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.