Victor Davis Hanson articulates the Trump paradox in his excellent article in National Review, Elites Value Mellifluous Illegality over Crass Lawfulness.

Finally, this weird juxtaposition of the vacuous and often law-breaking, but melodious, Obama administration next to boisterous and rowdy Trump presidency has taught us a lesson about our own moral blindness.

Both our media and popular culture, as well as our cultural elite, value style far more than substance. Adroitly breaking the law is preferable to obeying it in uncivilized fashion. Boorishly bragging nonstop about 3 percent economic growth and below-4-percent unemployment is deemed far worse than contextualizing in professorial tones a stagnant economy that in eight years never achieved 3 percent annual growth.

Credentials empower illegality; their mere absence is seen as almost illegal in itself.

Lawlessly “presidential” is a misdemeanor; lawfully unpresidential, a felony. A bankrupt agenda delivered by experts is sanctified; an effective one packaged by amateurs is heretical.

Having engaged in illegality during the Obama administration is better on a résumé than following the law in a Trump government.

And yet still, this one constant keeps reverberating throughout the hysteria: Our elite always values the messenger over the message.

The façade of Camelot exempts empty lawlessness in a way that Queens-accented boosterism seems to nullify real achievement.

 

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