At the conclusion of the dispiriting previous post, I wrote, “I regard the episode a betrayal of trust by everyone involved, especially the President, reckless, beyond rational defending, destructive to the nation, and politically stupid. Now what?”
Upon further thinking, I find the answer to “Now what?” surprisingly clear.
President Trump’s disgusting conduct in this matter, along with the equally unethical conduct of his lackeys in the Justice Department and Treasury Departments, almost thrusts me, and any rational, objective and ethical citizen, back to the point I found myself in October of 2016. As I wrote then and have written so many times since, there was a stark choice between voting for a President I found ethically unacceptable and an entire political party, the Democrats, that had proved itself not only unfit to govern but so Machiavellian in its quest to achieve crushing power by any means necessary that to allow them such power was irresponsible and dangerous. I abandoned my plan to reluctantly hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton, instead writing in the name of a politician I considered to be honorable and capable. (I was wrong about that, as things turned out.)
But since 2016, the Democratic Party has revealed itself as far worse—unprincipled, dangerous, anti-American— than I had concluded before that election. Donald Trump has still earned more respect for his positions, his courage, his ability to successfully battle Democrats to a draw or better, and his policy successes than I believed possible ten years ago. Moreover, Trump isn’t running against the Democrats in the mid-terms, though the Democrats, as in 2024, are running against Trump. The party’s only hopes are 1) stupid voters, 2) running again on hate, lies, and “Trump is Hitler” and 3) the Axis news media continuing to misinform and mislead the public. [Aside: when the Democratic Party’s absurd post-mortem on the 2024 election was finally released today, and blamed Harris’s loss on not emphasizing Trump’s negatives effectively (despite Harris constantly calling Trump Hitler and an ‘existential threat to democracy,’) one wag wrote that “She should have really called Trump a super-duper really evil Nazi poopy-head than simply just another Hitler, I guess.”]
Donald Trump isn’t running in 2026. He’s President, and he will stay President until 2028. Allowing the Democrats, a party that has pledged to pack the Supreme Court, add Democratic states that shouldn’t be states (like D.C.), give voting rights to non-citizens, and gut the Constitution and Bill of Rights to guarantee permanent control so as to “remake America” into a Democratic Socialist utopia, is irresponsible. The party has shown its perfidy by its vile effort in Virginia to turn a 50-50 split state into a Democratic stronghold by lying to voters and violating the Virginia constitution. It has shown its values by enabling violence and abuse of the criminal laws as tools of political warfare. That’s your party, Democrats.
To vote into power this aspiring totalitarian party as a way of punishing Trump for his greed and narcissism makes no sense, accomplishes nothing positive, and will be the approximate equivalent of knocking in our teeth with hammers. He’s still tearing down the mechanism of “good” discrimination against men and whites. He is still doing what has to be done regarding Iran, while the Democrats increasingly embrace anti-Semitism. He still is working to undo as much of the catastrophic open borders policies of the Biden Administration as possible. He is still keeping free discourse on social media safe, and he has had success forcing the news media and the education establishment to accept some reforms. All of that is important enough to let him continue to fight the Angry Left, especially since no one else appears capable of doing the job.
And anyone who tries is liable to be shot.
Now what? Now hold back your gorge and remember what is substantive, lasting, and crucial. President Trump is an incorrigible asshole, doesn’t know ethics from tapioca, and will continue to embarrass his supporters, his office, his party and the nation. But at this crazy juncture in American history, the United States of American is better off and safer than if the Democrats are allowed to grab the nation by the throat.
It’s a sickening choice, but a clear one.
Ethics Alarms 
As in 1991 gubernatorial election between Edwin Edwards (D) and David Duke (KKK), with as election slogan “Vote for the crook, it is important!”.
First time commenter, tenured lurker. My favorite political quip of all time comes from Edwin Edwards who boasted during his 1983 gubernatorial bid, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”
It seems darkly apropos to my present stance. The moral decay and totalitarian excesses of the Democratic party have reached a point where I consider supporting Trump to be a justifiable necessity – even if his conduct and character fall well below basic ethical standards. Now can he manage to stay above Edwards’ dead girl / live boy standard? I am tentatively optimistic.
