I don’t have the chance to watch television. I don’t even have cable. I’ve only seen snippets of Donald Trump and even less of Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, so I don’t know how long it would take me to get to the point where I feel some real revulsion for Trump’s lies, his bragging, or his vague wild assertions. But I’m not there yet.
I just see a guy who takes the fight to most of the right places. Next I see most of the right places get angry. I also see them show their arrogance and contempt. These are signs of shifting power. It’s something more substantial than talk.
That’s why I’ve been struck to find many people I admire taking the suicide pledge. Donald Trump is the new Mitt Romney, so Conservatives should sit-out another election like they did the last one? That’s what Ben Shapiro recommends in his really unfortunate piece this week at The Daily Wire. Shapiro leads Breitbart.com. Breitbart had a rocky recovery after their founder dropped dead one night in L.A., but they’ve since turned into something extremely helpful. Their ads are not, but their reporting is. So why all the pious ‘conservative’ excuses to hand the world Hillary Clinton?
I will never vote for Donald Trump because I stand with certain principles. I stand with small government and free markets and religious freedom and personal responsibility. Donald Trump stands against all of these things. He stands for Planned Parenthood and trade restrictions and targeting of political enemies and an anti-morality foreign policy and government domination of religion and nastiness toward women and tacit appeals to racism and unbounded personal power. I stand with the Constitution of the United States, and its embedded protection of my God-given rights through governmental checks and balances. Donald Trump does not. I stand with conservatism. Donald Trump stands against it.
Didn’t Trump just release a pretty conservative healthcare proposal? Seems kind of free market to me. It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone who might have the power to do so get anywhere near actually gutting Obamacare.
Didn’t Trump also just correct Pope Francis for saying he wasn’t Christian? I think the Pope has a right to express an opinion on what a Christian is, but Trump thinks even the Pope should keep that to himself. That sounds like he believes in American style ‘religious freedom’ to me. Perhaps Shapiro is referring to Trump’s famous stand on Islamic immigration. Is there any reasonable person in the world who thinks we should continue to islamicize the planet because of religious freedom?
I admit Trump sounds like he may care little for constitutional balance of power. He keeps claiming he’ll do things in a unilateral-sounding way. But where is this great system of checks and balances today? All I ever see are Congressmen passing two-thousand page, yet still unspecific, laws without anyone knowing what’s in them, while all the ruling power’s concentrated in the executive apparatus and the unjust courts. I don’t see much constitutional or legal ever happening.
Finally, is it ‘immoral’ to be against a destabilized Middle East and imbalanced trade agreements?
I suppose bequeathing the whole situation to Hillary will be an improvement.
I stand with #NeverTrump.
The counterargument to the #NeverTrump movement comes down to two words: Hillary Clinton. Trump will supposedly close the borders (a lie); Hillary will not. Trump will appoint conservative Supreme Court justices (unlikely); Hillary will not. No matter how bad Trump is, the argument goes, conservatives have a duty to back the anti-Hillary.
Why is everyone so sure that Trump is lying about everything? Doesn’t he tell the truth at least sometimes? How can you know a liar’s lies in advance? You can only guess.
I think Trump will get blown out in a general election. But let’s assume that these critics of #NeverTrump are right. Let’s assume that but for we #NeverTrump voters sitting out the election, Trump would become president, and Hillary would go down in flaming defeat. And let’s assume that Hillary Clinton will appoint terrible justices, destroy the military, and usher in the apocalypse. Why in the world would conservatives live with President Hillary Clinton on their consciences?
I think it’s time for people to start hedging this ‘Trump will lose’ meme. Yes, unless something changes, like for instance, if he starts to sound like a liberal, Trump will be ruthlessly attacked by the entire planet except Russia and the old block. They will hurl every insult they can find. They will try and dig up a Bill Cosby-parade against him; and yes, they may easily take Trump out. But I think it might be good to put a bit of a check on your certainty about the whole thing. There were ten blocks of Floridians lined up outside a miserable arena in Orlando yesterday to see the loser.
Because first, it’s not on our consciences. It’s on the consciences of the people who went along with this nomination. We did not select Trump. We will not vote for him.
What? Is this some kind of emerging ‘conservative’ third party that votes by not voting?
I know Ben Shapiro was famous practically before he was even a teenager, but this is the first time I’ve heard him sound like a petulant child. Our consciences guide our actions, and if our actions are irresponsible, our consciences should correct us.
And if we are going to save the country, it will not rest on one or two justices on the Supreme Court. It will rest on the will of the people to resist tyranny. That will start at the state and local level. It will start with the people.
It will start with conservatives willing to say “no.”
