{"id":1520,"date":"2017-05-20T22:35:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-20T22:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/\/?p=1520"},"modified":"2017-05-20T22:35:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T22:35:00","slug":"peggy-noonan-democracy-is-not-your-plaything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/?p=1520","title":{"rendered":"Peggy Noonan: “Democracy Is Not Your Plaything”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peggy Noonan just published (May 18) this very strong piece in the WSJ. <\/em><\/p>\n

When the circus comes to Washington, it consumes everything, absorbs all energy.<\/strong>
\nThis will be unpleasantly earnest, but having witnessed the atmospherics the past 10 days it\u2019s what I think needs saying:
\nDemocracy is not your plaything.
\nThis is not a game.<\/p>\n

The president of the United States has produced a building crisis that is unprecedented in our history. The question, at bottom, is whether Donald Trump has demonstrated, in his first four months, that he is unfit for the presidency\u2014wholly unsuited in terms of judgment, knowledge, mental capacity, personal stability. That epic question is then broken down into discrete and specific questions: Did he improperly attempt to interfere with an FBI criminal investigation, did his presidential campaign collude with a foreign government, etc.<\/p>\n

\nBut the epic question underlies all. It couldn\u2019t be more consequential and will take time to resolve. The sheer gravity of the drama will demand the best from all of us. Are we up to it?<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s longtime foes, especially Democrats and progressives, are in the throes of a kind of obsessive delight. Every new blunder, every suggestion of an illegality, gives them pleasure. \u201cHe\u2019ll be gone by autumn.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he was duly and legally elected by tens of millions of Americans who had legitimate reasons to support him, who knew they were throwing the long ball, and who, polls suggest, continue to support him. They believe the press is trying to kill him. \u201cHe\u2019s new, not a politician, give him a chance.\u201d What would it do to them, what would it say to them, to have him brusquely removed by his enemies after so little time? Would it tell them democracy is a con, the swamp always wins, you nobodies can make your little choices but we\u2019re in control? What will that do to their faith in our institutions, in democracy itself?<\/p>\n

\nThese are wrenching questions.<\/p>\n

But if Mr. Trump is truly unfit\u2014if he has demonstrated already, so quickly, that he cannot competently perform the role, and that his drama will only get more dangerous and chaotic, how much time should pass to let him prove it? And how dangerous will the proving get?<\/p>\n

Again, wrenching questions. So this is no time for blood lust and delight. Because democracy is not your plaything.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s staffers seem to spend most of their time on the phone, leaking and seeking advantage, trying not to be named in the next White House Shake-Up story. A reliable anonymous source who gives good quote will be protected\u2014for a while. The president spends his time tweeting his inane, bizarre messages\u2014he\u2019s the victim of a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d\u2014from his bed, with his iPad. And giving speeches, as he did this week at the Coast Guard Academy: \u201cNo politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.\u201d Actually Lincoln got secession, civil war and a daily pounding from an abolitionist press that thought he didn\u2019t go far enough and moderates who slammed his brutalist pursuit of victory. Then someone shot him in the head. So he had his challenges.<\/p>\n

Journalists on fire with the great story of their lives\u2014the most bizarre presidency in U.S. history and the breaking news of its daily missteps\u2014cheer when their scoop that could bring down a president gets more hits then the previous record holder, the scoop that could bring down the candidate.<\/p>\n

Stop leaking, tweeting, cheering. Democracy is not your plaything.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a sense nobody\u2019s in charge, that there\u2019s no power center that\u2019s holding, that in Washington they\u2019re all randomly slamming into each other.<\/p>\n

Which is not good in a crisis.<\/p>\n

For Capitol Hill Democrats the crisis appears to be primarily a chance to showboat. Republicans are evolving, some starting to use the word \u201cunfit\u201d and some, as a congressman told me, \u201ctalking like they\u2019re in a shelter for abused women. \u2018He didn\u2019t mean to throw me down the stairs.\u2019 \u2018He promised not to punch me again.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re chasing so many rabbits, we can\u2019t keep track\u2014Comey, FBI, memoranda; Russia, Flynn, the Trump campaign; Lavrov, indiscretions with intelligence. It\u2019s become a blur.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s an emerging sense of tragedy, isn\u2019t there? Crucially needed reforms in taxing, regulation and infrastructure\u2014changes the country needs!\u2014are thwarted, all momentum killed. Markets are nervous.<\/p>\n

The world sees the U.S. political system once again as a circus. Once the circus comes to town, it consumes everything, absorbs all energy.<\/p>\n

I asked the ambassador to the U.S. from one of our greatest allies: \u201cWhat does Europe say now when America leaves the room?\u201d You\u2019re still great, he said, but \u201cwe think you\u2019re having a nervous breakdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is absurd to think the president can solve his problems by firing his staff. They are not the problem. He is the problem. They\u2019re not the A-Team, they\u2019re not the counselors you\u2019d want, experienced and wise. They\u2019re the island of misfit toys. But they could function adequately if he could lead adequately. For months he\u2019s told friends he\u2019s about to make big changes, and doesn\u2019t. Why? Maybe because talented people on the outside don\u2019t want to enter a poisonous staff environment just for the joy of committing career suicide. So he\u2019s stuck, surrounded by people who increasingly resent him, who fear his unpredictability and pique and will surely one day begin to speak on the record.<\/p>\n

A mystery: Why is the president never careful? He doesn\u2019t act as if he\u2019s picking his way through a minefield every day, which he is. He acts like he\u2019s gamboling through safe terrain. Thus he indulges himself with strange claims, statements, tweets. He comports himself as if he has a buffer of deep support. He doesn\u2019t. Nationally his approval numbers are in the mid to high 30s.<\/p>\n

His position is not secure. And yet he gambols on, both paranoid and oblivious.<\/p>\n

History is going to judge us by how we comported ourselves in this murky time. It will see who cared first for the country and who didn\u2019t, who kept his head and did not, who remained true and calm and played it straight.<\/p>\n

Now there will be a special prosecutor. In the short term this buys the White House time.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an idea.<\/p>\n

It would be good if top Hill Republicans went en masse to the president and said: \u201cStop it. Clean up your act. Shut your mouth. Do your job. Stop tweeting. Stop seething. Stop wasting time. You lost the thread and don\u2019t even know what you were elected to do anymore. Get a grip. Grow up and look at the terrain, see it for what it is. We have limited time. Every day you undercut yourself, you undercut us. More important, you keep from happening the good policy things we could have done together. If you don\u2019t grow up fast, you\u2019ll wind up abandoned and alone. Act like a president or leave the presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could it help? For a minute. But it would be constructive\u2014not just carping, leaking, posing, cheering and tweeting but actually trying to lead.<\/p>\n

The president needs to be told: Democracy is not your plaything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peggy Noonan just published (May 18) this very strong piece in the WSJ. When the circus comes to Washington, it consumes everything, absorbs all energy. [Read More]<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diary","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Noonan_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}