate law suits challenging voting machines, the effort to warp the Electoral College voting, initial impeachment efforts, appeals to the Emoluments Clause, the 25th Amendment, and the calcified Logan Act, the Mueller investigation that far exceeded and yet may have not met its original mandate to find Russian "collusion," and the strange Andrew McCabe-Ron Rosenstein failed palace coup. All this comes in addition to a disturbing assassination "chic," as Madonna, Johnny Depp, Kathy Griffin, Robert DeNiro and dozens of others express openly thoughts of killing, blowing up, or beating up an elected president. The Shorenstein Center at Harvard University has found that mainstream media coverage of Trump's first 100 days in office ranged from 70-90% negative of Trump, depending on the week, an asymmetry never quite seen before seen but one that erodes confidence in the media. Voters are developing a grudging respect for the 72-year-old, less-than-fit Trump who each day weathers unprecedented vitriol and yet does not give up, in the Nietzschean sense of whatever does not kill him, seems to make him stronger. 

7. Progressives seemingly do not appreciate historical contexts. By past presidential standards, Trump's behavior while in the White House has not been characterized by the personal indiscretions of a John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton. His language has been blunt, but then so was Harry Truman's. He can be gross, but perhaps not so much as was Lyndon Johnson. The point is not to use such comparisons to excuse Trump's rough speech and tweets, but to remind that the present media climate and the electronic age of the Internet and social media, along with general historical ignorance about prior presidencies, have warped objective analysis of Trump, the first president without either prior political office or military service.

8. Globalization enriched the two coasts, while America's interior was hollowed out. Anywhere abroad muscular labor could be duplicated at cheaper rates, it often was -- especially in heavy industry and manufacturing. Trump alone sensed that and appealed to constituencies that heretofore had been libeled by presidents and presidential candidates as "crazies," "clingers," "deplorables" and "irredeemables." Fairly or not, half the country feels that elites, a deep state, or just "they" (call them whatever you will) are both condemnatory and yet ignorant of so-called fly-over country. Trump is seen as their payback.

9. For a thrice-married former raconteur, the Trump first family appears remarkably stable, and loyal. The first lady is winsome and gracious. Despite the negative publicity, daughter Ivanka remains poised and conciliatory. The appearance of stability suggests that if Trump may have often been a poor husband, he was nonetheless a good father.

10. Trump is a masterful impromptu speaker. Increasingly he can be self-deprecatory, and his performances are improving. Even his marathon rallies stay entertaining to about half the country. He handles crowds in the fashion of JFK, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama rather than of a flat Bob Dole, Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney. 

But even the comprehensive and well-thought-out argument Hanson presents here proves my point: You have to make excuses for a whole lot of what Trump is about to support him. (Actually, there is a bonehead-and-proud-of-it element of his base that takes a "hell-yeah-I-like-his-brashness-and-crudeness" position. I guess such people have decided that the country's polarization is so hopeless that there's no point in trying to persuade anybody.)

LITD's position remains the same: Trump is loathsome, but his presidency has done much to set up roadblocks to the Leftist agenda.

I just wish there were some way to muzzle the guy and shut down his Twitter account.