Loyalty, Not The Province Of Fair Weather Friends

True friends will stand beside you through thick and thin. But beware the fair weather friends, like your enemies; they will turn their back on you as soon as the mob approaches. 

If in a time of weakness and self-indulgence a friend makes a mistake and succumbs to temptation, one of the many of life’s pitfalls, and is scorned and becomes an outcast. Would you stand by your friend through all his or her hardship and scorn, even though you might also suffer the slings and arrows of critics and tormentors? Or in a moment of self-preservation and your own weakness, would you turn away and desert your friend?  

In recent editorials in both the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, and also in articles and statements by prominent people, former President Trump was taken to task for the manner in which he conducted himself during the January 6 protest, which according to these once supporters, was un-presidential. Mr. Trump was lambasted and admonished and directed to dismiss any thought of running again for president in 2024.

The post-modern media and most of its pseudo-journalists, especially over the past five years, have gone through a metamorphosis, but the transformation has not been worthy of praise, something more reckless, ruthless, and ugly. It’s troubling and sad to try to come to terms with how once many Trump supporters fail to allow for a measure of latitude now, and fail to come to his defense. This change in attitude has even infected members of his administration during his presidency.

In a recent Gallop poll, only 16% have a good deal of trust and confidence in newspapers. It gets even worse, as only 11% have trust and some degree of confidence in TV news. Among Republicans, 5% have confidence in newspapers, while contrasted with Democrats at 35%. Keep in mind, a recent survey revealed that 8 in 10 journalists and those in the media who cover politics identify as Democrats.

The media, with few exceptions, has since 2016, willfully and unapologetically thrown everything they have at the former president, and yes, even the kitchen sink. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, nonstop, Mr. Trump, his family, and his administration were subject to personal insults, hateful rhetoric, accusations, inferences of Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, and impeachments. But he gave as well as he got, and you cannot deny he excelled and accomplished much.

Even with all his transgressions and sometimes brash and uncouth behavior, Mr. Trump has had to withstand a vicious and hostile media, Democrats, academia, the radical left, and the so-called ruling class, is it any wonder why he might be so incensed that he lost his 2020 bid for reelection for the presidency, to a candidate that hardly ever campaigned and spent most of his time underground while the media looked the other way and made excuses for him. And now we all must pay the price as President Biden is a failure and is bringing America to her knees.

And so after all that has taken place over these past few years, it all comes down to one day, January 6, 2021, 187 minutes, and a committee of Trump-hating, self-righteous hypocritical demagogues; yet everything else that proved to be without merit, even at times fictitious since 2016, falls by the wayside. The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, and all the other former supporters, fair-weather friends, are all so upset and beside themselves because a bunch of fired-up Americans breached a building that their tax money pays for. 

There was no insurrection, no weapons were found on the premises, there was only one violent death, an innocent Ashley Babbitt, and it was just revealed by investigators that the former president was not in communication with far right-wing groups, prior to January 6. There were capitol police who allowed protesters to enter the building without any attempt to stop them. And lest we forget, President Trump’s last words to them in a speech earlier that day were “You will walk over to the Capitol and peacefully and patriotically protest.”

The time has come for the American people to decide, to separate the wheat from the chaff, the strong from the weak, the unwavering from the passive, all those once Trump supporters who now bow at the same altar as the media, Democrats, and the ruling class. They willfully forget the accomplishments of the Trump presidency and are offended by his abrasiveness. To them, the former president has become an outcast, and because they have become weak but useful idiots, they cling to faulty evidence and unfounded accusations by Trump haters, to excuse their disloyalty and cowardice.