Flag on the Play

It is the reaction that often draws the penalty.

During football games at all levels, things go on at the bottom of the pile of players that go unseen by the referees. It is not unusual for players to get a shot or two in at an opposing player during a scramble for a loose ball. It is also common that the targeted player retaliates – and draws a flag, followed by a personal foul penalty - because the clapback is what the referee does see.

Yellow laundry on the field. Personal foul. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Fifteen yards and an automatic first down!

It is behind the paywall at the Wall Street Journal, but there is an opinion piece in there this morning from Molly Ball, their senior pollical correspondent, that ends in a far too familiar way:

“Debra Wilhelm, a 70-year-old retired teacher from Loxahatchee, Fla., said she viewed Jan. 6 as a national tragedy akin to 9/11. “It was an attack on our constitution, an attack on America, and from within,” she said. As the sun set over the Washington Monument behind her, she said she feared particularly for her granddaughters if Trump regained the presidency. “It’s not the America we grew up in,” she said.

Harris has wagered that more people are tired of the Trump Show than thrilled by it—that America’s true silent majority are the voters who simply want to put his divisive, destabilizing dominance of the political system behind them. In a few days, we will learn whether she is right.”

I know the only thing conservative about the Journal is the opinion page, but the denouement of this article is common to most anti-Trump articles, that the blame for our “divisive, destabilizing” environment is borne solely by Donald Trump.

Never mind that President Trump has been at the bottom of the pile getting punched in the gonads since 2015 and the refs never see it or call it. As the truism goes, when Republicans screw up, that is the story but when Democrats screw up, it is the Republican reaction to it that is the story.

Trump always gets the flag.

Democrats have been getting away with personal fouls for almost a decade. From spying on his campaign with a completely fake Crossfire Hurricane operation, to two impeachments based on nothing, to multiple cases of lawfare as election day 2024 closed in, it never stopped – and where was the media focus?

It certainly wasn’t on if any of what Democrats or their allies did was legitimate.

Even after eight years of stoking racial division, Obama had the temerity to rhetorically wax that he just didn’t understand how we got so divided.

The media never questioned whether any of this was legitimate, the dead tree media killed millions of trees to print their assassination fantasies (political, professional, and personal) and online, brain cells were assaulted with myths of Beowulf quality.

These stories all have one thing in common.

Everything was and is Trump’s fault because he didn’t just lie down and die when Democrats and their allies attacked him.

It was his reaction to what Democrats did that was the story, not what the Democrats were doing.

Trump was remarkably restrained during his term and as a private citizen he has been focused and disciplined, especially given what the Democrat-led forces have done and tried to do to him. The left is both hysterical and paralyzed with fear because they know if he is elected, he owns the referees.

I wasn’t a fan with how Trump acted during the post-election days after the tallies were completed in 2020, nor did I think he did enough to quell the protest that became a riot on January 6^th but I also know there were lots of weirdness in the aftermath of that election that has never been explained to my satisfaction (and probably never will be explained) and Trump did not create, incite or participate in an insurrection.

Mayor Pete said yesterday a Harris victory would end the chaos and Trump and maybe that would give the Republican Party time to heal itself.

That’s not the way it works in America. You don’t get to cause the chaos and condemn people for not liking it – and you don’t get to define your opposition.