100 Days That Shook The World
But not the folks at Breitbart
The First 100 Days of Trump
by Joel Pollack
Breitbart, 70 pages, $0.00
A decade into its existence, Breitbart has surpassed Fox News as the beating heart of right-wing reactionism in the United States, warping online ecosystems in its wake through calculated bursts of vitriol: targeting “renegade Jews” like William Kristol and George Soros (he of the “Soros Army”), hurling hand-grenade headlines into the online void (6 Reasons Pamela Geller’s Muhammad Cartoon Contest is No Different from Selma), and slurring the LGBTQ community, immigrants, Muslims, and women in general.
Through a daily deluge of whataboutism, character assassination, and plenty of sensational hype, the late Andrew Breitbart’s rage-soaked bequest to the world served as springboard for the alt-right career of Trump advisor Steve Bannon and cheered the rise of candidate Trump all the way to the White House, at which point the Breitbart webmaster promptly ran out of font sizes in trying to capture the alt-right’s sheer glee.
Now, several months past this sweetest of victories, Breitbart reflects on the highs and lows (but mostly highs) of Trump’s First 100 Days. Senior Editor at Large Joel B. Pollak — who required video evidence to believe his own employee’s claims of battery at the hands of one-time Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski — has reworked the Trump administration’s greatest hits for “a concise yet comprehensive summary.”
The Achievements
It’s little wonder that this Breitbart recap — sorely in need of editing in places — reads like Animal Farm rewritten to the tastes of Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings’ Friend. The President has been “remarkable active,” rivaling Johnson and Reagan for “sheer impact” over the course of his first 100 days in office.
He flits about the political scene like a boldly empowered gadfly, firing off tweets at recalcitrant officials and deep-state bureaucrats who can’t seem to toe the line or mainstream media outlets that seem flatly incapable of covering real news. He “exhaust[s] his interlocutors” at his first press conference, hits the campaign trail to court “the bouquets of a supportive crowd,” condemns the misdeeds of unseen vandals, and chides his opponents as they seek out his missteps.
The Democrats plot to troll the President at his debut Congressional address, only to be left flummoxed, frustrated, and worried by the President’s rhetorical mastery. The courts interfere with highly questionable legal reasoning, only to be spared by a President that shows wise restraint in respecting the separation of powers.
Border-crossings are down, as are regulations. A conservative nominee is in Scalia’s seat. We fire missiles into a Middle Eastern country without triggering an international incident. Trump sticks it to the mainstream media, his partisan opponents, and Econ 101. Overall he gets an A.
Even where Trump seems to fall short, he is still the primary mover and shaker — as in the failed (first) effort to pass the AHCA, where considerable effort by Trump and the White House come to naught as moderate Republicans waver, the Freedom Caucus proves unreasonable, and Speaker Ryan buckles. Even here, though, there’s little cause for concern: “some, however, suggest Trump intended the bill to fail, the better to bring all parties together in the end.” History has shown at least this much to be correct, with the House GOP cobbling together 217 votes to bring the AHCA back from the grave.
As momentous and salacious as the headlines generated by this administration are, no amount of leaks or missteps or gaffes seem to make a difference. Pollak is right that they are “rather inconsequential” — unless they translate into better organization from the ground up among the ranks of the political opposition, there will be little to show for three-and-a-half years of tuned-in Americans fretting over the President’s acts.
As for the infighting, the allegations, the leaks, the firings, the efforts at ramming through unconstitutional executive orders, the courts suspending and halting said executive orders, the gaffes, the lashing out, the conflicts of interest? “Rather inconsequential.”
About the only thing Pollak and Breitbart might be willing to concede is that Sean Spicer is a flaming train wreck of a Press Secretary — or at least that he should probably not attempt to compare anyone to Hitler. But not even that, really.
The Enemies
The one theme that 100 Days truly rams home is just how much Breitbart and Trump are encircled by their jeering, scheming enemies — and how much the President and his alt-right Greek chorus take great joy in trolling, defying, and enraging them.