Welcome to commentariat. We need more commenters and less lurkers.
As to your comment, it’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, Trump has so many abrasive qualities but he has the stamina, backbone, and general gall to fight the Left with the Left’s own weapons. It is admirable that he refuses to back away from a fight.
jvb
I wonder if the SPLC was funding David Duke as a strawman to oppose Edwin Edwards…
In the 2018 midterms election a certain Arthur J. Jones, an avowed neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier ran for Congress in Illinois’ heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District. Jones managed to get enough valid signatures to appear on the 2020 Republican primary ballot. He did not run “as a Republican” in the sense of receiving backing; rather, he slipped onto the primary ballot as the sole Republican candidate when no other contenders signed up to run in the district. The Illinois Republican Party aggressively disavowed Jones, calling him a “disturbed Nazi individual”, and urged voters to skip his name. The Illinois Republican Party took the step of endorsing and funding another candidate (Mike Fricilone) during the primary, and unleashed mailers, robocalls, and ads specifically educating voters on Jones’ hateful views. The effort to block Jones was successful; he finished third in the primary, and the state party officially defeated his candidacy.
There are some other comments on this posts on radicalization of both parties, and how districts and primaries contribute to this. Here is what happens in a true blue state or true blue district, where the winner takes all and the winner is always the same: the base of the guaranteed loser stays home at election day, not money is spent by that party on the election, and the that party may not even run a candidate. The entire GOP decided to take a nap during election season as all effort and votes in such a district are wasted. This is how crackpots like Jones appear on the ticket running as a Republican.
In my perfect world, you could have all the good Trump things without all the utter garbage. From the realm of “technically possible but infinitesimally unlikely”:
The Republicans get their collective dicks kicked in during the midterms. The Democrats get 50%+1 of the Senate and 282 house seats, leaving them 5 seats short of 66%. The Democrats find 5 Republicans willing to impeach Trump, which they do. Frankly, this is more legitimately cause for it than the first two times. Then the Senate rubber stamps the impeachment after a trial, ejecting Trump from office. Following that, the five Republican turncoats hold their nose and support Vance so that he can finish the remainder of a lame duck do-nothing presidency…. Which is kind of what America needs: For the government to stop sticking sticks in the spokes. Maybe after two years of nothing happening and things getting better because you aren’t constantly scoring own-goals, people might swing back enough to give Republicans some kind of a chance, or Democrats mellow out because they finally got their scalp.
But I’m done. I’ll still acknowledge the things Trump has done that are positive, but anyone willing to straight up loot n’ scoot like he just did can’t be Trusted to manage a Denny’s. What keeps him from doing it again, for more?
”Following that, the five Republican turncoats hold their nose and support Vance so that he can finish the remainder of a lame duck do-nothing presidency….”
Lame duck? If I am not mistaken, Vance has the opportunity to make a 10-year Presidential run.
And, I bet that is exactly what he would try to do.
-Jut
Perhaps this is a term of art… I’ve always used “lame duck” to describe the portion of someone’s term where they can’t get a whole lot done. Either because they’re out of time, or because they functionally can’t get anything done because the composition of the house/senate has changed. In my mind, you could be a lame duck from day 1, and you could technically un-lame-ify yourself if your party picked up seats in a midterm.
Whatever else he has done, Trump had turned the lame duck principle on its head. He is fearless because he’s not worried about re-election.
Jack wrote:
Now what? Now hold back your gorge and remember what is substantive, lasting, and crucial. President Trump is an incorrigible asshole, doesn’t know ethics from tapioca, and will continue to embarrass his supporters, his office, his party and the nation. But at this crazy juncture in American history, the United States of American is better off and safer than if the Democrats are allowed to grab the nation by the throat.
Exactly. Donald Trump has always been a loathsome creature, but alas, the alternatives, without putting too fine a point on it, are vastly worse.
How have we come to such a pass? Decades of indifference, comfortable living, and addiction to government largess. Probably less than 50% (and that may well be generous) of voters in this country could claim to be qualified even marginally to cast an informed vote.
