Posted on 09/11/2018 2:50:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Most voters say President Donald Trump is not a good role model for children, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
"While 90 percent of voters say the president should be a good role model for kids, only 29 percent say he is while 67 percent say he is not." -- U.S. News Jan. 26, 2018
As someone who has devoted his life to writing and speaking about moral issues and the importance of character, I am regularly criticized for supporting President Trump. Democrats and Republican opponents of the president consider conservatives who support the president to be, at best, inconsistent with conservative values such as tempered speech, commitment to truth, support for European allies and free trade. And those of us who are religious conservatives and support the president are deemed hypocrites for supporting a man who has presumably committed adultery on more than a few occasions and said gross things about women in a private conversation.
Perhaps the most common objection to supporting the president is this: "He is a terrible role model for children."
So, let me address this objection.
As a father and grandfather, I would like every adult man (and woman -- but I'll confine my comments to men) to be a model for younger men. I consider it to be a moral obligation of every man to aspire to be a model for younger men. Perhaps the most meaningful compliment I receive is when a man calls my radio show or writes an email and tells me that he sees me as a "father figure." I always respond how meaningful that statement is to me and always add that this is precisely what every man should aspire to be.
My suspicion is that this was much more common an aspiration among men generations ago. It is one of the reasons adult men and women seek to be called by their first names rather than "Mr." (or, in the case of women, "Miss" or "Mrs."). Many members of the baby-boom generation have not wanted to grow up: They dress, talk and act like teenagers, and many delay engaging in one of the most important statements of maturity -- getting married -- as long as possible. More men than ever never get married. In short, they want to see themselves as peers of young people, not father figures.
So then, if I emphatically support the idea that adult men should seek to be models for younger men, how could I support a president who apparently isn't?
The answer should be so obvious I am disappointed that all conservatives do not readily understand it. The role of the president of the United States is first and foremost to be a good president. If he (or she) is a personal role model, that is a lovely bonus -- but it is only a bonus. When I was young, I never regarded the president of the United States as a personal role model. That task fell on my father, my grandfather, my older brother, my uncles, my parents' friends, my teachers, my rabbis and other older males.
President Jimmy Carter was known to be a faithful and devoted husband, and was not known for making false statements (only libelous ones after leaving office -- like calling Israel an "apartheid" state). So what? Do conservative never-Trumpers think Jimmy Carter's personal integrity mattered more, or his presidential decisions?
And, by the way, I'll take Donald Trump's character over that of Hillary Clinton. I believe she sold her country's interests for personal gain. That she never committed adultery probably mattered to her husband and daughter, but not to me in determining who should be president of the United States.
What a president does as president is immeasurably more important than his personal sins. What he does personally affects his family. What he does as president affects the lives of 328 million Americans and, for that matter, the whole world.
Donald Trump is responsible for the lowest unemployment in generations, for appointing two conservative Supreme Court justices, for boosting defense spending, for confronting the illegal-immigrant crisis, for cutting government regulations, for strongly supporting Israel, for lowering taxes, for confronting Western European countries over their morally indefensible low defense spending and so much more that anyone who calls himself conservative should celebrate. Those achievements -- not to mention preventing a left-wing, i.e. Democratic Party, victory in 2016 -- are what should matter to every conservative and every American frightened by what the left is doing to the country, to its universities, high schools, families, gender relations and race relations, and everything else it touches.
If your house were on fire, would you be more concerned with the character of the firefighters sent to extinguish the fire or their firefighting ability?
The generation that grew up under one of the most decent presidential moral models -- Dwight Eisenhower -- turned out to be the most narcissistic, morally confused and unpatriotic generation in modern American history. So much for presidents as models for children.
Yes
3 marriages
Bragging g about the number of women he has had including married women
Name calling and bullying
He may be better than Hillary but I would never want my kids to emulate his behavior
Hard working, clean and sober.
But he’d pay off your mortgage!
Tru dat!
Babe Ruth - not a role model
Lou Gehrig - role model
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig - teammates … and winners
Name one POLITICIAN that is a “role model” for children. It’s impossible.
A conservative president can never be a good role model for children no matter what he/she does thanks to a poisoning, lying education system that takes up political agendas and expands them into hatred whether it matches the situation or not. So the children will never be given the real info of what is happening or did happen. So much for our history instruction. So much for the truth. So much for our future successes.
rwood
What does that have to do with anything? But since you asked, he was chosen by Saul to be king and not a role model.
President Clinton? President Lyndon Johnson? President Kennedy?
There are things more imprtant than money
Any person who is a serial adulterer with three marriages, who is a braggart and a bully and who has only a passing acquaintance with the truth is no role model, and I don't care how rich he is or what business he built.
But as I said, I voted for a president and not a role model.
Did you vote for Billy Boy BJ?
Where is it written that the President, or any other politician, has to be a role model for children? Elective office is not a goal that attracts the most honorable and upstanding of individuals, and especially the presidency. I disagree with you that Trump is any role model for children to follow, but agree that neither are either of his two Democrat predecessors. Or his predecessors going farther back than that.
Nope. Did you?
I would say that Trump is a role model in terms of hard work. The man is a financial success because of his work ethic. We know that, and we’ve seen that work ethic in his campaign speech schedule, especially when contrasted with Sickly Hillary’s schedule.
President Trump is also a role model in terms of patriotism. I cannot imagine that he is enjoying the job. He is facing constant vicious attacks both from the #FakeNews media and from people who are supposed to be government servants dedicated to implementing his agenda. Love of country is the only reasonable explanation for billionaire Donald Trump stepping into that swamp voluntarily.
You can pick and choose and find admirable qualities in anyone. But the question is whether Trump is a role model for children to emulate, and I don’t believe he is. I would not want my nieces or nephews to grow up like him. If they need a role model then I can’t think of any better ones than their parents or their grandparents.
That falls under the general heading of bigotry
Why?
Mostly because only bigots have not forgiven what some perceive as sin
One can forgive the sins of others without wanting their children to emulate them. Or is that bigoted too?
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