Years ago, I eagerly anticipated reading Peggy Noonan’s weekly Wall Street Journal column. Her insights on national politics and our shared civic life always seemed to cut through the noise and provide important nuggets of wisdom. But those days are long gone. Like many elite media pundits, Noonan was utterly confounded by the Trump era. Her analysis of him often relied on ridiculous anecdotes, and her recent piece on the Durham report shows just how disconnected she is from reality.

The Durham report chronicles in detail the FBI’s corrupt origins of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Yet, Noonan still doesn’t “know what to think of Trump/Russia” and is “not satisfied we’ll ever fully understand it.” Her take on the entire sordid affair shows that she will never understand it, even if it’s crystal clear to the rest of us.

Noonan’s alienation from reality is evident in her false equivalence between the treasonous launch of Crossfire Hurricane and the “mystery” of why Trump was friendly to Putin at a joint press conference in 2018. For Noonan, seeing Trump be deferential to Putin was evidence of a deep, dark conspiracy that the Durham report failed to explain.

But the reality is that Trump wasn’t a member of the establishment, so the establishment hated him. He had bad manners, was boorish and rude, and thought the media and federal bureaucracy were corrupt and ridiculous. That deeply offended the establishment, and they had to stop him. For our elite media class, Trump’s popularity couldn’t possibly be real. They themselves couldn’t possibly be that out of touch, could they? No, there had to be another explanation for Trump. He had to be a real-life villain, a Russian agent, or at least a Putin apologist. Nothing he did, no actual policies or actions undertaken by the Trump administration would dissuade them of this belief. It was an indispensable narrative. Their careers and reputations depended on it.

Noonan’s reaction to the Durham report shows that she has lost all credibility. If she still thinks the FBI was motivated by patriotism in its perpetuation of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, then it’s time for her to retire. She, along with other once-respected pundits on the right, has lost the ability not only to explain the state of American politics but to ascertain basic reality.

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