During a time of war, American liberals love to focus on the “collateral damage” that may be done to “innocent civilians” as part of U.S. military action taken against hostile targets. While concern for non-combatants can be considered admirable, liberals do not usually extend the same level of worry in matters of domestic politics.
They are willing to go after anybody deemed a threat to their cause and they couldn’t care less about who they might hurt along the way, without regard to their innocence or involvement.
One such person dragged into the recently concluded farce that was the Mueller investigation is White House Aide and Social Media Director Dan Scavino.
Dan has been in and out of President Trump’s world since the beginning of his administration and going all the way back to the age of 16 when he was hand-picked to be the golf caddy for then-businessman Donald Trump. That fortuitous moment started him on a path that has landed him front and center in the President’s efforts to get around the MSM and communicate directly with the American people.
I have gotten to know Dan well over the past couple of years. He is the guy who always makes himself available no matter how busy he is. He is the guy who follows up on every commitment he makes and delivers what he promised. He is the guy who always makes sure his activities shine the best possible light on the President and his initiatives.
Scavino was dragged into the Mueller investigation like almost everyone else around the President. One area where he was mentioned was the Trump campaign’s alleged connection to WikiLeaks and the accessing of Clinton campaign computers. This included the statement offered in obvious jest by then-candidate Trump when he urged the Russians to find Hillary’s thirty-thousand or so lost emails.
This claim was always completely bogus and the Mueller investigation’s lack of findings in this regard proved it so. Dan Scavino has been vindicated.
He has been mocked and attacked in every way, ranging from his private life being scrutinized when his wife filed for divorce, to published hypothesizing as to how his family would have been impacted by the President’s immigration policies. Because of his work in social media, he has been very front and center to the public and that has made him fair game.
Yet, Dan Scavino is still here; still in the White House serving his President.
In a time of war, one of the reasons that civilian targets are sometimes hit is because it is known that without the support of the citizens, it gets harder for oppositional leaders to sustain the conflict. A leader of a warring country can suddenly find themselves waging battle on two fronts; one against enemy forces and one with their own people.
We know that some of the people close to the President turned on him during the Mueller investigation. That gets all the publicity. A far greater number of them, however, just decided to walk away. To paraphrase Harry Truman, they couldn’t stand the heat, so they got out of the kitchen.
Dan is one of the ones who stayed. Along the way, he has done a remarkable job of keeping the President in touch with his base of support. Those of us who believe in the President’s agenda have been lucky to have Dan to rely upon for the delivery and coordination of messaging the public. It can’t get done through our press, so we need a person who is going to stay on point and on time in breaking through barriers.
Beyond us supporters, the President needs people near him who are loyal. We live in a time where experts like to talk about all sorts of attributes, things like servant leadership, courage, emotional intelligence, cultural awareness, inclusiveness, etc. Whole industries have been built upon webinars and podcasts teaching folks how to “fill their toolbox” with these important concepts.
Loyalty. Good, old fashioned loyalty. It hasn’t quite made its way into today’s self-help vernacular. It is almost as if loyalty is an anachronism, an archaic notion from a different time when people are thought to have been less personally “aware” and more inclined to “blindly” follow others. Loyalty can be twisted to mean deliberate, mindless surrender to someone or something else.
But that doesn’t define loyalty. Loyalty isn’t a weakness and it isn’t surrender or self-sacrifice. It certainly doesn’t have to be blinding. Loyalty is about recognizing that another person or a cause is of primary value to you, and because of that value, you are willing to do whatever you need to do to take a stand and hold to a position, no matter how hard prevailing winds of opinion might try to blow you away.
Thanks to Dan Scavino, and to the others who, like him, stood by the President during this Russian conspiracy hoax. Thank you, Dan, for bringing loyalty back into style.