Across The Aisle:
 A Conservative's Argument for Donald Trump
James Slade

 

Dear Cud,

I’m no English major, but I’m pretty sure Steve Martin’s Christmas Wish, which debuted in 1991 on Saturday Night Live is satire, I am pretty sure. Does that mean SNL thinks children singing in peace and harmony is a legitimate goal?  If not, its not satire right?  And if it’s not satire, it’s not funny, right?  Anyways…

When it comes to world poverty, hunger, war, disease - who’s (pun intended) problems are these, besides Bono’s?  Are they America’s problem to solve?  Germany?  Everyone’s?  If they are America’s problems to solve, should that be through edict or legislation?  For the sake of argument, let's assume all the great superpowers (I’ll include China for irony) decided that it is everyone’s problem to rid the world of atrocities and unfairness, and they were going to work together to make great strides against those terrible Third World conditions mentioned above. Would it be possible?  Some optimists think so. Some pessimists don’t. But as I sit here and write this, currently we cannot get the world to come together to address climate change or proceed with nuclear non-proliferation efforts, or any other initiative that rational “thinkers” deem critical, essential, or obvious. In the way of any organized effort to curb these ills, or to get all the world’s children to sing in peace and harmony comes this cranky old concept called - reality.

I don’t know what to write to make people think voting for Donald Trump is noble or just- I don’t think those words exist.  I know I’m mad because I am going to have to hold my nose and vote for him though, which essentially makes me a bad person, I’m told.  Why would I do that?  I don’t want people to starve, no matter where they are from.  But I also don’t want a 99% tax rate on my earnings to go to funding some bound-to-fail-feed-the-earth project either.  And to a certain extent, I see the 2016 Presidential race as a vote for one of those two choices, and there is no middle candidate.  I have great friends and well respected family who won’t be able to muster up a vote for DT, people’s whose opinions I value highly.   They cite his insulting Senator McCain, and I completely agree that was wrong.  They talk about his plan to deport eleven million illegal immigrants, which is nonsense (although I support building a wall). We’ve discussed his threatening to close mosques and/or ban entry of Muslims, which we all agree is not a value our country was built on, nor should it be. I’ve had late night conversations about DTs lack of policy and substance, which frankly is understandable given that we’ve had to go to the private sector to find someone who doesn’t represent the Establishment or the Elite or whatever you want to call entrenched special interests that aren’t working.  I’ve heard mention of DTs repeated lies, and I am somehow able to dismiss many of them because I am numb to lies (thanks Obama).  They mention his rhetoric, which is divisive and inflammatory, as if they weren’t taught “sticks and stones” just like I was. What will really get me to do it, though, to vote for Donald Frickin Trump?  It’s the Status Quo, stupid!

I’ve heard Trump is the populist candidate.  I didn’t know what a populist was until I heard Trump is one and therefore, I Googled it.

The definition of Populism - a doctrine that appeals to the interests and conceptions of the general population, especially when contrasting any new collective consciousness pushagainst the prevailing status quo interests of any predominate political sector.

So the Twitter version is “General Population against the status quo.”  That couldn’t describe me more accurately unless it also included a Bud Light can and Red Sox jersey.  So the media is telling me that I am a Trump fan by virtue of my issues with the status quo – somehow? And one other thing, A LOT of people are sick and tired of the status quo.  Who are the other populist candidates?  Oh, that’s right, there are none.  We get one vote and its multiple choice, I can’t write in Jesus.  So if you are against the status quo, but not for Trump…you may actually be in favor of the status quo, and you didn’t even know, Bro!


WTF is status quo?

Everyone has their own status quo.  Here’s my list:
When we raise the debt ceiling every time, and think that a shrinking budget deficit is somehow not a budget deficit, because it shrank an inconsequentially little bit.
When I pay my share of taxes, only to have them spent on increasing entitlements.
When my Government is screaming from the rooftops that anyone who can get on American soil will eventually be a citizen.
When a politician can circumvent the Freedom of Information Act and be given a free pass, because of their last name, and because they are of the “correct” politics.
When my son’s school has to teach kindergarteners in thirty different languages.
When I have to follow rules, but others do not.
When I have to live on a budget and within my own means, while others do not.

These issues make me mad, and DT is the only candidate who is willing to eschew the traditional which-way-is-the-wind-blowing politics and PC vernacular to tell it like it is.  We cannot afford our debt.  We cannot afford our military.  We cannot afford our existing entitlement regime, and our demographics are turning on the tax base.  I worry about these things, more than I worry about poverty or hunger in Guatemala.  That may make me a bad liberal, and a bad human, but what it also makes me honest.  And the general population is honest to a fault, especially at the ballot box.  People feel stretched and stressed.  More of the same won’t change that.  Eight years after Hope and Change, we’re trading Traitors for Taliban, we’re seeing executive orders that shield illegal immigrants from ramifications of their actions, we’re talking about free college for everyone and I’m about to go file my taxes to pay for it all.  Just because America is great and moral doesn’t mean we can solve the world’s problems, and as Europe is showing now, the “makers” have increasingly little time for the “takers.”  It will seem crass to call starving African children or infant drug babies from Chicago ‘takers”, but until the leadership of this country starts showing that it can live within its means and enforce a set of rules that limit the “takers”, my honesty will trump my charitable urges and I’ll vote against the status quo.  My kids and their future aren’t so secure that I can ignore finances and vote with my heart.

Everything is about money. People work hard for it, they trade their most valuable thing in life for money, their time.  Money is directly related to immigration.  We cannot be the dumping ground for the world’s poor unless we change expectations of the general public to live a lower quality of life to subsidize the world’s poor.  Europe, with the most liberal society the world has ever known is struggling right now with the status quo.  Part of it is process.  If I was told my son won’t get the 20-1 teacher/student ratio that I expected because we have a dozen new kids in the class who don’t speak English, and it will be 30-1… I might not be happy but I could understand, and may even vote for it.  If Obamacare was pitched that it was going to cost me more money, my doctor network may shrink a bit, but we would be helping millions of people, I could have voted for that.  But that’s not how the status quo works, you aren’t consulted.  Instead, the trajectory of some elite spending my money without consultation or fear of consequences keeps going, and it is maddening.  Trump’s appeal is that he’ll look out for Americans even if it mean’s offending a few people along the way.  After eight long years, that line of thinking is fresh as lettuce to a beaten down general population.  I’ll vote for Trump and when he burns me as well… I’ll call him the status quo and be no worse off for it. I mean, it’s not like he will take over 1/5th of the economy through a series of lies and manipulation. 

Cue Queen Amidala. 

 

'Jim Slade’ resides in Western Massachusetts.

 

 

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