Would President Trump be that bad?
The establishment would have you thinking that.
Marco Rubio repeated the same platitudes and half-truths several times following his embarrassing performance on Super Tuesday—Trump is a racist, Trump is not a conservative, Trump isn’t electable, etc. The reaction? Everyone laughed.
Nothing changed at the Thursday night debate. Many of the attacks leveled at Trump seemed to be made up by a junior high school focus group. Those that actually had substance—and there were a few great barbs by both the candidates and the moderators—questioned not only Trump’s honesty and integrity, but also his “conservative credentials.”
Trump, the establishment says (along with the anti-Trump crowd), is all image and no substance, a “reality TV star” who doesn’t understand the Constitution or American government. His “debate” performance seemed to solidify this critique. After all, Trump does not give concrete answers to policy questions and maybe spends too much time on the size of his hands.
But let us consider five reasons why the establishment and the anti-Trump crowd may be wrong about a President Trump:
1.) “I’ll look into it”: A President Trump who will “look into” a particular situation is not the same as a president who will unconstitutionally legislate from the Oval Office. We have seen that Trump has good advisors, particularly Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a man whom no one would confuse with a weak-kneed liberal. Sessions has been the most vocal opponent of illegal immigration in the Senate. Does anyone think that his influence would lead to a Gang of Eight scenario and compromise from President Trump? “Looking into it” might produce a push for even more stringent immigration policies from Congress. If Trump says he will support it, Congress would be foolish not to act.
2.) Trump won’t start WWIII: Among the remaining candidates (including the Democrats), Trump has been the most vocal opponent of military adventurism. He has suggested he will take the fight to ISIS, but Trump has been insistent in his belief that the Iraq war was a mistake, that American blood has been shed in a misguided attempt to restructure the Middle East, and that a real conservative American foreign policy would place American interests first, ahead of those of foreign nations. Trump’s foreign policy would be closest to the founding generation’s desire for peaceful neutrality. As a businessman, Trump understands that peace produces prosperity, both for the American federal republic and the people who reside here.
3.) We may get Judge Napolitano: No, not Janet Napolitano, but Judge Andrew Napolitano for the Supreme Court. Critics have charged that Trump would likely appoint a rabid leftist for the bench, perhaps his sister, but in a recent interview, Trump advisor Roger Stone hinted that Andrew Napolitano might be Trump’s first choice to take Antonin Scalia’s seat on the bench. It would make sense. Napolitano has a high profile in the media and is rock solid on civil liberties. And though he appears regularly on Fox News, he is not an establishment favorite, nor would he be an establishment choice. It would be as unconventional as a Trump presidency. That is good for America. Who needs another Harvard lawyer on the Supreme Court bench? We have a clear example of how a Harvard Law grad has screwed up America. He currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Hillary Clinton thought he would make a good Supreme Court justice.
4.) Trump brings back the Reagan coalition: It wasn’t that long ago that people used to salivate over the 1980s Reagan coalition of blue-collar Democrats and white-collar Republicans. Trump has that kind of appeal. This is why his message resonates across the political spectrum and why many Americans are supporting him. If the Republican Party is serious about a “big tent” philosophy, Trump is their guy. Most conservatives vote Republican because they lack real alternatives. It is better, they think, to hold their nose and pull the lever for Mitt Romney than vote for Barack Obama. This hasn’t worked, and American knows it. Trump represents real America, what Glenn Beck recently derided as the “bubba effect,” and real America is ready to kick the establishment to the curb. They want jobs, security, and someone who isn’t afraid to stand up to the cultural Marxism of the establishment, both Left and Right. Reagan would agree. He nailed the “bubba” vote as well. That worked out ok.
5.) Trump cleans up corruption: Trump has made clear that he intends to prosecute Hillary Clinton if elected president. That is a good start, and candidate Hillary doesn’t stand a chance against the verbal onslaught Trump would bring to a Trump v. Clinton campaign. She has never encountered someone like Trump as a candidate. He is not awe struck by the Clinton machine. But more than that, Trump prides himself on efficiency. Grover Cleveland, the last good Democrat elected to the executive office, rode a wave of anti-corruption into the executive mansion and proceeded to remove as much of the cancer from Washington as possible. It would not be hard to image a similar great purge of establishment corruption from D.C. should Trump be elected. It would be like shining lights on cockroaches. Clinton would be the first target, but other vestiges of Washington corruption would be getting a Trump scrubbing. Who wouldn’t want that?
At the end of the day, Americans should ask, “Do we want a chief legislator, a dictator in chief who already has an agenda and like Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama etc., will force Congress into submission?” We have already seen how that screwed up America. Think the New Deal, Fair Deal, and the Great Society. Making America great again will take a different kind of leadership, one in which “I’ll look into it” is preferable to “I’ll act even if it’s unconstitutional.”
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