Thursday, April 11, 2024

Time to Rethink Your Never Trumpism


Okay, my Trump-shy friends, it’s time to put aside your fussy principles about how icky Donald Trump is. This is serious, and we need all hands on deck to throw Biden overboard before he gets a whole lot more Americans killed. I get that you don’t like Trump. Let’s agree that he’s icky for the purposes of this discussion. Let’s agree that his tweets are mean, that he’s not a conservative ideologue, that he says dumb things and gets into useless fights, and that he does many other unseemly and annoying things. Let’s agree that this is all true. Let’s concede that in normal times, one might want to forgo supporting a guy like that. But these aren’t normal times.

This is getting real. This is life and death. Not just for cops and soldiers, but maybe even for you and your family.

Now, this column isn’t directed towards the professional Never Trumper dorks, the treacherous weirdos who make a living off of going on MSNBC and selling out their former allies. This is for the Republicans who have thought about it and have a real problem with Donald Trump. I get it, even if I don’t agree. I would not particularly like voting for somebody who I don’t like. However, I like Donald Trump and will eagerly support him following his victory over my primary candidate, Ron DeSantis. But sometimes you need to do things you would rather not do. You have to let go of the anger. Even the governor got on board and endorsed the president once the primary results became clear. 

So, this is for you guys who are having difficulty making that leap and backing Trump 2.0. I’m assuming that you are susceptible to reason. Some of you might not be. Let’s face it: A little bit of ego is involved here. There’s a performative aspect to not backing Donald Trump. You dug in against him, and digging yourself out and publicly changing your mind is tough. I get it. But when facts change, choices need to change. And boy, have the facts changed.

Let’s look at where our country is right now. It’s in a hole, and our alleged president is still digging. We have a wide open border. Fentanyl is killing tens of thousands a year. Ten million illegal aliens have streamed across. We know many of them are criminals. They’re raping and murdering Americans right now. We can be relatively sure that a significant number of Chinese military infiltrators are among them. That will end badly unless we have a president who will do something about it, which Biden certainly never will. We can also surmise that a large number are active terrorists who, at some point, will launch a killing spree of the sort I wrote about in my new book, The Attack.

If Donald Trump is not elected president in November, this will continue for another four years. That is a lot of dead Americans. And you’ve got to ask yourself if protesting mean tweets worth those lives. Because that’s the choice you’re making. Even if you sit out the election, you’re effectively supporting Joe Biden by not actively supporting Donald Trump. Yes, I know you’re upset because there is a binary choice, and I know all the clichés about not wanting to choose the lesser of two evils but guess what? You’re faced with the choice between the lesser of two evils. That’s just the choice that exists. It might not be fair. You might not like it, but that’s what it is. And you’ve got to choose. Not choosing is choosing. Not choosing is choosing Joe Biden. And if you choose Joe Biden, you’re choosing a lot of deaths just because of his border betrayal.

What else are you choosing? Well, you’re choosing to abandon Israel to Hamas. That’s what Joe Biden is doing. You’re choosing to throw the Jewish state to the mercy of those psychopaths. And you’re doing it because you don’t like Donald Trump. Come on.

I’m not asking you to like Trump. I’m asking you to actively support him. Not to reward him. Not to high-five him. I’m asking you to actively support him for the sake of your country and your people. There are a lot of American soldiers out there in the line of fire who shouldn’t be but are because Joe Biden put a big target on their backs with his weakness, incompetence, and appeasement. He’s going to get even more of our troops killed. You can say what you want about Donald Trump, and you do, but he took care of our soldiers. He didn’t get them into useless fights. When he had to fight, he won – ask ISIS in Iraq. Joe Biden, on the other hand, invites attacks on our troops and refuses to retaliate when they happen properly. You have seen the pictures of those three dead soldiers that he recently killed in Jordan. You have seen photos of the 13 troops he got killed in Kabul and the Afghanistan retreat. You’ll see more if you choose to support Joe Biden by choosing not to support Donald Trump.

Yeah, I know that’s pretty harsh, growing down the dead troops card. But dead troops is the hand we’ve been dealt. You’re an adult. You’ve got to make a choice. No choice is choosing Biden. Understand what choosing not to support Trump means. It means dead Americans.

Now, one of the criticisms of this practical and utilitarian approach to politics – that is, treated reality is real –  is that the Republican Party will never learn its lesson about nominating guys like Donald Trump unless Donald Trump loses. Well, maybe you’re some special genius who has discovered a way to lose your way to victory, but the traditional way to win is by winning. You’re not teaching the Republicans a lesson by rejecting Donald Trump. The base’s embrace of Donald Trump should be a lesson to the establishment, which created Donald Trump by its refusal to address the problems that mattered to actual voters as opposed to the problems that mattered to actual politicians. If you think you will somehow convince people to go back to the Romney era, that will not happen. Maybe Donald Trump Trump’s not your conservative, but he’s the kind of conservative who isn’t Joe Biden, and dammit, that should be enough.

It’s time to get serious and abandon the posturing. You need to support Donald Trump actively and enthusiastically. A lot is riding on it, and your pride is the least important thing riding on it.