Not for nothing does this account close with Trump surrounded by cheering fans, taking shots at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “A large group of Hollywood celebrities and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation’s capital right now . . . I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington’s swamp, spending my evening with all of you.”
It’s awfully lonely at the top; even the Congressional GOP comes off as part of the problem more than it does the political party that President Trump ostensibly leads.
As for the rest . . . oh, how they plot, those enemies of Trump. Former President Obama lurks off-stage like Snowball, with Trump loyalists slowly digging up all the nefarious plots cooked up by 44’s administration. If word of questionable conduct makes its way to the press, always blame the messengers: it takes Breitbart a matter of minutes to turn reports of Trump sharing secrets with the Russians into “DEEP STATE STRIKES: LEAKS CLASSIFIED INFO TO WASHINGTON POST TO SMEAR TRUMP.”
The President rails against the leaky ship he captains, accusing renegade foes in the FBI and the CIA of acting “Just like Russia.”
The leaks continue.
Above and beyond the deep state, the media and the left lurk around every metaphorical corner, waiting to seize on the administration’s every perfectly understandable missteps. Everyone — everyone! — makes mountains out of molehills in putting the worst possible spin on things, like perfectly innocent meetings between Trump campaign and administration officials and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyek.
Mike Flynn is done in by irresponsible leakers and an even less responsible press, while left-wingers at the Office of Congressional Ethics harass Congressman Nunes into resigning from the House probe into Russian meddling. Never mind his resourceful efforts to meet with the Trump administration in private to get to the bottom of the aforementioned surveillance story.
Every attempt at presenting the administration’s “alternative facts” — what the opposing side in a legal argument might do, we are told — whips these foes into a frenzy, as do each and every one of President Trump’s bold moves.
Left-wing protesters mob streets and college campuses at the slightest provocation — disrupting traffic, threatening violence, denting weekend airline travel — while the mainstream press trips over itself in its efforts to tarnish the administration with stories based wholly on unsubstantiated rumors. Given the realities of the administration’s successes, though, they can only take solace in Saturday Night Live’s partisan attacks on Trump & Co. Sad!
Meanwhile, the broader culture war rages in the background — campus free speech, black-on-white hate crimes, Radical Islamic Terror in Europe, the liberal Oscars embarrassing themselves in announcing the wrong winner for Best Picture.
As the President continues to rack up successes, “the ‘resistance’ will be lost.”
The Aftermath
Over at CJR, David Uberti closes his review by pondering the editorial dilemmas facing right-wing outlets in the Age of Trump: how does one cleave to a clear ideology in the face of a candidate who seems to have none? For Breitbart, it seems, there is no dilemma at all. Back Trump to the hilt and drown the opposition in bile (even if the occasional contributor throws a temper tantrum over Trump’s failure to live up to personal expectations).
As troubling as this is on its own, of more concern is my strong suspicion that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan (or at least some aides) begin and end their political days by taking the pulse of Breitbart. Damn the 2012 GOP Autopsy — the future of the Republican Party lies in making politics ever more cynical, edgy, bombastic, and dire. As long as President Trump continues to command the uncritical adoration of the site — and by extension its viewers— there is zero chance that they or much of the GOP leadership will have a critical word for anything to come out of the executive branch.
As momentous and salacious as the headlines generated by this administration are, no amount of leaks or missteps or gaffes seem to make a difference. Pollak is right that they are “rather inconsequential” — unless they translate into better organization from the ground up among the ranks of the political opposition, there will be little to show for three-and-a-half years of tuned-in Americans fretting over the President’s acts. If the President’s own party is unable or unwilling to meaningfully enforce anything but the letter of the law — which 100 Days give every indication is the case — then for all our platitudes about bipartisanship and coming together, the only thing that will fight fire is fire.
Andrew Leber is based in Boston.
