in 2008 and 2012 i wrote columns opposing barack obama <u+2019>s bid for the white house. i thought he was an overrated talker grandiosely promising the transformation and redemption of an america that needed neither. the cult of personality that went with his candidacy creeped me out. people who wore t-shirts with the candidate posed as a prophet reminded me of religious believers, not democratic citizens. i<u+2019>ve never regretted my opposition to mr. obama, though i<u+2019>ve never wished him ill. nor do i regret other positions that earned me no favors from readers, from my opposition to jonathan pollard <u+2019>s early release to my support for keeping troops in afghanistan (for which the journalist michael wolff urged people to punch me in the face). there are columnists who take excellent care to stay on their audience<u+2019>s good side. not me. but nothing quite prepared me for the torrent of opprobrium stemming from my undiminished disdain for donald trump. in august 2015 i called him a <u+201c>loudmouth vulgarian appealing to quieter vulgarians.<u+201d> last week, i said he was a demagogue. i<u+2019>ve lost count of the number of readers informing me<u+2014>usually more than once<u+2014>that they<u+2019>ve canceled subscriptions on my account, or demanding that i apologize, resign or move to israel. his victory last week has redoubled those demands. to which my considered reply is: non, je ne regrette rien . well, not entirely. i was almost certain mr. trump would lose the election. nobody should ever hire me as a political forecaster. i took too many shots at mr. trump<u+2019>s voters rather than at the candidate himself. millions of voters in the general election were not blind to his faults but chose him as the lesser evil. they deserved less scorn and more understanding. the incoming trump administration also deserves an open mind, as hillary clinton graciously put it in her concession speech. it should be a rule in democracies that candidates for high office should be judged guilty till proven innocent, while the winners deserve to be held innocent till proven guilty. to root for mr. trump to fail is worse than unpatriotic. it<u+2019>s self-defeating. but let<u+2019>s get a few things straight. winning an election doesn<u+2019>t win an argument. team trump is not team america. modesty always becomes a political victor, especially one who lost the popular vote by a historic margin. and the question most appropriate for mr. trump and his supporters isn<u+2019>t what his defeated critics owe him. it<u+2019>s what he owes them as their highest political servant. something else: what a columnist owes his readers isn<u+2019>t a bid for their constant agreement. it<u+2019>s independent judgment. opinion journalism is still journalism, not agitprop. the elision of that distinction and the rise of malevolent propaganda outfits such as breitbart news is one of the most baleful trends of modern life. serious columnists must resist it. independent judgment should also mean an occasional countervailing view, especially when it runs against the grain of readers<u+2019> thinking. <u+201c>it is the true believer<u+2019>s ability to <u+2018>shut his eyes and stop his ears<u+2019> to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard,<u+201d> wrote eric hoffer in 1951, <u+201c>which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy.<u+201d> many things explain mr. trump<u+2019>s unexpected victory, but not the least of them was the ability of his core supporters to shut out the inconvenient trump facts: the precarious foundations of his wealth, the plasticity of his convictions, the astonishing frequency of his lying. mr. trump attracted millions of voters thirsty to believe. that thirst may hold its own truth, but it doesn<u+2019>t lessen a columnist<u+2019>s responsibility to note that it won<u+2019>t be slaked by another hollow slogan of redemption. <u+201c>make america great again<u+201d> will go the way of <u+201c>hope and change.<u+201d> whether or not this disappointment gives way to wisdom is another question. one last thing: columnists owe their readers a moral voice. in appointing steve bannon as top strategist, it might be said that mr. trump is balancing the establishment and insurgent forces that supported him. but the significant fact is that mr. bannon presided over a website that delighted in calling bill kristol a <u+201c>renegade jew,<u+201d> said of anne applebaum that <u+201c>hell hath no fury like a polish, jewish, american elitist scorned,<u+201d> and defended the confederacy as a <u+201c>patriotic and idealistic cause.<u+201d> if get-in-line republican leaders won<u+2019>t call mr. bannon out on this, it falls to the columnists they likely read to do so. <u+201c>a good newspaper,<u+201d> arthur miller said, <u+201c>is a nation talking to itself.<u+201d> a responsible columnist, i would add, is a companion talking back to you. to talk is not to echo. write bstephens@wsj.com.
a columnist<u+2019>s responsibility - wsj
bret stephens