Never Trump: Conservative Republican Jihadi Suicide Bombers

Bit of a rant. Written after spending a few hours at the Orange Country Fair in the heat looking at livestock--my wife has a friend who trains oxen . . . long story. Forgive any irrationality. But, I must say, I was impressed by the oxen. Massive, powerful, but very gentle beasts. Quite beautiful, actually.

As with most other nerds with no life, I spend most of my time unable to stay away from the news. An apparently constant feature of that "news" consists of tales of "Republicans" and "Conservatives" who refuse to vote for Trump and, in some cases, will even vote for Clinton. The New York Times recently published a letter signed by fifty so-called "G.O.P. National Security Officials" questioning Trump's "temperament" to be president. The letter is extraordinary for a number of reasons, but not the ones the liberal/progressive media promote. Most, not all, of the signatories are not Republicans. They form part of the rotating crew of first- and second-tier "experts" who float around Washington and land jobs with various administrations, Republican and Democrat. This group tended to get better jobs under Republican administrations, but they are very much part of the well-established cadre of "experts" who make a nice living hanging around Washington and waiting for invites into the inner sanctum of power. These are not some sort of conservative core or corps finding the polices recommended by Trump to be dangerous. They are talking about "temperament" and almost everything they criticize Trump for allegedly suffering, one could ascribe to Obama in triple. Read the letter, you'll see what I mean when you substitute "Obama" for "Trump." I find remarkable that they cannot bring themselves to criticize the Obama-Clinton foreign policy that produced a remarkable series of disasters for America and the West. I suspect that some of them might resent that they were not called upon to form part of the Trump campaign, and see Trump blowing up their perceived entitlement to return to power with a GOP victory. Many, I further suspect, had counted on a Jeb Bush administration.

That said, however, there are plenty of self-proclaimed "conservatives" and "Republicans" (see my post on this) seeking what Bethell long ago labelled that "strange new respect," an award given to,

once-reliable conservatives who won liberal praise by adopting liberal policies. Of a sudden, an erstwhile Neanderthal would be treated in the Washington Post as someone who was no longer “simplistic” and “shrill” but rather a figure who had “grown” and showed himself to be “nuanced.”

We've seen prominent establishment "conservatives" such as George Will, Mitt Romney, and others (many of whom I respect) make clear their distaste for Trump. Look, one of the great things we still have in America is that you can vote for or against anybody you want, and, in fact, you do not even have to vote. Each person has the right to decide how or whether to employ his or her vote. No argument with that.

To argue, however, that it is better for Hillary Clinton, the most corrupt major party candidate in our history, to win because Donald Trump is not a "true" conservative or doesn't have the "temperament" is an outrageous argument, in my humble view. The damage that a Clinton administration could and would do to the USA over the next four to eight years is almost incalculable. The Supreme Court would be transformed completely, for example, into a tool of the Progressive movement and alter forever the face and character of this country. The first and second amendments, to name just two, would be gutted, and government would have nearly carte blanche to intrude into our lives in ways not yet imagined. Massive deficits, exorbitant taxes, unlimited immigration, climbing crime rates, growing poverty, weak foreign policy, and a deep, deep demoralization of the nation would result.

I heard many of the same arguments on Trump used when Reagan ran. Reagan, of course, was not a "true" conservative, but he proved a damn sight better for the country than would have another four years of Jimmy Carter. We heard all the same memes about foreigners horrified by the possibility of a Reagan presidency; that war would follow his election to office; that the economy would drown in an ocean created by the false promises of trickle-down economics, etc. It was all nonsense, of course, but that doesn't stop the Progs from recycling their talking points--many of those points, in fact, were originally drafted in the 1930's in Moscow.

If these "conservative" mandarins want to blow themselves up, that is their right. I just don't want my country to be the collateral damage.

I will vote for Trump.