{"id":10353,"date":"2017-07-05T11:40:56","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T18:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=10353"},"modified":"2017-07-05T11:40:56","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T18:40:56","slug":"the-progressive-boomerang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-progressive-boomerang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Progressive Boomerang"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not only have progressives failed to take down the president, but they also haven\u2019t offered an alternative agenda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice or witness tampering so far has produced no substantial evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The alternate strategy of derailing the new administration before it really gets started hasn\u2019t succeeded either, despite serial efforts to sue over election results, alter the Electoral College vote, boycott the inauguration, delay the confirmation of appointments, demand recusals, promise Trump\u2019s impeachment or removal through the 25th Amendment, and file suit under the Emoluments Clause.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Likewise, a third strategy of portraying Trump as a veritable monster so far has failed in four special elections for House seats.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Apparently progressives have accepted the idea that Barack Obama\u2019s formula of twice winning the Electoral College is not yet transferrable to other progressive candidates such as Hillary Clinton. And they probably have concluded that Obama\u2019s progressive political agenda proved unpopular with voters by 2010 and had to be implemented by ad hoc executive orders \u2014 presidential prerogatives now utilized by Donald Trump to overturn the ones Obama issued.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A fourth potential pathway to power would be a return to Bill Clinton\u2019s pragmatic agendas of the 1990s. But apparently progressives find that centrist remedy worse than the malady of losing elections \u2014 given that during the Obama tenure, more than 1,000 state and local offices were lost to Republicans, in addition to majorities in the House and Senate, and a majority of governorships and legislatures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What next?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trump acts as if he is a Nietzschean figure, assuming that anything that does not destroy him only makes him stronger. And now, slowly, his accusers are becoming the accused.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One nagging problem with the progressive case against Trump for purported Russian collusion and obstruction of justice was that members of the Obama administration had more exposure to those allegations than did the political newcomer Trump.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last year, then\u2013FBI director James Comey testified that not only did former attorney general Loretta Lynch improperly meet in secret with Bill Clinton during an investigation of Hillary Clinton, but also that Lynch had asked Comey to downplay the investigation into Hillary\u2019s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary of state. Comey confessed that he had reluctantly agreed to Lynch\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey admitted that he asked a friend to leak notes about Comey\u2019s earlier conversation with Trump in hopes of forcing the nomination of a special counsel to lead the Russia investigation \u2014 perhaps a successful gambit, given that Comey\u2019s friend, former FBI director Robert Mueller, was soon appointed to that role.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Comey also wrongly dismissed Hillary Clinton\u2019s e-mail problems because of a perceived lack of criminal intent \u2014 a supposedly mitigating circumstance that legally should have had no bearing on things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As far as alleged Russian collusion, there had long been conservative accusations that Bill and Hillary Clinton used Hillary\u2019s status as secretary of state to leverage honoraria for Bill and donations to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for concessions to Russian interests.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Moreover, Russian tampering efforts had been going on for months before the 2016 election, but without any retaliatory measures from the Obama administration, which knew about Russia\u2019s meddling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In an inadvertent hot-mic request in 2012, Obama asked outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to urge Russian president Vladimir Putin \u201cto give me space\u201d during Obama\u2019s reelection campaign, so that after his assumed success, Obama could reciprocate with \u201cmore flexibility\u201d on Russian issues. In the present highly charged climate, would that be seen as a form of Russian collusion?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the House Intelligence Committee is still investigating whether top Obama-administration officials wrongfully used the power of foreign-intelligence collection to conduct surveillance of Americans \u2014 particularly members of the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The point is not whether the Clintons, James Comey, Barack Obama, or members of the Obama administration can be proven to have engaged in illegal or unscrupulous behavior.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rather, the lesson is that progressives should have offered alternative political visions that might have won back the American people rather than attempting to terminate the Trump presidency on charges to which the progressive side is far more vulnerable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now that Trump is emerging from successful House special elections and has fended off six months of media attacks, celebrity invective, and progressive efforts to abort his tenure, he seems to be going back on the offensive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Currently, House and Senate investigations are doing to Democrats what has been done Trump. So far these probes seem to have better chances of proving wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does all this political back-and-forth mean?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Democrats struck preemptively to take out Trump before he unwound the Obama legacy. That effort has probably been stalled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The return volley is being launched at a time when an energized Trump is gaining momentum on health care and tax reform, and an improving economy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In sum, to thwart a new president\u2019s policies, it is probably wiser to offer alternative agendas instead of trying to destroy him before he has even entered office.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/449057\/progressives-preemptively-attacked-trump-administration-failed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review   Not only have progressives failed to take down the president, but they also haven\u2019t offered an alternative agenda.   The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice or witness tampering so far has produced no substantial evidence of wrongdoing.   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1110,1107,1097,1096,1092,375,46,185,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2GZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9353,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/politics-not-personalities-will-likely-determine-the-presidential-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":10353,"position":0},"title":"Politics, Not Personalities, Will Likely Determine the Presidential Election","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The candidates may be unconventional, but their political agendas fall along a conventional divide. 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The classical idea of a divine Nemesis (\u201creckoning\u201d or \u201cdownfall\u201d) that brings unforeseen retribution for hubris (insolence and arrogance) was a recognition that there are certain laws of the universe that operated independently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Democrats"","block_context":{"text":"Democrats","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/democrats\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9475,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-next-president-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":10353,"position":2},"title":"The Next President Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There is reason to worry about both candidates abusing power as president, because Obama and the press normalized executive overreach. 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The Page-Strzok text exchanges might offer a few answers. Or, as Lisa Page warned her paramour as early as February 2016, at the beginning of the campaign and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FBI"","block_context":{"text":"FBI","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/fbi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12041,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-military-intelligence-complex\/","url_meta":{"origin":10353,"position":5},"title":"The Military-Intelligence Complex","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Much has been written about the so-called Resistance of disgruntled Clinton, Obama, and progressive activists who have pledged to stop Donald Trump\u2019s agenda. The choice of the noun \u201cResistance,\u201d of course, conjures up not mere \u201copposition,\u201d but is meant to evoke the French \u201cresistance\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10354,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10353\/revisions\/10354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}