Survival in the time of Trump

It’s tough to be a conservative Republican these days. The media is so obsessed with ‘getting’ President Donald J. Trump that it is all but impossible to hear anything above their noise. Cartoonist A.F. Branco illustrates it thusly:

And in truth, some of his agenda is getting through, although mostly in the form of executive policy changes. Congress is about worthless and is getting little done, even though they are controlled by Republicans.

It is very difficult to find anything positive being written about the President these days unless you read/listen to bootlickers like Sean Hannity and his ilk. But there are a few places where you can get honest, balanced conservative commentary on Mr. Trump.

I’ve never been a big fan of Erick Erickson, formerly of Red State, now at The Resurgent. But between the greater wisdom that normally comes with age and his (and his family’s) health battles, his writing is no longer 100% bomb throwing and yelling. As a #neverTrumper, he is actually defending the President better than most, even as he points out his weaknesses. His column ‘A Fundamental Aversion to Truth‘ makes more sense than most things written about our President these days. I share his frustration.

Whether it is their bunker mentality or their moral code, the Clan Trump has a fundamental aversion to truth and it keeps getting them into trouble.

…

Right now, to believe the Trumps is to believe so much that is not so. There is an increasing hesitancy, even among their core loyalists, to defend them because the story could change on a dime and everyone now has a sense they are withholding key details.

(click here to read Erickson’s column at TheResurgent.com)

Like I said earlier, it is tough to be a conservative Republican with President Trump as the face of our party, given the attacks from the press and his own vulgarity. And as a #neverTrumper, it would be easy for me to say, I told you so. But the plain truth is that those of you that voted for him in November were correct. Although Congress is failing, the executive policies that he is changing will help our nation move forward. You know, like Make America Great Again. You can see it all around if you take the time to look. Fewer illegals crossing the southern border. Quicker deportations. Fearless deportations. He did follow through on nominating a conservative to the US Supreme Court. He is reducing regulations across the bloated Federal government, which ultimately will benefit all of us. So, mea culpa.

If you are disheartened about President Trump, Unca Darrell has some words to help you see the bigger picture.

Donald John Trump on Western Civilization

WE WRITE SYMPHONIES. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.

We reward brilliance, we strive for excellence, and [we] cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.

We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success.

We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.

And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything, so that we can better know ourselves.

And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person and share the hopes of every soul to live in freedom.

That’s who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

What we have, what we inherited from our . . . ancestors has never existed to this extent before. And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again. So we cannot fail.

(Donald John Trump, Warsaw Remarks, July 6, 2017)

Amen.

I voted for Mr. Trump with reluctance. His greatest claim to office, in my view, was that he was less unfit than his adversary. Mr. Trump’s faults remain. He is loud and vulgar. He is not a conservative. He is unprincipled. But I would vote for him again against the same opponent or anyone like her, now with greater assurance.

The Warsaw speech is one reason. However inartfully and incompletely, he embraced Western Civilization. Neither his predecessor in office nor his opponent last November ever did or would ever have done the same. This difference alone is sufficient to justify a preference for him over them.

The cultural and progressive left disdain the very civilization whose air they breathe and on whose soil they live. They cannot speak of Western Civilization without sarcasm or anger. The massive backlash against Mr. Trump’s speech proves this point. What was once an unexceptional opinion — think of the well-received Kenneth Clark television series in the 1970s, “Civilisation” — has now become a touchstone of political and cultural correctness. Today, no self-respecting left intellectual can speak of Western Civilization — as expressed in art, learning, law, religion, history, economics, and politics, and as proved by the superiority of daily life in America and other counties that have adopted the Western model  — without sarcasm or anger.

Unca Darrell has preached from this sermon book for years. See the “in love with” clause in the masthead, then click “civilization” in the “Categories” cloud at the bottom of the right column of this blog. Click and reread some of the old stories.

This debate is not a new one. And the outcome of the debate is far from inconsequential. Mr. Trump is and always will be a flawed champion for Western Civilization, but he’s on the right side of the question.

Your choice is whether to join him or the naysayers — folks who noisily reject their great civilizational inheritance while living off its wealth.

(click here to read it on Unca Darrell)

I think that Unca Darrell makes the best argument possible for supporting this President. And we can do it without losing our own integrity. Will it be a balancing act? Sure. Will we sometimes end up looking foolish because of his temper tantrums? Yes. But if we care about our past, if we care about our future, if we care about the fundamental value of Western Civilization, we must join and fight back against the falsehoods that stem from the press’s obsession to ‘get’ him. Just my two cents.

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