Like Daniel Pipes, I was #NeverTrump. I vigorously opposed his nomination. I ridiculed and condemned him. And I did not vote for him in 2016. But I agree with Pipes. Trump has overall done a good job, and I will vote for him in November.
Nearly four years later, Trump’s [I’d say: “style”] still troubles and repels me. …
But, to my unending surprise, he has governed as a resolute conservative. His policies in the areas of education, taxes, deregulation, and the environment have been bolder than Ronald Reagan’s. His judicial appointments are the best of the past century (thank you, Leonard Leo). His unprecedented assault on the administrative state proceeds apace, ignoring predictable howls from the Washington establishment. Even his foreign policy has been conservative: demanding that allies contribute their fair share, confronting China and Iran, and singularly supporting Israel. Ironically, as David Harsanyi notes, a potential character flaw actually works to our advantage: “Trump’s obstinacy seems to have made him less susceptible to the pressures that traditionally induce GOP presidents to capitulate.”
(Economic performance drives many voters to support or oppose a sitting president, but not me. Partly, because the president has only limited control; partly, because it’s a transient issue that matters much less than long-term policies.) ….
But, of course, we all disagree with some of what every president does; more surprisingly, I agree with about 80 percent of Trump’s actions, a higher number than any of his predecessors’, going back to Lyndon Johnson.
Well, I definitely don’t think Trump is altogether better than Reagan, but he is certainly more combative.
Spurt Reynolds
I concur.
He keeps up the great job and he gets his own Mt Rushmore.
Dan Kurt
RE:”I definitely don’t think Trump is altogether better than Reagan.”JDZ
Reagan committed two blunders as president.
The First, proved to be horrendous collateral damage to investors by not grandfathering the changes to real-estate deductions so that they could be unwound. Remember the savings and loan collapse?
The second, and probably will prove to be lethal to the Republic, was Reagan’s amnesty that has turned America into a majority-minority third world reality and along with the Hart-Celler immigration changes of 1965 cemented the USA’s fate.
Dan Kurt
Fusil Darne
I loved Ronald Reagan as a human being. I would much rather have a beer with him at his range than hang around with Donald Trump. Trump doesn’t drink beer, and, I detest golf.
That said, Ronald Reagan would be unable to deal with the mobsters in the swamp, or, the relentless media assaults that Donald Trump has. I would have been content if Mr. Trump sent as many constitutional conservative judges to the Supreme Court as possible, keeping Hillary away from the White House, and playing golf and not getting caught banging an intern in the Oval Office. That was all I asked, and my hopes have been rewarded beyond expectation. He is far more conservative than Ronald Reagan, and beats liberals and the media at their own games. I love exactly one politician, from all time, and that is Donald J. Trump.
gwbnyc
Trump delivers, as he does, and has done so in the face of the massive undermining of his administration that started before he was sworn in.
ceaselessly, and to date.
JK Brown
Trump, like Murray says of Reagan, has been a Republican president who has made a difference. In the end, that’s what you want, a president that makes a difference.
“Without getting into the comparative defects of Clinton and Trump (disclosure: I’m #NeverTrump), I think it’s useful to remind everyone of the ways in which having a Republican president hasn’t made all that much difference for the last fifty years, with Ronald Reagan as the one exception.”
–Charles Murray, May 2016
Please Leave a Comment!