Posted on 08/02/2016 4:32:48 AM PDT by SJackson
During the presidential primaries I devoted many hours of radio and many columns to criticizing Donald Trump. His nomination caused me grief as an American, a Republican, and a conservative. That his character defects, gaps in knowledge on some important issues, and lack of identifiably conservative principles meant little to so many Republican voters is quite troubling.
(Though, I might add, it is even more troubling that virtually all Democrats ignored the even worse character of Hillary Clinton, as well as the idiotic socialist ideas of Sen. Bernie Sanders.)
Anti-Trump conservatives such as Jonah Goldberg, Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro, Bret Stephens, and George Will are not merely people I admire – they are friends and colleagues. Goldberg, Stephens, and Will have made multiple videos for my Prager University website that have received millions of views. Shapiro and I have spent Shabbat together. I have had the privilege of writing for Kristol’s Weekly Standard magazine and hosting him on my radio show many times. And I have enthusiastically promoted their books.
These individuals are special to me not only as thinkers, but as people. However, in the final analysis, I do not find their arguments compelling.
The choice this November is tragic. As often happens in life, the choice is between bad and worse, not bad and good.
But America has made that choice before. When forced to choose between bad and worse, we supported Stalin against Hitler, and we supported right-wing authoritarians against Communist totalitarians.
It seems to me that anti-Trump conservatives want to remain morally pure. I understand that temptation. I am tempted, too. But if you wish to vanquish the bad, it is not possible – at least not on this side of the afterlife – to remain pure.
The most moving interview of my 33 years in radio was with Irene Opdyke, a Polish Catholic woman. Opdyke became the mistress of a married Nazi officer in order to save the lives of 12 Jews. She hid them in the cellar of the officer’s house in Warsaw. There were some Christians who called my show to say Opdyke’s actions were wrong, that she had in fact sinned because she knowingly committed a mortal sin. In their view, she compromised Catholic/Christian doctrine.
In my view – and, I believe, the view of most Catholics and other Christians – she brought glory to her God and her faith. Why? Because circumstances almost always determine what is moral, even for religious people like myself who believe in moral absolutes. That’s why the act of dropping atom bombs on Japan was moral. The circumstances (ending a war that would otherwise continue taking millions of lives) made moral what under other circumstances would be immoral.
In the 2016 presidential race, I am not interested in moral purity. I am interested in defeating the left and its political arm, the Democratic Party. The notion (expressed by virtually every anti-Trump conservative) that we can live with another four years of a Democratic president is, forgive me, mind-boggling.
To that end, with at least one, and probably multiple, additional leftists on the Supreme Court, a Republican presidential victory in 2020 would mean little. All the left needs is the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court. Left-wing judges pass so many left-wing laws that they render those who control Congress, and even the White House, almost irrelevant.
Here, then, are nine reasons (there are more) why a conservative should prefer a Trump presidency to a Democratic presidency:
* Prevent a left-wing Supreme Court.
* Increase the defense budget.
* Repeal, or at least modify, the Dodd-Frank act.
* Prevent Washington, D.C., from becoming a state and giving the Democrats another two permanent senators.
* Repeal Obamacare.
* Curtail illegal immigration, a goal that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with xenophobia or nativism (just look at Western Europe).
* Reduce job-killing regulations on large and small businesses.
* Lower the corporate income tax and bring back hundreds of billions of offshore dollars to the United States.
* Continue fracking, which the left, in its science-rejecting hysteria, opposes.
For these reasons, I, unlike my friends, could not live with my conscience if I voted to help the left win the presidency.
I just don’t understand how anyone who understands the threat the left and the Democrats pose to America would refuse to vote for the only person who at this point can stop them.
No one is perfect, yet I still will VOTE for Mr. Trump.
Trump’s appeal is not mysterious. We are tired of “polished politicians pandering”. Another loser like Dole, McLame, or Mittens is not an option this time. We need a winner. The rest we can work on or pray about but this time we win or die (in fact we may win and still die).
