Gutknecht: The Long March Toward Irrelevance

We can only smile as the leftist media and their friends on Capitol Hill continue their self-inflicted march to irrelevance. 

Source: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

On the morning after impeachment, Democrats and Washington Post reporters sobered from the cocktails of their evening of celebration. Most Americans finished their coffee and went to work. Trucks were loaded. Appointments were made. Assembly lines cranked up. Moms kissed their kids as they trudged out the door for school.

The stock market headed for new record highs.

It was all as if nothing had happened. For most of middle America, nothing had. Like a trusted coffee pot, the economy kept perking. The partisan impeachment vote changed nothing. America shrugged and quickly moved on. Americans see bare-knuckled politics for what it is. It may have set a low watermark, but it won’t change their world. Donald Trump will keep his job. Like him, they have real jobs to do.

Carl Sandberg in his immortal poem The People, Yes wrote, “The people will live on…They will be tricked and sold, and again sold.” By their stoic silence, the people are speaking now. They are saying that this impeachment charade is irrelevant.

In many respects, that is the deepest cut of all.

The very thought of being seen as irrelevant is terrifying to the self-important people in Washington. Insiders and those with press credentials want desperately to be relevant. Just like that first jolt of caffeine in the morning, they need it. Indeed, it is one of the major reasons that Trump is so despised by the swamp dwellers. He has rendered them largely irrelevant. Worse, they must know they have actually helped him achieve this.

The Speaker and her actors carefully planned their Christmas play. It would be the culmination of over two years of work. The script was carefully focus grouped and rehearsed. Unfortunately, the audience either stayed home or walked out on the final act. Ouch!

Consider how this latest drama began and who the principal players were. They were largely unelected bureaucrats who were offended that President Trump ignored them and their procedures. They believed that they were anointed to make foreign policy. Trump bypassed the process and took his concerns about corruption directly to the new president of Ukraine. The testimony (such as it was) came largely from State Department officials whose noses were bent out of shape. They had no firsthand knowledge. They were upset because they were irrelevant.

To shield Chairman Schiff and the “whistleblower” from serious cross examination, the Speaker comically threatens to hold the articles in her desk drawer. We suspect this latest ploy is also designed to avoid having the whole thing quickly dismissed on a bipartisan vote by the Senate. A headline reading Charges Dismissed, President Acquitted would be a bitter pill. Adding insult to injury, their farcical play closes quickly to negative reviews.

If House Democrats feel irrelevant, imagine the feelings of their cheerleaders in the press. Literally, from the day Donald Trump announced his run they have maintained their uninterrupted drumbeat. They have questioned his mental health. They have challenged his handling of everything from illegal immigration to his reckless “trade war” with Red China. Never giving him credit for his impressive string of victories. They can’t even bring themselves to admit that we have the strongest economy in fifty years, let alone credit him.

As Attorney General Barr observed recently, they have been complicit in turning the country on its head. The entire Russian Collusion hoax could not have happened without their active participation. The same is true for this impeachment ruse. For all their deceptive efforts, Trump is emerging stronger. And they are increasingly bitter and irrelevant.

Donald Trump didn’t invent the term Fake News. He only weaponized it. Daily, much of the the media labor to prove his point. Americans see this. The president let the press corps know that if they could not behave, he would cancel the daily press briefings. They couldn’t. He did. They are now reduced to shouting questions as he heads to the helicopter.

We can only smile as the leftist media and their friends on Capitol Hill continue their self-inflicted march to irrelevance.

________

Gil Gutknecht served six terms in both the Minnesota and the U.S. House of Representatives
Gil Gutknecht

Gil Gutknecht is a former Republican congressman from Minnesota.