Add to that the lunatic importation of tens of millions of low-trust illegal aliens, and I could hardly wonder if I woke up tomorrow in a Hunger Games dystopia. Allowing the Jacobins to take over the country and institute another version of The Terror is infinitely crazier than holding our nose for the Donald to finally run out of presidency or shuffle off this mortal coil.
there are worse things when it includes modern Jacobins is in the category of ethics only gets you so far in life….
The democrat party has been overrun by communists who will try to destroy our freedoms, democracy and economic system. They frighten me more than President Trump, no matter how flawed he is. They long ago took hold of education, media and Hollywood, and our young folks don’t yet have the wisdom or experience to understand how dangerous the radical left has become. Let’s keep the devil we know.
Jack,
The more I read your commentary on the Democratic Party, the more I see the same name-calling ejecting from your fingertips. The “we’re safer with this 1/2 with at the helm than letting the other party take the reins”argument is the same one they used to defend the Biden years (ironically, paving the way for four more Trump seasons). Moreover, you run through the same litany of labels so often it’s become banal. “THEY want to gut the constituion!”, “THEY want to create a totalitarian dictatorship!”, “Sounds like Stalin!” … and all with the same sense of impending doom.
Hell, you even (repeatedly) reference your disgust for a 60 year-old pop ballad just to make fun of a dead man’s overly-simplistic worldview — as though it has any connection to contemporary events. You despised the hippies (three generations ago) and all the fruit borne of their season has long-since turned sour. Got it, thank you. Now, please find new talking points, or at least more novel insults. And please, leave Lennon alone. He’s dead; he can’t hurt you anymore.0
Well, that’s just wrong, Neil. I am accurately describing what I see and accurately assess.Calling a President “Hitler”who has done nothing whatsoever that can remind anyone sane of Hitler is “name calling.” Calling a party aspiring to totalitarian power is fair and accurate when it 1) maintains a puppet Presidency with unelected operatives pulling the strings; works to control the news media; censors public discourse through manipulation of social media platforms; embraces anti-Semitism (you know, like Hitler?), uses dishonest and rigged election ballots (like Spanberger WHERE I LIVE), tries to overturn elections by mere majority in the legislature, swells the census by admitting millions of illegal aliens—do I have to repeat the whole list? See, Neil, “name-calling” is when you use a description without explaining why the description is appropriate. When I call the employment of DEI policies to discriminmate against whites and males, I call that sexism and racism, because that’s what it is. When the New York Times calls Trump racist for criticizing a black politician like Kamala, Omar or Jeffries, THAT’S name-calling.
Bad logic, bad vocabulary, bad comment. I’m surprised at you. Democrats HAVE been saying that they want to eliminate the Second Amendment, ban “hate speech,” eliminate the Electoral College, “pack the Supreme Court,” make Executive agencies independent of the President, give minorities special privileges. Their judges blocking legitimate Presidential acts is, in fact, abusing power. I call that attacking the Constitution, because that’s what it is. Crying “both sides do it” is dishonest when both sides don’t do it.
Heck, you can’t even spell your own name. I can!
Jack,
The point I made had to do with the fact that you sling the same names at them that they sling right back.. Whoever’s right or wrong matters less and less when are covered in the same shit. Thank you for missing my point and then proving it for me. You’ve become blinded by bias, angered with anyone who dissents, and rude to one of the remaining orignal few who still subscribes to this drivel, despite how little respect you show me.
Also, belittling me for bad grammar and typos when I spent five (5) minutes composing it on a phone, riding the bus, seems extremely petty, even for you. People make mistakes, especially when composing material not meant for wider circulation. Do I make snide remarks on your dozens (and dozens) of daily gaffes involving missed punctuation, double-typed words, and spelling errors … even though you’re the one with the website.
Then again, you’ve always loved mocking my learning disabilty. I say “The complexities of this matter confuse me, I don’t know or understand all the facts, but here’s the impression I get” and you respond with “You’re wrong, stupid, and write like crap.” Thanks, friend.