Trump is also the type that he will say he is going to do something....and then do it.
Unlike the professional politicians who just pander and then go back on their word like business as usual.
bump
I just do not understand how ANY Jew could vote for a party that wants to take their guns, limit religion and sleeps with muzzies. WTH?
The Trump circumstance choice is between different and same.
It is foolish to attempt same again after McCain, Romney, and Dole were defeated.
It is the difference that is appealing. The same is tired and has nothing to offer but failed same. Life in a deepening political rut is destroying America
A trip on the surface again is appealing
me,too Mr Trump wasn’t my first choice or even 2 or 3 but the alternative isn’t acceptable to me...so I’ll vote Trump
The choice is not a difficult one.
A devout Free Traitor™ hops on the Trump train. LOL
——WTH?-—
The BLM is an extension of the Civil Rights movement that allowed Jews to join Country Clubs
The black culture is a surrogate for the Jewish cultural advancement
Another writer who gets it. As I have posted, this time we do not have a choice between a Founding Father and Hillary. The Rats have carefully crafted a throne for a tyrant with all the levers in place. It has taken them 100 years but they have patiently pursued this goal. Now the thing is in place and ready for Her Thighness and Trump swoops in to deny them. Anyone who thinks Trump won’t be a tyrant is delusional. For one thing, if he wants to survive physically he may well have to be. At the least the Brown Shirt Media will be all over him from before day one. Remember Alfred E Neuman Bush? Remember Chimpanzee Bush? Remember the movie assassination Bush? Think quantum levels of propaganda we have not even considered above this. Bush felt it beneath him to respond. Trump realizes that he cannot let these insults go unpunished and maintain order. Ergo, Trump will have to be tyrannical. He has no choice, history has driven this.
Point being, we did not build the tyrant’s throne but we allowed it. The choice before us is who sits on it. Hillary or Trump.
E Trog delusion this morning
Sour sour grapes
Trump was, however, my first choice when there were 17 Republicans, four or five democrats and greens and libertarians. He is the first person in a long time who is qualified for the job, equal to it and up to it, and we have not had one of those in a long time.
Regan was far from perfect. He had the vision necessary and the best communications skills of any, but he was only a passable manager at best. He made a lot of errors.
A lot of what appear to be "mistakes" that Trump makes turn out not to be. He has a sixth sense for a fraud or phony, he sinks his teeth in, and he shakes until the target squeals. And the funny thing is that they always squeal.
Trump isn’t perfect, he’s just the strongest, bravest, most energetic and effective warrior against cultural marxism in my lifetime. I guess he’ll do.
He sure does. You can't buy instincts like his. Great post. Carry on!
Trump isn’t my ideal dream conservative candidate from the Central Casting.
But he is the only candidate left who can stop the Left’s transformation of America begun by Obama.
No decent person should want four more years of it.
In this election, the stakes are literally crucial for the future of our country.
Conservatives who oppose Trump because he isn’t conservative - or the right kind of conservative - understand nothing.
Hillary isn’t a liberal. She’s a Far Leftist. #NeverTrumpers animus towards Trump leads them to overlook it.
I don’t want live in an America under Hillary. But if the #NeverTrumpers get it their way, that’s exactly what will happen.
God help us all if it does.
You can tell by the way he writes this that his friends with whom he is disagreeing (Goldberg, Kristol, Shapiro et al) seem to believe that even though we have an immigrant population that is the largest in our history, that it is "nativist" and "xenophobic" to stop mass immigration.
Screw Goldberg, Kristol and Shapiro.
“Jonah Goldberg, Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro, Bret Stephens, and George Will”
If we want a viable party (Republican) to resist the rat fascists and communists, we need to throw the above traitors out of the party. We don’t need these turncoats to constantly stab us in the back and appear on the propaganda press as “conservative” spokesmen.
Prager has always had a world view, and puts aside personal feelings. He doesn’t see a second civil war. He and Shapiro see each other a lot. They work at the same radio station. He needs to smack some sense into Shapiro.
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