While his appointments to the courts and many of his policies have been dreams come true for principled conservatives, President Trump’s personality and character have been a serious problem for the Republican Party, for the conservative movement and for traditional American values of personal freedom and free-market capitalism.
Trump did not have the support of most of the American people when he won a technical victory in the Electoral College. Fact be known, he was not personally admired even by many of those who voted for him. Had the Democrats put up a more acceptable candidate – such as Vice President Joe Biden – it is unlikely that Trump would have won the election.
For most of his two-plus years in office, Trump’s popularity was in the negative zone in one poll after another. His tendency to make outlandish claims, engage in needless pugnacious verbal battles and make statements that were all too easily refutable, open the door for an avalanche of credible criticism.
Some of the chickens began to roost in the 2018 midterm election when Democrats won a huge victory in the United States House of Representatives – giving them the ruthless ability to engage in an unprecedented rash of politically motivated investigations, as only Democrats are willing to do. The fact that it is unfair and shameful is irrelevant. It will not be good for Trump or the Republican Party.
In short, Trump’s presidential style has flattened the Republican/conservative tsunami that began in 2010. It is almost impossible to remember that just three years ago, the GOP was in its most powerful position nationally since the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era – and the Democrats were on the verge of extinction as a meaningful national party. A Republican victory in the House and a few more Republican senators and the Democrats last vestiges of power – the supermajority requirement in the Senate and the filibuster – would have been removed from their toolbox.
In trashing his own credibility as a forced error, Trump gave the Democrats, the left-wing community and the elitist liberal east coast media an undeserved appearance of credibility – and they took advantage with vengeance. The attacks on Trump, however, were only secondary to their primary goal – to establish the permanent empowerment of the radical left-wing – establishing the federal bureaucracy as the center of American power – a bureaucracy that would be controlled by an elite ruling class in all three branches of government. The simple difference between conservative and liberal is bottom-up power as opposed to top-down.
While the left often raised their fists as they chanted “power to the people,” their real motive is to diminish power at the grassroots and transfer decision-making, regulation and redistribution of wealth to the central government in Washington – where we the people have the least power and influence.
The prospect of crushing Republicans and conservatism has unhinged much of the national media – whose reporters, editors, producers and commentators are overwhelmingly left-wing Democrats. The bubble encased east coast media has abandoned all norms and ethics of professional journalism to serve as the propaganda vehicle of the radical left. With the Trump presidency, they see an opportunity to turn the American public away from the GOP and conservative principles – and they are seizing it.
While they constantly attack Trump, the left has successfully expanded their mendacious assault on all things Republican and conservative. Suddenly the most extreme socialist concepts have entered the mainstream of politics. The traditional American values that have made America the envy of the world are no longer to be viewed as moral, legal, political or economic benefits.
The resurrection of Big Brother socialism is a culmination of the Democrats desire and ability to destroy the entire Republican and conservative brands. Though Democrats maintain the last semblances of institutional racism, Republicans are deemed to all be racists – not to mention xenophobes, sexists, Islamophobes, homophobes.
While they talk about national unity, Democrats have divided the nation into competing interest groups – tribes – and then established a grand conflict between “people of color” and “white people” – especially the older, the religious and those who still believe that patriotism is part of e pluribus unum.
The left is peddling the propaganda that somehow a stronger central government, more regulation, greater taxation and excessive restraints on free enterprise are more beneficial to the people than limited government, greater personal freedom and less taxation and free-market capitalism. They proffer the notion that surrendering freedom to a strong political establishment is beneficial to the people – a mantra that is used by every authoritarian regime throughout history.
Democrats and media personalities often wonder why so many Americans seem to stay with Trump despite his obvious short-comings. There is an answer. It is because the alternative of radical left-wing authoritarianism is far worst.
The media casts supporters of Trump as some sort of political zombies – too stupid to see reality. They describe us a cult of personality. Far from it. It is the personality that many of us abhor.
We push back against the Democrat and false media narratives because those attacks are against ALL who have conservative principles and express them in the only place we can – through the Republican Party.
It is that constant dishonest barrage of against the people at the grassroots who do not share the left-wing big-government ideology that we rise to defend. Trump will come and go, but if we lose the war of the American principles of limited government, minimal regulation, low taxes, personal freedom and free enterprise – that are the core of conservatism – what happens to Trump is inconsequential and irrelevant. It will be the end of American Exceptionalism – and greatness.
So, there ‘tis.