The Final Case for Trump

A number of my friends and family members are surprised at my decision to support Donald Trump for president. Some others, quiet Trump voters themselves, seem even more surprised I am willing to do so publicly. I am not a Republican per se, having non-voted many times, having voted Democrat in some elections, and being aligned with one side or another on different issues across the spectrum. But this election seems clear.

I keep a careful household budget and know exactly how much more food, gas, and minor luxuries such as a meal out have cost me over the past three years. I can see, to the dollar, what inflation has cost and know this wasn’t the case under Trump. The economy under Trump had ups and downs, largely due to Covid, but I fail to see anything on that scale driving Biden-Harris’s inflation. I instead see massive spending, loan forgiveness, and other policies which seem to have a definite negative effect. I see Harris promising to give away vast sums of money to various groups (childcare, small businesses, home buyers, black entrepreneurs), which will be likely to promote inflation. And never mind me—Biden-Harris introduced their economic policies and massively increased spending without regard to their impact on low-income Americans for whom all this is survival-level stuff, not mere headlines. We can’t afford another four years.

It is easy to look up how many total migrants were allowed into the United States under Trump, legal green card recipients, gray-zone humanitarian paroles and Temporary Protected Status people, and estimated straight-up illegals. Under Biden-Harris the latter categories so grossly outnumber the first it raises concern. I hear from old friends in Ohio how their small town schools and social welfare systems face severe challenges taking care of new migrants imposed on them by policy decisions made without consideration. I read the news to see how New York City is scrambling to find and pay for hotel rooms for newly-arriving migrants.

The system is out of balance, and it is because of decisions made by Biden-Harris regarding the southern border when they took office, not the failure of some Trump-torpedoed immigration legislation years later. I want to vote for Trump so that we can control the border once again. I am not anti-immigration—I am the son of an immigrant, the spouse of another, and father-in-law to a third, all legal arrivals—but fully in favor of a more orderly system which represents American needs instead of Biden-Harris campaign slogans. When you let people in by the millions—“most of whom are unvetted, most of whom you don’t know who they really are,” said J.D. Vance—you’re going to have problems with Venezuelan prison gangs. I want my vote to help fix the problem.

I vote on foreign policy issues perhaps more than the average person, and here my support for Trump is clear. Russia invaded Crimea under Obama, and invaded Ukraine under Biden-Harris, and did not invade anywhere under Trump. The Middle East was at relative peace during his term, with the Abraham Accords a positive sign of things to come. Biden-Harris will hand over a weakened global deterrence, with major wars in the heart of Europe and in hotspots in the Middle East, including Israel attacking on the ground inside southern Lebanon again for the first time since 2006. Iran is ever-closer to being a nuclear-threshold state, and no one has talked to a nuclear-armed and angry North Korea for four long years.

“Results matter,” says Foreign Policy, “and the relative peace and prosperity that prevailed during Trump’s first term may make him the most effective U.S. foreign-policy president in the post-Cold War era.” I vote Trump in hopes of more of that, and less of the kind of lack of planning and missing thought demonstrated in the evacuation of Afghanistan.

I am not troubled by Trump’s interactions with Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un. One negotiates with one’s enemies for high stakes, not one’s friends. (Remember Reagan and Gorby?) It sickens me to see diplomacy thrown out the window under Biden-Harris in favor of two new Cold Wars (plus whatever is going on with North Korea).

This will not be the last election in a democratic United States. Trump is far from the perfect candidate, his flaws more obvious than most of his predecessors. But the perfect candidate is elusive, and so one must accept much of the good and realize the imperfect is baked in. Trump is a boor at times, crude in his language and demeanor, but he is not a dictator. For all the noise about January 6, power transferred peacefully to Joe Biden days later. It was one bad afternoon, folks.

Trump, a man who supposedly does not respect the rule of law, used the law to fight off two impeachments and multiple lawfare accusations. When he lost a case, he appealed, and did not call out any right-wing militia to overpower the court which found him guilty. He spends a lot of money on lawyers for someone who does not respect the rule of law, and a lot of money on campaigning for someone hoping to become a dictator. Like Russiagate, this is outright propaganda and does not give me pause when voting. I do not vote scared.

J.D. Vance is capable of being president if need be. I doubt Tim Walz could step in; America is much bigger than the Minnesota he repeatedly called on for examples in the vice presidential debate. His court jester roleplay at rallies doesn’t help. He does not seem serious; stage-angry yes, ready to take on the great issues of America, no.

I am weary of being called a fascist or racist because of my vote, and seeing good people disregarded as losers and deplorables for their considered democratic choices. I think the Democratic party has veered way too far left for me to even consider my vote, apparently not that they’d want it.

I prefer to vote in the positive, for someone rather than against someone. But to spend a little time with Kamala Harris is to see she is not ready to be president. She was not really ready to be vice president, losing throughout the Democratic primaries and only being scooped up by Joe Biden as VP because she hit the right demographic buttons. Be fair—if she was such a catch, why didn’t she win any primary races? And remember how, during the first three years of the Biden administration, the vibe was how useless Kamala was proving to be. That was all swept away in the excitement of clearing the voting slipway of old man Joe and shoving someone young-ish forward as appointee not nominee. As with the vice presidency, Kamala did not earn her nomination to run for president, because she wasn’t qualified to do so.

In addition to her almost entirely blank slate of accomplishments over three years, Kamala has steadfastly refused to explain her policy positions in detail, or tell us her plans foreign policy-wise other then to continue what Biden has done in regards to Israel and Ukraine (such as taking no serious action when 45 American citizens are killed by terrorists and 12 are taken hostage). She brings no vision to the people, and it is dead certain that we can expect more of the same if she were to be elected (she even told us so on The View).

She is either trying to hide her real views on things or hide the fact that she doesn’t have real views; Harris is most likely an empty vessel waiting for the Deep State to tell her what to do, all appetite without substance. She lied to the American people about the mental health of the president and maliciously accused those who provided video evidence of his decline of sharing doctored videos. Thank goodness Biden likely at least fought back against the 25th Amendment in the Democratic coup against him.