![\"Former](\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-59fce1fc\/turbine\/la-oe-anniversary-james-comey-20171103\/600\" "\\"Former")
Former FBI Director James B. Comey attends a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing in Washington on June 8. <\/span>(Brendan Smialowsk \/ AFP\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n\nDonald Trump presides as he campaigned. He is proving a Nietzschean figure in the sense that \u201cwhat does not kill him makes him stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each time the media, Republican enemies and the Democratic opposition seem to have Trump on the ropes, the president emerges far less wounded than his critics. The list of felled detractors includes: the National Football League, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Kathy Griffin and John Podesta.<\/p>\n
Former FBI Director and Trump critic James B. Comey has imploded his career. In \u201cAlice in Wonderland\u201d fashion, the president\u2019s sloppy tweet about having his \u201cwires tapped\u201d in Trump Tower \u201cby Obama\u201d eventually may prove true in the sense that Obama administration officials swept up Trump and others on the pretext of investigating purported collusion.<\/p>\n
Hillary Clinton, who a year later insists that Russian collusion helped lose her the election, is now, in Greek tragic fashion, vulnerable to similar charges. (See the \u201cUranium One\u201d scandal.)<\/p>\n
In late 2016, news celebrities informed the American people that the so-called Steele\/Fusion GPS dossier was fatal to Trump. In fact, its unproven smears are beginning to boomerang on those who in highly partisan fashion once insisted that they were accurate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nEach time the media, Republican enemies and the Democratic opposition seem to have Trump on the ropes, the president emerges far less wounded than his critics.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nTrump has also found himself in crude feuds with those in his own party, specifically Sens. Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and John McCain.<\/p>\n
The first two have now decided not to seek reelection, ostensibly for principled reasons. But in truth, both would have almost no chance of winning their primaries given their harsh opposition to Trump and his legislative proposals.<\/p>\n
Why does Trump, who suffers poor approval ratings, seem to always land on his feet while his critics do not?<\/p>\n
Three reasons come to mind.<\/p>\n
1) Trump is at home in bare-knuckle brawling; his opponents are often not. When they try to slog it out, they seem sadly out of character, while Trump appears at ease.<\/p>\n
2) The hysterical hatred of Trump blinds his critics to empiricism and disinterested inquiry, which might have otherwise warned them there was little hard evidence of \u2014 for example \u2014 Russian collusion and other smears in which they have trafficked.<\/p>\n
3) Trump has some solid achievements. For example: conservative judicial appointments, an improving economy, a top-notch national security team, deregulation, radical decreases in illegal immigration, the routing of Islamic State, a robust stock market, increased consumer and business confidence, low inflation and unemployment, booming energy production. These \u201cwins\u201d compensate for his personal unpopularity.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s critics may score points, and he\u2019s not personally popular, but most of Trump\u2019s agenda polls over 50% with voters. So far, denigrating Trump the messenger has been offset by Trump\u2019s far more popular message.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s eventual fate lies not in his tweets and tiffs, but in the economy and crises abroad. If he achieves economic growth and avoids optional wars, his party will do well in the 2018 midterm election and he will have a good shot at reelection. If not, he won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Times Victor Davis Hanson \u00a0 Former FBI Director James B. Comey attends a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing in Washington on June 8. (Brendan Smialowsk \/ AFP\/Getty Images) Donald Trump presides as he campaigned. He is proving a Nietzschean figure in the sense that \u201cwhat does not kill him […]<\/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":[1110,1092,145,185,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2MS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11809,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-fright-of-james-comey\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":0},"title":"The Fright of James Comey","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness In a\u00a0recent op-ed, fired FBI Director James Comey was back again preaching to the nation about the dangers of Donald Trump and his capacity to corrupt any top-ranking federal official of lower character than Comey\u2019s own. Comey seems to have become utterly unhinged by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "James Comey"","block_context":{"text":"James Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/james-comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12112,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/former-intelligence-chiefs-fit-perfectly-into-media-advocacy-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":1},"title":"Former intelligence chiefs fit perfectly into media advocacy culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Fox News Former FBI Director\u00a0James Comey\u00a0and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have lots of things in common. One,\u00a0they ran the nation\u2019s key intelligence and investigatory agencies under former\u00a0President Barack Obama. They were deeply involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10165,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/comeys-overdue-departure\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":2},"title":"Comey\u2019s Overdue Departure","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Corner The one and only. \u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review If a FBI director is doing his job, we probably should neither see nor hear of him much on television. The FBI director by his very office holds enormous power. And like the IRS director, by definition he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10353,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-progressive-boomerang\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":3},"title":"The Progressive Boomerang","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Not only have progressives failed to take down the president, but they also haven\u2019t offered an alternative agenda. \u00a0 The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice or witness tampering so far has produced no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11181,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/5-09-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":4},"title":"5-09-18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Wow. You are a moron. How is it, that Comey\u2019s memos, which were his that he wrote, as an FBI agent, which were still his, once he was fired from his FBI job, by an obstructing president, \u201cleaking of classified material\u201d?? How can the man\u2019s own\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10172,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/severed-heads\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":5},"title":"Severed Heads","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review Far too many government officials never pay the price for their crimes and misdeeds: Clinton, Rice, Napolitano, Lerner \u2026 Comey is the exception. President Trump\u2019s firing of James Comey revealed strange timing, herky-jerky methods, and bad political optics. Certainly, in the existential political war that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718"}],"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=10718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10719,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions\/10719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Donald Trump presides as he campaigned. He is proving a Nietzschean figure in the sense that \u201cwhat does not kill him makes him stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each time the media, Republican enemies and the Democratic opposition seem to have Trump on the ropes, the president emerges far less wounded than his critics. The list of felled detractors includes: the National Football League, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Kathy Griffin and John Podesta.<\/p>\n
