The choices in this election are evidently Donald Trump and Not-Donald Trump. Nobody is voting for Trump’s chimeric, charlatanic opponent, but many are voting against Trump.
Those Against-Trump voters fall into three camps.
Camp 1 comprises people who genuinely disagree with Trump on the issues. I think these voters are mostly wrong, but I grudgingly respect them. At least they’re analyzing the issues, even though they’re coming to the wrong conclusion.
So, OK . . .
If they think Trump is wrong to tighten up the southern border;
If they think Trump is wrong to extend the tax cuts (which disproportionately benefited middle- and low-income Americans);
If they think Trump is wrong to keep nukes out of the hands of the Ayatollahs;
If they think Trump is wrong to encourage oil and gas production at home at reasonable prices and under stringent environmental safeguards rather than in places like Russia and Venezuela where they produce it dirtily and then sell it to us expensively;
If they think Trump’s economy of 1.4% inflation and low unemployment was bad compared to much higher inflation and unemployment under his successor;
If they think Trump is wrong to oppose racial discrimination in hiring and in college admissions; and
If they think Trump is wrong in his desire to slim down the Federal government;
. . . then I think they’re mistaken. But if they believe those things, then they’re probably right to vote against Trump. I say “probably” because it’s hard to be certain that Trump’s opponent is in their camp, since she waffles daily and hides her positions (with the aid of a complicit, biased media).
Camp 2 of Against-Trump voters are those who sincerely believe he’s a “threat to democracy.” I have a bit less respect for those voters because I think they’re being melodramatic rather than analytic.
Some of them are at least sincere and are voting the way they think serves the country. Others, however, are just parroting the “threat to democracy” line to rationalize their true reasons for being against Trump, namely that they are in Camp 1 or 3.
As for the threat Trump poses to democracy, Camp 2 points to Trump’s action and inaction on Jan. 6, 2021. Indeed, it was not his finest hour.
But the notion that we almost lost the Republic that day – to a hooligan in a buffalo-horn hat and his unarmed sidekicks who made a ruckus and swiped some souvenirs from the Capitol Building – is overblown, at best. Note that the Supreme Court ultimately decided that the gross offenders were grossly overcharged by the Democrat prosecutors, and the Court threw out the most serious charges.
This Camp 2 also points to Trump’s personality. Bellicose is perhaps a word to describe it. In a prior life, the guy had fun with a reality TV show where his punch line was “You’re fired!” In a more serious vein, Trump has bragged that he fired people right and left in his first administration.
Sometimes people do need to be fired. But good bosses don’t relish firing people. Moreover, a boss who frequently fires people should be looking a bit at his own failings in hiring and supervising such people to begin with.
But none of that makes Trump a “threat to democracy.” If you want to talk seriously about a threat to democracy, then talk about an administration that:
Refuses to physically protect to its political opponents;
Routinely characterizes its opponents as “threats” to the nation;
Calls for a “bullseye” to be put on its opponents;
Pressures media outlets to censor news and opinions they don’t like;
Hides the encroaching senility of the Democrat President, acknowledges it only when they get caught, and then replaces him behind the scenes with a woman who helped hide his senility to begin with and has never won a Democrat delegate in her life – while they still keep the senile President in the office of “Leader of the Free World” even as they acknowledge that he’s too senile to run for that office;
Seeks to put skin color ahead of merit in hiring and college admissions;
Frequently compares their opponents to Nazis:
Repeatedly overreaches in legal matters to the point that their court record on challenges is abysmal;
Refuses to follow Supreme Court rulings, and slams the Court as “illegitimate.”
In other words, talk about the Democrats.
That brings us to Camp 3. These are the voters I respect least, even though they’re the most amiable on the surface. These are the voters who mostly agree with Trump on the issues, but they simply don’t like his personality.
Trump is certainly not a slickster. He didn’t even graduate at the bottom of his law school class like the current Delaware beach bum and sometimes Oval Office occupant. In fact, he never went to law school at all. I doubt he even knows how to say “Pass the sweet-and-sour shrimp.”
But despite, or perhaps because of, all those things, I have a hunch that I might like the guy in person.
On the other hand, if I wouldn’t, so what? We’re not electing Homecoming Queen. We’re electing someone to preserve and enhance the interests of America and the world.
The left knows that. That’s why they hate Trump. It’s because he protects the interests of the country and culture they hate: America and Western Civilization. (If they lived in Africa or Southeast Asia, they’d hate them too, but that’s another column.)
If you’ve read this far, you’re not a leftist. But maybe it makes you feel good to join the left in voting against a person you find tacky and bellicose – someone you deem beneath you in social graces, polish, and good hair – even though he protects American and Western interests. Well, fine.
But actually, not fine at all. The price for your personal feel-goodery is to put our people, our nation, our civilization, and our world, at risk. This election is about something bigger than your feelings.
As for those who will vote neither for nor against Trump, my question is this: Do you really think Trump and his opponent are exactly equally bad at protecting our country and culture? Are you seriously contending that you graded them out on the issues and each of them came to a grade of, say, 73.41?
C’mon, man. You know which came out higher. Your refusal to vote for him is an exercise in virtue-signaling to yourself and others.
But this isn’t about you and your virtue and your signals. Get over yourself, and do the smart thing. The world is at stake.
Hello Muddah, hello Faddah,
Here I am in Coloradah.
All I ask is, if you love me,
Why’d ya send me here to Camp 3?
Here the rocks are mostly red,
And the people mostly brain dead,
And though Trump is best in my opinion,
My vote will be soon be cancelled by Dominion!
Bye now,
Your homesick son
On the mark, as usual, save for one quibble. Although the events of January 6 were not, as you say, Trump's "finest hour," they were far from anything like the "insurrection" as pronounced by the democrats and their lickspittles in the media. Although it has been prominently and repeatedly alleged by the usual suspects that Trump was complicit in failing to take steps to call out the military to protect The Capitol, recently divulged testimony by General Milley, hardly a Trump supporter, has made it clear that Trump gave instructions to have a substantial force of army or national guard available to keep order. His instructions, however were not obeyed and forces were not deployed until far into the afternoon, long after a show of force would or could be effective in keeping order. In other words, he was sabotaged and his position as comander in chief was disregarded in an act of disloyalty to the Constitution and military protocol. So all of the noise from the democrat House Committee was produced in direct contradiction to the evidence they had gathered. And neither the democrats nor their catamite media swine have seen fit to correct the reord.