Purely Political, By James Buckley
Donald Trump
I know, I know. Enough with this Trump stuff.
We’ve got to move on.
I’ve said as much, though I have always insisted that if Donald Trump runs again, I’ll vote for him.
For two important reasons.
The first being that as president, Mr. Trump tried mightily to fulfill every campaign promise he’d made. In the face of treachery from all sides, particularly from what he called the Deep State, and political intransigence from his own party, he risked everything, including — as the Founding Fathers once did — his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor — to complete his self-appointed task to Make America Great Again.
After all, as he would often say, he didn’t need this. He had a great life.
The other reason being that a second term was denied him via a quasi-legal campaign of adjusting election rules, particularly in battleground states (using the ongoing pandemic as an excuse for doing so), ballot harvesting, creation of thousands of unguarded drop boxes into which anyone at any time could drop undetected and un-monitored, however many mail-in ballots one had “collected,” and the like.
But you knew that, so as we enter a never-ending Election Month, I feel an urgent need to keep the distasteful 2020 campaign effort front and center so that voters don’t forget.
The following are extracts I’ve pulled from a speech entitled “Trump’s Virtues,” given by Thomas Klingenstein, chairman of the Claremont Institute, who feels that way too. I don’t know the man, but he was an early supporter of Mr.Trump, and his 17-minute speech encapsulates who the former and perhaps future president is and isn’t, and why it’s important to remember what he accomplished.
TRUMP’S VIRTUES
“Many leading Republicans and conservatives want someone other than Donald Trump to run for president in 2024.
“Other Republican politicians say some version of, ‘I like his policies but don’t like the rest of him.’ But this gets it almost backward. Although Trump advanced many important policies, it is the ‘rest of him’ that contains the virtues that inspired a movement.
“Trump was born for the current crisis: the life and death struggle against the totalitarian enemy I call ‘woke communism.’
The ‘woke comms’ clench the Democratic party by the scruff of its neck. They tell us lies and silence those who challenge the lies. Like most totalitarian regimes, they have a scapegoat (white males), a narrative (America is systemically racist) and a utopian vision of society where there are equal outcomes for all preferred identity groups in every area of human life. The woke comms control all the cultural, and economic centers of power in the country from where they ruthlessly push their agenda. That agenda rests on the conviction that America is thoroughly bad (systemically racist) and must be destroyed.
“Trump critics say he caused or exacerbated the divide in this country. No, he did not. He revealed — not caused — the divide.
“Trump is unreservedly, unquestionably pro-American. He makes no apologies for America’s past. Trump is a refreshing break from the guilt and self-loathing that mark our age.
“Trump has said over and over exactly what political correctness prohibits one from saying: ‘We have our culture, it’s exceptional, and that’s the way we want to keep it.’
“It is difficult to overestimate the significance of Trump’s fight against political correctness, a fight in which most Republicans are reluctant to engage.
“Trump treated the woke media with the same contempt he treated political correctness, provoking their outrage and revealing their utter corruption.
“Unlike most politicians, Trump — when he sees a problem — goes out and fixes it. He fixed our porous borders, moved our Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, normalized relations between Arab countries and Israel, eliminated hate-America Critical Race Theory in his administrative agencies, developed a vaccine for the coronavirus in record time, achieved energy independence and much more.
“Trump is guided by facts and common sense. He has no use for theories. He knows that slavish devotion to theory can lead to nonsensical beliefs; for instance, that children should be able to change their sex; that police forces should be defunded; or that biological boys should be able to compete against girls in athletics.
“Trump taught us crucial things. For starters, that China is a mortal enemy. Before his presidency, the public did not appreciate this. Now it does.
“Trump smoked rats out of their hiding places. Because of Trump, we now know that our intelligence agencies are corrupt. We know also that the mainstream media is not just biased but is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.
“Trump also understands that what Americans of all races and creeds desire are stable communities and the opportunity to raise their families in a culture that values industriousness, self-reliance, patriotism and freedom.
“Trump is the most towering political figure in living memory. He has, like it or not, defined the politics of our age.
“Among the talked-about alternatives to Trump, I have not yet seen anyone who possesses, or even fully understands, Trump’s virtues. Nor I have seen anyone with his backbone and fortitude. One does not appreciate the strength of relentless gale-force winds until one is in the eye of the storm. I am not suggesting that it is time for everyone to make way for Trump; rather that it is much too early to throw him overboard.
“If Republicans do choose another candidate to lead the Trump movement, they must do so in full confidence that (their candidate) will embody Trump’s virtues. If not Trump himself, his virtues must be the standard by which we judge other candidates.”
Readers should go online to YouTube and punch in “Trump’s Virtues” and watch the entire speech. It’s well worth your time.
James Buckley is a longtime Montecito resident. He welcomes questions or comments at jimb@substack.com. Readers are invited to visit jimb.substack.com, where Jim’s Journals are on file. He also invites people to subscribe to Jim’s Journal.
