Michael Goodwin served as executive editor and editorial page editor of the New York Daily News before taking up his current role of chief political columnist for the New York Post. At the Daily News, Goodwin led the editorial board to a Pulitzer Prize. He is not given to overstatement. In his New York Post column “Madness of left-wing zealots,” Goodwin observes:
[S]ingling out Trump for the turmoil engulfing the country is possible only if you disregard the No. 1 contributor: the refusal of Democrats and most of the media to accept the results of the 2016 election.
That refusal has become, among many on the left, borderline psychotic. Nothing else compares to the damage it is doing to our nation’s fabric and global image.
Trump’s irritating foibles and unorthodox ways pale in comparison. The continuing challenge to his legitimacy is a cancer on the republic.
It is one thing for a president to suffer brickbats for failures and mistakes. That’s fair game.
But no president in modern times has also faced endless assaults on his right to even set foot in the Oval Office and exercise the powers of the presidency. Yet here we are, nearing the third anniversary of his election by a decisive margin, and still the resistance to his right to govern rages on.
The headline on Goodwin’s column refers to “left-wing zealots.” It should read “Democrats” (and their media adjunct, as Goodwin also makes clear). The trouble here is that Democrats act under the belief that the door only swings one way — and that they are immunized against the consequences of their bad faith. That’s not “psychosis” (as Goodwin suggests), that’s a fair reflection of their sinister political calculations.
NOTE: See also Goodwin’s 2017 Imprimis essay “The 2016 Election and the Demise of Journalistic Standards.”
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