Peggy Noonan still thinks someone is coming to save her:
The press does not believe, not for a second, and Democrats do not believe, not for a second, that Mr. Trump will be able to change the habits of a lifetime. They are relying on it.
Mr. Trump shocked them by winning. He should shock them now with rectitude.
HE’S NOT GOING TO DO THAT. God, everyone with a functioning keyboard told you a hundred thousand times he was like this, and HE told you he was like this, and you said over and over that maybe he wasn’t going to be like this, and you’re still counting on salvation from above?
Grow the fuck up, Pegs, there is no Easter Bunny. I know it hurts your head to think filthy hippies might have a point here, but the pivot’s not coming.
What happens next to the American republic will depend on whether Trump chooses to abide by, or can be restrained within, legal and bureaucratic limits—or whether his fellow partisans, seeking their own immediate political objectives, instead empower and enable him.
Yeah, this is in doubt. Whether the Republican establishment is going to restrain Trump.
The same Republican establishment that threw everything it had at him during the primaries and barely mussed his stupid muppet fur.
The same Republican establishment that spent the general election dithering and hedging and trying to figure out how to kiss HALF of Trump’s ass, in case this whole thing went south or in case it didn’t.
The same Republican establishment that was so enamored of small-d democratic principles that it shut down the government in protest of giving people health care? That spent eight years screaming about seekrit Muslims and gay marriage and refusing to confirm a goddamn Supreme Court nominee?
That’s the institution you’re thinking is going to grow a pair? That’s what you’re counting on? You might as well be praying to the Tooth Fairy. It would be just as effective and slightly less embarrassing.
Just stop it.
Nobody’s coming to save us from Trump.
Not the politicians who are trying to figure out how to cooperate with him while still yelling at him enough to make money. Not the news hairdos already running stories about what the Trump family Thanksgiving looked like. Not the electoral college or Jill Stein’s recount or Hillary contesting the results of the election.
Certainly not the Republican party which faced so few consequences for nominating a SERIAL SEX PREDATOR that they won the entire White House and larger majorities in Congress.
Why should they save the country from Trump? Why are we asking them to do what is not in their interest?
I said it right after the election and I’ll keep saying it: All we do now is save as many as we can. Keep giving me your suggestions for how we do that because that’s all that’s important now.
Nobody’s coming to save us. Certainly not from the GOP side of the aisle.
A.
Alexandra Wit interviewed two Republicans this morning on MSNBC, one of whom said Trump might not want to reinstall the Cuban embargo because he might want to do business there. Nobody batted an eyelid.
Noonan’s thought process: “Maybe if I keep making suggestions like this, Trump will listen to me! Never mind that he made it to the White House by ignoring everyone he disagreed with, including his closest advisers!”