I’m not the
first person to use that headline, but I’m the first I know of who isn’t
suggesting that TDS applies to Trump’s detractors.
The
conservative love affair with Donald Trump befuddles me. It’s like watching a shy friend who’s long
shared her dreams of finding her perfect Prince Charming but then up and marries
the first guy who pays her any attention, even though he is nothing like the
Prince that she’s talked about her whole life.
Conservatives
have spent the last, oh I dunno, 20 years or so pining for a “true
conservative,” or so I thought from the endless blog posts and comments saying
as much. But now they seem willing to
forget much of what they’ve talked and written about because something new and
interesting has appeared on the scene in the form of Donald Trump. Trump is like a shiny object being dangled in
front of a crying baby. His unrestrained
speeches are intoxicating to a citizenry that is starved for authenticity. That much I do get. But at some point even a crying baby realizes
that the shiny object cannot satisfy what is really ailing him, and I’ve been
waiting for a similar realization to awaken conservative supporters of Trump,
yet so far it hasn’t happened. Therefore it’s time to pose this question to my
conservative friends:
Does principled
conservatism matter?
If your answer
is yes, then you have some
soul-searching to do if Trump is your candidate of choice.
Principled conservativism
means that the positions one takes on issues such as Second Amendment rights,
property rights, the proper role of the federal government and the right to
liberty, among others, are derived from
certain core beliefs. Those core
beliefs should include a belief in the rule of law as necessary to a successful
society, and mutual agreement on certain basic rights as the basis for the rule
of law. Those basic beliefs are what
inspired our Founding Fathers to write and ratify our Constitution and Bill of
Rights. When we entrust someone with the
power of the presidency, we should do our best to ensure that they share the
same core beliefs. Anyone who looks to other means of guidance when deciding
questions about the government’s exercise of power is likely to get it wrong
much of the time. It is akin to the
difference between a good doctor who draws on his understanding of the human
body and knowledge of disease to treat a patient versus the lousy doctor who
treats only the symptoms, temporarily relieving the pain while the cancer continues
to grow until it is life-endangering. Liberal
influence on our government has turned it into a cancer that threatens our
nation’s existence unless we get the leadership of a principled conservative
who lets the Constitution guide his decisions and whose mission is to protect
our rights. That’s why principled
conservatism matters.
Now back to
Trump. What principled conservative
would give hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect liberal Democrats and
sell out his fellow citizens for his
own personal gain? What principled
conservative would expect the election of leftist Barack Obama to be “Good for
the economy?” What principled
conservative advocates socialized healthcare?
What principled conservative thinks Eminent Domain for private
enterprise is a good thing? Like
everyone else I have cheered Trump for getting in the face of liberals and I do
admire, to a certain extent, his uninhibited honesty, but to draw on my earlier
analogy - just because he’s a good kisser doesn’t mean I’m ready to marry him.
The other
problem with Trump is that he’s often an egotistical, chauvinistic ass who has no
filter between his brain and his mouth. That might be tolerable in a true conservative
who embodies everything else we want but with Trump it merely deepens the
mystery of his appeal, at least to me. There’s a not-so-fine line between
refusing to bow to the PC police and just being plain obnoxious, and Trump
crosses that line on an almost daily basis with the slightest of provocation and
the fact of the matter is, we would be hard pressed to find a true conservative
who behaves this way. Even worse is
Trump’s habit of denying what we clearly heard him say, a character flaw that
reminds me of the current occupant of the White House and doesn’t bode well.
I was initially
willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but then I listened very
carefully to the things that he was saying, and the things he wasn’t saying. I never hear Trump talk about rights or the
size of the federal government. I never
hear him talk about the Constitution.
And I paid attention to the things he said and did in the past, because
just as Barack Obama’s past was a window into what kind of president he would
be, so it is true for Trump as well, and I don’t like what I see in that
window. Yes, I know I’m a party
pooper. I’ve probably crossed the line
from being tolerably annoying to being outright dislikable, but so be it. I have to keep it real.
~The Ever
Annoying, CW