Former FBI Director and Trump critic James B. Comey has imploded his career. In \u201cAlice in Wonderland\u201d fashion, the president\u2019s sloppy tweet about having his \u201cwires tapped\u201d in Trump Tower \u201cby Obama\u201d eventually may prove true in the sense that Obama administration officials swept up Trump and others on the pretext of investigating purported collusion.<\/p>\n
Hillary Clinton, who a year later insists that Russian collusion helped lose her the election, is now, in Greek tragic fashion, vulnerable to similar charges. (See the \u201cUranium One\u201d scandal.)<\/p>\n
In late 2016, news celebrities informed the American people that the so-called Steele\/Fusion GPS dossier was fatal to Trump. In fact, its unproven smears are beginning to boomerang on those who in highly partisan fashion once insisted that they were accurate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Each time the media, Republican enemies and the Democratic opposition seem to have Trump on the ropes, the president emerges far less wounded than his critics.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Trump has also found himself in crude feuds with those in his own party, specifically Sens. Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and John McCain.<\/p>\n The first two have now decided not to seek reelection, ostensibly for principled reasons. But in truth, both would have almost no chance of winning their primaries given their harsh opposition to Trump and his legislative proposals.<\/p>\n Why does Trump, who suffers poor approval ratings, seem to always land on his feet while his critics do not?<\/p>\n Three reasons come to mind.<\/p>\n 1) Trump is at home in bare-knuckle brawling; his opponents are often not. When they try to slog it out, they seem sadly out of character, while Trump appears at ease.<\/p>\n 2) The hysterical hatred of Trump blinds his critics to empiricism and disinterested inquiry, which might have otherwise warned them there was little hard evidence of \u2014 for example \u2014 Russian collusion and other smears in which they have trafficked.<\/p>\n 3) Trump has some solid achievements. For example: conservative judicial appointments, an improving economy, a top-notch national security team, deregulation, radical decreases in illegal immigration, the routing of Islamic State, a robust stock market, increased consumer and business confidence, low inflation and unemployment, booming energy production. These \u201cwins\u201d compensate for his personal unpopularity.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s critics may score points, and he\u2019s not personally popular, but most of Trump\u2019s agenda polls over 50% with voters. So far, denigrating Trump the messenger has been offset by Trump\u2019s far more popular message.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s eventual fate lies not in his tweets and tiffs, but in the economy and crises abroad. If he achieves economic growth and avoids optional wars, his party will do well in the 2018 midterm election and he will have a good shot at reelection. If not, he won\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Los Angeles Times Victor Davis Hanson \u00a0 Former FBI Director James B. Comey attends a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing in Washington on June 8. (Brendan Smialowsk \/ AFP\/Getty Images) Donald Trump presides as he campaigned. He is proving a Nietzschean figure in the sense that \u201cwhat does not kill him […]<\/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":[1110,1092,145,185,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2MS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11809,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-fright-of-james-comey\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":0},"title":"The Fright of James Comey","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness In a\u00a0recent op-ed, fired FBI Director James Comey was back again preaching to the nation about the dangers of Donald Trump and his capacity to corrupt any top-ranking federal official of lower character than Comey\u2019s own. Comey seems to have become utterly unhinged by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "James Comey"","block_context":{"text":"James Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/james-comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12112,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/former-intelligence-chiefs-fit-perfectly-into-media-advocacy-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":1},"title":"Former intelligence chiefs fit perfectly into media advocacy culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Fox News Former FBI Director\u00a0James Comey\u00a0and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have lots of things in common. One,\u00a0they ran the nation\u2019s key intelligence and investigatory agencies under former\u00a0President Barack Obama. They were deeply involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10165,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/comeys-overdue-departure\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":2},"title":"Comey\u2019s Overdue Departure","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Corner The one and only. \u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review If a FBI director is doing his job, we probably should neither see nor hear of him much on television. The FBI director by his very office holds enormous power. And like the IRS director, by definition he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10353,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-progressive-boomerang\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":3},"title":"The Progressive Boomerang","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Not only have progressives failed to take down the president, but they also haven\u2019t offered an alternative agenda. \u00a0 The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice or witness tampering so far has produced no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11181,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/5-09-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":4},"title":"5-09-18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Wow. You are a moron. How is it, that Comey\u2019s memos, which were his that he wrote, as an FBI agent, which were still his, once he was fired from his FBI job, by an obstructing president, \u201cleaking of classified material\u201d?? How can the man\u2019s own\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10172,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/severed-heads\/","url_meta":{"origin":10718,"position":5},"title":"Severed Heads","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review Far too many government officials never pay the price for their crimes and misdeeds: Clinton, Rice, Napolitano, Lerner \u2026 Comey is the exception. President Trump\u2019s firing of James Comey revealed strange timing, herky-jerky methods, and bad political optics. Certainly, in the existential political war that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718"}],"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=10718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10719,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions\/10719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}