A Peggy Noonan Pop Quiz

Who said this and what was the subject?

There is an odd, magical-thinking element in the psychology of recent White Houses. It is now common for those within them to assume that history will declare their greatness down the road. They proceed as if this is automatic, guaranteed: They will leave someday, history will ponder their accomplishments and announce their genius.

Answer:  Peggy Noonan wrote it.  Six years ago.  About Barack Obama.

The Nihilist in the White House

Which, in turn, made various Conservative media constituencies like the homunculi at P J Media all gooey in their bikini areas:

Understanding the Nihilist in the White House...

But it is clear that one of the main things that motivated Noonan’s use of the word “nihilist” for Obama was that he is bent on destruction rather than creation, because destruction for its own sake is also part of the arsenal of nihilism. In the paragraph of hers that I quoted above, she uses words that express this to describe the effects of Obama’s executive order on immigration [emphasis mine]: it is “destructive to the reputation of democracy itself,” it “damages the standing of our tottery political institutions,” and it “erode[s] the position of the American working class.”

I agree that Obama wants to destroy...

And here is what Peggers wrote six weeks ago (emphasis added):

Burn the Republican Party Down? 

It would damage the country, and those who say yes bear some blame for the president’s rise.

Where did Donald Trump come from? Where is the GOP going? Should the whole thing be burned down? A lot had to go wrong before we got a President Trump. This fact, once broadly acknowledged, has gotten lost, as if a lot of people want it forgotten...

That was what got every Never Trumper currently on anyone's payroll up-in-arms.  Which, in turn, got many Liberals who have been writing about the racism and depravity of the GOP for decades rolling in the aisles.

But Peggers had more to say.

He came from a spirit of frustration among a sizable segment of the electorate that, in time, became something like a spirit of nihilism...

And the penny drops:

The past four years have produced a different kind of disaster, one often described in this space. The past six months Mr. Trump came up against his own perfect storm, one he could neither exploit nor talk his way past: a pandemic, an economic contraction that will likely produce a lengthy recession, and prolonged, sometimes violent national street protests. If the polls can be trusted, he is on the verge of losing the presidency.

Now various of his foes, in or formerly of his party, want to burn the whole thing down—level the party, salt the earth where it stood, remove Republican senators, replace them with Democrats.

This strikes me as another form of nihilism...

Over time, the alert reader will notice that Peggers throws around the term "nihilist" like the dotty Faulkner sisters threw around the word "pixelated" in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

You see, everyone on Earth is a nihilist.

Except, of course, for Peggy Noonan.

No Half Measures