For five years of Trump, I took Bob Dylan’s advice: don’t criticize what you can’t understand. He seemed to forget the job was what he did and not who he was. He took vicious shots at critics (even Republicans). Bad personality, right? Yet, he saw systemic poverty that Democrats denied and forgotten Americans that Democrats demonized. Clear vision, right? And, in the end, he made the resistance calls of “unhinged” look prescient. Poor chap, right?
An honest chronicler would say Mr. Trump was a one-term president because the nation tired of his emotional intensity, not because they disliked his policies. He was right about what ailed America; open borders repressing the wages of unskilled workers, excessive regulations oppressing small US businesses, and political correctness going too far. Many centrists ignored the message because they hated the messenger. Now, some think the MAGA movement ends with Trump’s departure. Hmmm.
Some Republicans are shaking in their post-Trump boots. Mick Mulvaney, tea-party Republican and founder of House Freedom caucus, expressed dread. “We signed up for making America great again [and] lower taxes and less regulation. The president has a long list of successes, [but] all of that went away [Wednesday].” This is what happens after a president hops in bed with conspiracy theorists and sinks to 33% approval (source: Politico/Morning Consult).
Some conservatives are ticked off because Donald Trump wasn’t up to a gracious note, such as George Herbert Walker Bush left Bill Clinton. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel lamented, “Trump could have reveled in the role of one-term disrupter – the man the electorate sent to Washington to deliver the message that it was tired of business as usual.” Mr. Bush was the last “gentlemen” to hold the office, and what did that earn him? Punks in the Clinton campaign rat-tailing him with “it’s the economy, stupid!”
I was sick of Trump’s personality before he even explained his policies. The personal attacks on fellow Republicans Fiorina and Rubio were just mean. Yet, I was moved by his policies that meant to fix household poverty and help small businesses – issues ignored by Hillary Clinton – and his barstool approach to political correctness. So, how did a flawed personality win more votes than any incumbent ever? It sure wasn’t the odd combover or orange tan.
74,000,000 legitimate votes were cast by a “new” Republican coalition that will be just as enthused about Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, or Nikki Haley, who ARE conservative. Absent Trump’s toxicity, the GOP will grow because it’s right on policy. New Republicans oppose China and open borders, support investment freedom and US manufacturing, and want an end to regime-change wars and cancel culture. They are not the ogres described by MSNBC.
The “new” GOP is just dying to nominate Nikki Haley or Tim Scott to prove it’s THE PARTY of Lincoln. Absent Trump’s personality, Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz have no differences, and college-educated women can vote their pocketbooks. Here’s the skinny: it took being right on policy for Trump to win in 2016, and a toxic personality to lose to a senile old man campaigning from his basement. It was always about policies and never about the man behind the rally podiums.
