Good reads, tied together

There's a good article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly about Trump's electoral victory in 2016, that is free from bias and looks at the reasons behind his win - without vitriol or victorious glee.  It's definitely worth a read, and one of three articles today that actually tie together in a visceral way.

...He was an affable Muslim immigrant from Pakistan who appeared to be in his 50s. He’d been in America for nearly 30 years, raised his family here, and told a heart-wrenching story about being ostracized by his factory co-workers after Sept. 11 because of his religion. He moved on and started his own company and was now facing anxiety over a recently diagnosed medical condition.

“So who are you going to vote for?” I asked as a courtesy, convinced that I already knew the answer.

“Donald J. Trump,” he responded, to my surprise.

Some details on the Obama-media cabal in an interesting article at the less-than-pro-Trump Weekly Standard.

...Paired with that of her former officemate, Ned Price, Ahmed's story pushes the message that Trump is so bad that gifted public servants are resigning from their positions. The Washington Post story from late January incorrectly reporting that the mass exodus of senior officials from the State Department was unique to the Trump White House, rather than the normal bureaucratic turnover that greets every new administration, touched on the same narrative. In this case, it seems that Ahmed applied for a post only in order to resign from it, after collecting a paycheck for four days. Thus, U.S. taxpayers covered research expenses for an Atlantic story.

...But this is no longer simply about bias. Large parts of the press have willingly become instruments in a campaign of political warfare. This, as Rhodes told the New York Times Magazine, was the purpose of the echo chamber. "I'd prefer a sober, reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take a vote," Rhodes explained. "But that's impossible."

The damage that the echo chamber has done to the public sphere is part of Obama's legacy—and, many contend, part of the reason for Trump's success. Payback is why the Trump White House banned the Times, CNN and several other major news organizations from a press briefing Friday.

Even American Spectator is talking about how president Trump gets it and how the liberal media cabal is shooting itself in the foot while handing president Trump his next victory in 2020.

President Trump’s fearless, effective handling of the liberal media redounds to his benefit in a manner never seen before in Republican politics.

He’s the first Republican president who responds immediately to biased reporting and doesn’t let a single charge go by unrefuted. He is totally unafraid of being combative and confrontational. He has empowered and emboldened his advisors and spokespeople, like Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus -- to act likewise, with effective results. For the first time, conservatives are not shouting at the TV out of frustration, “You should have said....” Now, the Trump administration says it.

President Trump makes liberal reporters with their all-too-obvious gotcha agendas look ridiculous. He shines the light of illegitimacy and bias on them for the entire world to see. “Fake News” is now part of the national lexicon. The more the liberal MSM try to deny it, the more they implicate themselves.

Taken alone each of these articles provide insight, but taken together, they provide a narrative that's pretty easy to follow.  Donald Trump won the presidency despite the media constantly vilifying him.  He won because people understand that the system needs fixing and he promised to fix it for the benefit of Americans.  The media are the same insiders from Democrat (and to a lesser extent, Republican) party elites.  They are mutually invested in the status quo and are engaged in an effort to maintain it by discrediting Trump.  It continues not to work for them and in fact is having the opposite effect of what they seek.  Despite Trump's lower than expected honeymoon period approval ratings, he has set himself up for success with the core issue of draining the swamp, eliminating the waste and putting American workers ahead of a (either perceived or real) globalist agenda. I previously stated Trump's presidency is not a day-to-day scoreboard.  As long as smart Democrats don't get heard, Trump's temporary lower approval will change dramatically over the next four years, in his favor.