As a Reaganite, I’ve had issues with aspects of Trumpism for five years. I’ve lost friends and suffered through intense debates. I stopped listening to sycophants like Rush Limbaugh, blatherskites like Laura Ingraham, and grimaced as crazies destroyed Andrew Breitbart’s empire; now I enjoy podcasts like Advisory Opinions and Commentary Magazine, while reading National Review and the Wall Street Journal.
I generally agree with the cogent writings of Guy Benson, Matthew Continetti, Noah Rothman, Chris Stirewalt and Kevin Williamson more than erstwhile favorites Sohrab Ahmari, Dinesh D’Souza, Victor Davis Hanson and Mark Steyn.
I hesitated to vote for Donald Trump four years ago because his past views concerned me, as did his character. The 2016 election was not a binary choice; there was a legitimate conservative option.
Ultimately Evan McMullin, who received nearly 750,000 votes — including 53,000 in Minnesota — became an opportunistic “NeverTrumper.” {Note: there’s a difference between “NeverTrump” and “SometimesTrump.” For example, I abhor how Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, The Bulwark and Lincoln Project abdicated prior views, are working against the GOP, and echoing the left. I don’t mind consistent conservatives who call balls and strikes like Charles Cooke, Erick Erickson, Jeff Jacoby, John Podhoretz and Jason Riley.}
As Ed Morrissey says, “I defend Trump when he’s right and criticize him when he errs. I don’t do personality cults or grudges.”
Trump’s presidency has been frustrating and satisfying. For every two good policies, there seems a bad one. He frequently walks over good news with unnecessary tweets, ignores sagacious advice and browbeats allies. And though I admire some of his current cabinet, Trump’s also hired some awful, awful people.
I disagree with the president’s reflexive isolationism and grandiloquence on national security — bashing military endeavors ala Barack Obama — moral relevance on rogue regimes; lack of entitlement reforms; protectionism; and he appears more transactional than a core conservative.
With Mitch McConnell’s shrewd leadership, however, record judges have been confirmed, with no circuit court openings for the first time in 40 years. The Trump Administration has a panoply of achievements I value:
- Reversed policy failures in China, Cuba and Iran
- Cut down Islamic terror groups
- Unrelentingly pro Israel
- Reenergizeda moribund economy
- Deregulated government bloat
- Efficacious moves on veterans’ issues
- Espoused traditional views on cultural flash points
- Won’t kowtow to environmental hysteria
- Cares about inner-city violence when Democrat leaders don’t
And despite his coarse style, Trump often cedes power to wiser people. So historians, politicians and perfidious reporters yelling “dictator” doesn’t translate.
Joe Biden is malleable, truculent and not moderate. He’s changed core beliefs for political expediency. He engages in divisive demagoguery and is a disaster on foreign policy, especially China, where he’s coddled the totalitarian nation that practices slavery and genocide into the 21st century.
The former vice president could assuage concerns and choose someone halfway-sensible as his running mate but instead will surrender to the Bolshevik cabal and probably pick someone like this dummkopf.
A Biden administration would also focus on identity politics, cancel culture and woke nonsense, with insouciance toward nihilistic insurrectionists like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Chinese Communists, radical Islam and Justice Democrats.
Virtue signaling corporations like Google, CNN, ESPN, the New York Times, Washington Post and deranged mobs would effectively run America.
Autocrats like Nancy Pelosi will be more powerful since, as the WSJ noted, Biden “isn’t a typically distinctive presidential candidate so much as a figurehead elevated by Democrats desperate to stop Bernie Sanders and now as the safe, experienced anti-Donald Trump.”
The moral: No matter who you are, the mob comes if you placate it. Cancel culture— admittedly intolerant toward diversity of opinion or anything contradicting their flawed narrative —can’t exist without coward culture. The radicals reject nuance in favor of an absolute maximalist binary.
From Minneapolis, Chicago and Oakland to Portland, New York City and Seattle, we’ve learned acquiescence to proto-fascists won’t save you. This cultural revolution, ironically often led by wealthy white women, doesn’t seek equality; it seeks power.
I am ready for Nikki Haley in 2024 and realize Trump’s victory could make that less likely. But four years of a Biden regime — along with destruction of cities, noxious behavior, gaslighting and sanctimonious duplicity — is very risky.
Minnesota is a crucial state; the U.S. Senate, which is vital, could be a 50-50 split come January; and the House is a mess.
I oppose majoritarianism, the disintegration of society, and I value law and order, faith and liberty.
But can the president portray Biden as a timorous tool of iconoclasts who tear down statues with zeal? Will Biden stand up to anti-police militants and confront extortionist teachers’ unions that lie and hurt students?
While history shows a lot can change in 100 days, it’s getting late.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
