In Praise of Trump

Townhall.com ^ | January 30, 2016 | George Mano

[Kaslin]

It has been fashionable the last two weeks to pen articles attacking Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican Party nomination for President. "He's not a true conservative." "He's not Ronald Reagan," they said. The jury's still out on whether or not he's a true conservative, but we can agree that he is not Ronald Reagan.

I would say he is more like Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been elected to Congress as a member of the Whig Party, but he parted company with the Whigs and joined the Republicans, when the Whig leaders wouldn't take a stand on the biggest issue of the day--slavery. The country's whole future hung on the issue of slavery. Lincoln was against it, but the Whigs didn't want to ruffle the feathers of pro-slavery voters. Lincoln became President, won the Civil War, and ended that barbaric practice. The Whig Party disappeared from the national stage and became a paragraph in history books. You can almost hear the Whig poobahs saying about Lincoln, "He's not a true conservative. He flip-flopped on the tariff issue." Small minds, small issues.

Similarly, Donald Trump took a stand on the big issue of our day--immigration--coming out strongly in favor of securing the border and deporting illegal aliens, while the Republican leadership and the other candidates in the race for President (with maybe only one exception) talked about "immigration reform." They don't want to ruffle the feathers of "Latino voters;" while Trump wants to save America. Immediately, Trump jolted into the lead in the race and has stayed there ever since, in spite of being rude, bombastic, and obnoxious. By contrast, Marco Rubio, arguably the most likable guy in the pack, will never rise much above 15% in the polls because he is on the wrong side of this issue. Unless Rubio comes out and says, "to hell with the so-called Latino vote, I'm gonna deport every last one of the illegal aliens," he will stay in the pack fighting for second or third place twenty points behind Trump.

The media pundits don't get it, though. They offer up all kinds of explanations for Trump's success that have nothing to do with the issue of immigration: It's his simple sentences. It's his rudeness and bruskness. It's his hair. He's an outsider. The people who support him are stupid (40% of Republicans!).

Some critics argue that Trump was a liberal Democrat until recently and we cannot trust him to keep any of his promises on immigration, or anything else. The answer to that is that lots of Republicans were elected as Tea Party candidates a few years ago, yet they ended up supporting the big-government-open-borders policies of the Obama administration once they got into office. Why should we trust anyone? Maybe all of the candidates are lying. In which case, Trump is no better or worse than the others. But, if he is telling the truth and he ends up keeping his promises, since he is the only one with a plan to reverse the illegal immigration problem, shouldn't we put our support behind him?

Going back to the Ronald Reagan comparison, Mark Steyn noted rightly that Reagan could not get elected governor of California today. The demographics have changed so much that the state is now solidly left. America is going in the same direction. With more and more people coming into the country with different ideas about work, liberty, the rule of law, morality--it will be hard to elect anyone who is not pandering to them, promising more subsidies, more government, more corruption.

With this election the country stands at a crossroads--do we keep going in the same direction--the one leading over the cliff--or do we change direction? Many people believe Trump will lead the country in the right direction. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But it is certain that most of the other candidates will not.

[jwalsh07]

The jury is out on Trumps political core? Hardly. If he wins the R nomination the conservative cloak he put on in 2011 will disappear so fast it will make your eyes cross.

You will know when he starts pandering to unions.

[Nacho Bidnith]

“I wish he’d go back to that rather than obsessing on Ted Cruz and praising Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.”

Since you brought up the subject of obsessions, let’s address the one you obviously suffer from which affects many of your fellow FReepers in a most negative way.

On every Donald Trump thread, it’s as sure as the sun will rise in the east that you and/or your fellow Cruz supporters will show up to tell everyone why the world would have been a better place had Donald Trump had never been born and why Ted Cruz is the only one that can save the planet from certain doom.

If only you were able to support your chosen candidate as I’ve addressed you thus far, with a modicum of respect for differing opinions, I wouldn’t be writing this response.

Quite the opposite. You and your fellow cruzbots show up on every Trump thread to spew your hateful venom, lies, exaggerations and insults while ridiculing everyone that doesn’t agree with you that Ted Cruz is the greatest thing since sliced bread and how you’re personally offended at how stupid we all are to not see how brilliant and right you all are.

Here’s some news for you. Your childish antics are not the least bit persuasive. In fact, you’ve probably convinced anyone that was still unsure which candidate to support but wasn’t quite sure, to decide against Cruz simply because they wouldn’t want to be associated with lunatics like you.
I’d be willing to bet that you haven’t lost Donald Trump a single voter with your lame behavior.

You may be under the mistaken impression that once this election campaign is over, all will be forgiven and forgotten. That may be true for some, but I can tell you right now it will not be forgiven and forgotten by me and I suspect I’m not the only one that feels this way.

From this moment forward you are dead to me. You may as well not exist and I will never acknowledge your presence again, except to repost this comment to remind everyone present what a loser you are.

If I ever see a post that you make I will not click on it. If it’s of interest to me I’ll go to the source where you found it but I will never contribute to your “click count”.

So, farewell loser. I’d like to say it was nice knowing you but it wasn’t.

Trump 2016

[ifinnegan]

Lol

[Pelham]

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm

[dp0622]

that would back up my assertion.

Unless it was just politics and he was biding time to make a move on slavery.

[Pelham]

You'll find this of interest, particularly beginning with the 9th paragraph:

Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln Frederick Douglass

[dp0622]

wow. not exactly high praise.

[JimRed]

Yes... absolutely. Especially those who flip back and forth on party affiliations.

I am only aware of Trump making that change once.

Disclosure: I will vote for Cruz in the primary, but if he fails to win I will NOT sit home and permit a criminal or a commie to win by default. The worst Republican candidate is preferable to anything the Democrats have to offer.