Flawed President

            I recently spent some time with some of my children and grandchildren who were Never Trumpers. They did not support Hillary Clinton because they could see her obvious flaws, but they refused to support Donald Trump and chose instead to support the late comer what’s his name. They were still bad mouthing Trump because of his serial marriages, immorality, etc. even though they acknowledged that he is doing some good things for the nation.

            My family members claim that Trump is morally unfit to serve as President of the United States. I tried to convince them that Trump is no worse than numerous other Presidents that have served during my lifetime. (JFK bringing women into the White House, LBJ being an absolutely vulgar womanizer, Richard Nixon resigning to avoid impeachment – none of whom could be called morally fit for office! Then there is Jimmy Carter, an apparently good man who was unfit for office in other ways.) I could not see that I made any headway with them.

            I cannot understand how intelligent people – related to me or not – cannot look past the kind of man that Trump was (did you ever hear of repentance?) and see what he is doing for our nation. Barack Obama was a total disaster for the United States and the world, and Trump is cleaning up his messes as fast as he can. I finally reminded my children and grandchildren that conservatives put up with Obama for eight long years, and Trump has been in office just over 100 days. I asked them to give him a chance to prove what he can do. Even though I thought that Obama would be a bad president, I gave him an opportunity to prove me wrong before I started bad-mouthing him – and I never rioted or destroyed property or threatened the life of the president like many liberals have been doing the past six months!

            Many Never Trumpers may never become Trump supporters. I do not even know if I am a Trump supporter, but I am a supporter of freedom. I voted for Trump to keep Hillary out of the White House and to keep the courts from moving further left. I never claimed Trump was a saint or nearly perfect. I knew that he had some big flaws, but I also knew that he was better than Hillary. Yes, I voted for the better of two evils in order to defend, protect, and preserve the Constitution and freedom. I like what I have seen so far in this presidency, but I will not feel that I made a mistake if he fails. I believe that Trump is far better than Hillary would ever be.

            Dennis Prager, the host of “The Dennis Prager Show” and the founder of Prager University, posted an article titled “Why Conservatives Still Attack Trump.” Prager’s conclusion about Never-Trumpers who remain anti-Trump today is as follows.

“The first and, by far, the greatest reason is this: They do not believe that America is engaged in a civil war, with the survival of America as we know it at stake. While they strongly differ with the left, they do not regard the left-right battle as an existential battle for preserving our nation. On the other hand, I, and other conservative Trump supporters do.

            Even though he “vigorously” opposed Donald Trump’s candidacy during the primaries, Prager became a Trump supporter once he won the Republican nomination. Like many other conservatives including myself, Prager felt that Hillary would have continued the “fundamental transformation” of the United States that Obama started in 2008. She had to be stopped!

            Conservatives like Prager knew that a Republican president was needed in order to stop the progressive march to socialism. Republicans needed a candidate who could stop Hillary from reaching the White House, and Trump was the man. He not only won the election, but he nominated a conservative judge for the Supreme Court, strengthened the military, supported the first responders, and is keeping his campaign promise to Make America Great Again. Trump is slowly undoing the damage caused by the Obama administration, but Never-Trumpers do not see it that way. They obviously do not see the danger of a Hillary presidency. Prager continues:

That’s it, in a nutshell. Many conservatives, including me, believe that it would have been close to over for America as America if the Republican candidate, who happened to be a flawed man named Donald Trump, had not won. Moreover, I am certain that only Donald Trump would have defeated Hillary Clinton.

In other words, I believe that Donald Trump may have saved the country. And that, in my book, covers a lot of sins – foolish tweets, included.

            Prager explains that the anti-Trump conservatives “are a very refined group of people” and Trump is not one of them. He also says that “anti-Trump conservatives see themselves as highly moral people (which they often are) who are duty-bound not to compromise themselves by strongly supporting Trump, whom they largely view as morally defective.”

            Prager suggests that anti-Trump conservatives invested “so much energy in opposing” Trump that it is “hard for them to admit they were wrong.” They feel that their reputations are endangered by a successful Trump presidency. Prager suggests that “there is another way.”

They can join the fight. They can accept an imperfect reality and acknowledge that we are in a civil war, and that Trump, with all his flaws, is our general. If this general is going to win, he needs the best fighters. But too many of them, some of the best minds of the conservative movement, are AWOL.

I beg them: Please report for duty.

            I too wish all conservatives would band together for the good of the country. It would also be nice if moderates and liberals would also see the light and support the cause. My children and grandchildren do not consider themselves to be “conservative,” but they are good people who are compassionate, intelligent, honest, and fair. They acknowledge that Donald Trump is the President of the United States, and I feel certain that they will be supportive of him if he can actually make good on his promises to Make America Great Again.