It seems that every presidential election is billed as “the most important election of a generation”, or some other such monumental proclamation. I have not yet heard anyone say that about this election but, it may be more true than any such claim made in the past, although with one slight modification. For the Republican Party, and the conservative movement that, sadly, has nowhere else to turn, this election may determine whether they are relevant for the next good long while. The political paradox only works out in their favor if they lose the election, assuming Trump is their nominee.
The Democrats are going to nominate the sitting president, who is too old to be in that job. But I can’t see that he is any less qualified than he ever was. And while the younger Democrats and the most liberal of their Progressive caucus are more than a little upset with the Biden administration position on Israel in Gaza, Biden’s presidency has followed a course that seems consistent with the rest of his career.
On the other hand, the Republicans seem bound and determined to elect – or re-elect – a president who prizes loyalty above all else. Sadly, this is not loyalty to Constitutional principles or his oath of office, but rather loyalty to him and his outsized ego. The Donald likes ‘yes ‘men.
If there was ever a way to show how not to run an election, it would be the way the Republican Party ran their primary in Nevada. It was pure Trump in its execution. Since he prizes loyalty above all else, an entire segment of the Republican electorate was disenfranchised if they wanted their vote to count for Nicki Haley. Is this the liberty that we expect to wrestle away from the censorship imposed by the Progressive agenda and its disciples? Is this what “Make America Great Again” looks like?
I have written here before about Donald Trump’s influence on the last mid-term elections, which cost Republicans seats by supporting candidates which had little going for them beyond their outspoken affection for most things – if not all – Donald Trump. I would expand that criticism even further to lay the blame for the problems Trump most wants to run on squarely at his own feet.
Trump likes to say that he closed the border during his term as president. Even if that claim is valid, Biden’s administration was able to create such a mess at the border because Trump failed to use his brilliant influence to create law that would have kept in place any beneficial changes he made, or even create an environment in which these changes could be further pursued until we have actual secure border law in place.
The most obvious fact about the Progressive agenda is that it simply doesn’t work to make things better for the common good. This fact, and Progressive’s willingness to jam these illiberal, counter-productive, and liberty-robbing policies down everyone’s political throats is what gave rise to Donald Trump. But knowing him the way we do now should give us pause before we re-elect a tyrant on our side to counter the tyranny of the other side.
There is another facet of the Trump mystic which is not tenable in the modern world; his foreign policy. While Mr. Trump is willing to draw a hard line – at least rhetorically – with our NATO allies about their contributions to the alliance’s funding needs, he is unwilling to draw the same line in the sand with those rogue nations who have an adversarial posture towards the American interest or our allies. He praises Putin, he praises Kim Jong Un, he has good things to say about China’s Xi Jinping. The thing he has praised all three for relates to their ruling with and ‘iron fist’.
One of the reasons I like Nikki Haley is the tough stands she took while at the United Nations as the American ambassador. She defended American interests. Many of the stands she took in front of that largely anti-American assemblage were ones that political conservatives support.
Would Nikki Haley be my choice if the field had not been winnowed down to just her and Trump? Maybe, maybe not. The question is no longer serious nor relevant. But, since this is where we are, I believe the future of the nation, as well as the Republican Party is better served by her than him. Trump simply does not have the discipline for the work to Make America Great Again.