Because if we never say “no,” we will never have the opportunity to say “yes.”
Do you get the impression that Shapiro wouldn’t be trying to lead a walk-out movement under this pious ‘conservative’ banner if slippery Marco Rubio were the front-runner?
But today he wants Hillary, conscience-free.
This is a fair piece and a breath of fresh air from all the tantrums and hand wringing I see vis a vis Trump.
“I just see a guy who takes the fight to most of the right places. Next I see most of the right places get angry.”
This is what I see as well. I’m in Louisiana. As I was leaving the polls yesterday I was thinking about the Trump phenomenon. My thoughts were that he goes after a lot of the right things that nobody else will touch and the list of people he ticks off is very impressive.
Yes. He’s not a clear conservative but he’s got the right enemies.
Trump is driving some conservatives and libertarians–many of them people I otherwise respect–utterly insane. They’re turning into what they claim to be fighting–people with nutty positions, bombastically slinging mud.
Yes, it’s spiraling into one of Obama’s ‘Occupy’ moments, but this time the Catholic/conservative punditry is on on their side.
Ben is not at fault if he doesn’t vote Trump and Hillary gets elected- unlike Trump, he never donated to her campaign or publicly supported her. Trump has done so for decades and on a financial level that is impossible for most Americans. Given his decades of support for her, how can Trump possibly criticize Clinton? Trump has provided far more support to Hillary than Ben ever could. People are just sick of holding their noses and voting for candidates that stink to high heaven because “it’s better than [insert Democrat candidate]!!” He doesn’t want Hillary, he’s just not willing to compromise his principles.
“Why is everyone so sure that Trump is lying about everything? Doesn’t he tell the truth at least sometimes? How can you know a liar’s lies in advance?”
Have you seen the results when Trump’s claims are fact-checked? They’re false about 80% of the time. Pretty easy to predict and judge his credibility. How can anyone trust someone who broke the most fundamental and basic promise a man can make, to love and care for his wife for the rest of their natural lives together…and broke it three times! Do you really think he will honor this “promise?” Remember, this is the guy who said just three weeks ago, “And once you get to a certain level, it changes. I will be changing very rapidly. I’m very capable of changing to anything I want to change to.” Read that again out loud. He’s a congenial liar. His phony holding up of “his mother’s bible”? You’re seriously buying that blatant pandering? What about his use of illegal immigrants in his building projects? Trump is a complete and total fraud.
The media love Trump because they know his nomination makes Hilary a shoe-in. It won’t even be close. Why do you think they give him almost unlimited free airtime? Because they know he’s got no chance against Hilary, that’s why. If he did get the nomination, the Media would have no trouble destroying him. He’s one of the most high-profile sleaze bags in America. They’ll get him nominated, then expose him as the despicable person he is. He’s a scandal machine- four bankruptcies, fraud lawsuits for his sham “Trump University,” appearing on the cover of Playboy, his daddy buying his way into Wharton, countless affairs, abuse of eminent domain, giving thousands to the Clintons, a rabid abortion supporter for decades and only switching when it was politically expedient, alluding to an incestuous relationship with his daughter, saying he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue (hyperbole, yes, but still a sick thing to say), his filthy and vulgar tongue, threatening to sue for negative stories about him, creating an “enimies list” of people he will take down when elected, a clueless idiot who is absolutely unfit and unqualified to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, the litany just goes on and on.
I haven’t voted in the last several elections. The last candidate I supported was Ron Paul, and he’s the only candidate I’ve ever donated to. People assume that only the Establishment despise Trump, but there is a large group of Libertarians/paleo-conservatives that find him revolting. I am one of them.
It appears that no amount of information about Donald Trump will convince you that all you believe is a fabricated fantasy invented by a crass, adulterous fraud whose penchant to juvenile mockery is his only contribution to the campaign.
This entire post and the comments is suffused with a willed ignorance that is both pathetic and evil.
Shapiro is right and Trump will never be President no matter what Shapiro or I do but you will already be corrupted by his filthy touch.
Get a bloody cable connected television so you don’t sound like a dolt.
Well I think I pick up a few things in print.
The Mitt Romney tirade was a sight to see. I was able to watch him live. If Mitt Romney would have gone after Obama like he went after Trump, this would be a whole different landscape. His campaign in 2012 reminded me of ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’. Mitt Romney was EXACTLY the wrong man to put up to that job, he is ‘Mr. Establishment’ himself! The very group of people in 2016 are in revolt about! The Republican establishment is suffering such a panic attack over Trump that they all will soon need their meds to get through the campaign.
Well I think they’re getting their much-needed therapy now.