Erick Erickson, editor of the Resurgent and a leading Never Trumper who voted third-party in 2016, announced Monday in a column that he would throw his full support behind President Trump in 2020.
“I will vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. And, to be clear, it will not be just because of what the other side offers, but also because of what the Trump-Pence team has done. They’ve earned my vote,” he wrote.
Erickson argued that the president is not perfect but that the president has delivered on his promises. He wrote:
Some of my concerns about President Trump remain. I still struggle on the character issue and I understand Christian friends who would rather sit it out than get involved. But I also recognize that we cannot have the Trump Administration policies without President Trump and there is much to like.
President Trump delivered on tax reform. He delivered on regulatory rollbacks. He delivered on undermining Obamacare. He delivered on moving the embassy in Israel. He delivered on withdrawal from the Paris Accord. He delivered on withdrawal from the Iranian agreement. He delivered on shifting American foreign policy focus to the Western Hemisphere to deal with Venezuela, Cuba, and other hotspots. He delivered on solid executive appointments, including to the judiciary.
Erickson said he had “ongoing concerns” on tariffs, North Korea, and other issues, but that even with George W. Bush he had issues.
“No President is perfect. Some are badly flawed. In 2020, we’ll be asked to choose between a set of sinners and must decide which direction we want to go as a nation,” he said.
Erickson called the host of Democrats running “too extreme” for the nation.
We have a party that is increasingly hostile to religion and now applies religious tests to blocking judicial nominees. We have a party that believes children can be murdered at birth. We have a party that would set back the economic progress of this nation by generations through their environmental policies.
We have a party that uses the issue of Russia opportunistically. We have a party that has weaponized race, gender, and other issues to divide us all while calling the President “divisive.” We have a party that is deeply, deeply hostile to large families, small businesses, strong work ethics, gun ownership, and traditional values. We have a party that is more and more openly anti-Semitic.
Erickson also slammed the media as one that increasingly views itself “not as a neutral observer, but as an anti-Trump operation.” The younger the reporter, the worse it was, he said.
“The daily litany of misreported and badly reported stories designed to paint this Administration in a negative light continues to amaze me,” he said.
He wrote:
Juxtapose the contrast in national reporting on the President and race or Brett Kavanaugh and old allegations with the media dancing around the issues in Virginia. Or compare and contrast the media’s coverage of the New York and Virginia abortion laws with their coverage of this President continuing the policies of the Obama Administration at the border, including the Obama policy of separating children from adults. Or look now at how the media is scrambling to cover for and make excuses for the Democrats’ ‘Green New Deal,’ going so far as to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the outline of policy initiatives was an error or forged.
In fact, many of my center-right friends who, like me, continue to have concerns with this Administration, are driven in part by the bad reporting on this Administration.
There are certainly concerns. I have written often about my concerns, including on the character issue. I will not now be silent even in expressing my support. But I also recognize the media has done an amazing job of fraudulently amplifying those concerns and, frankly, the younger the reporter the worse and more unfair the coverage.
“Pretty smiles and calm demeanors” from Democrats will not “hide the fact they think children can be killed at birth, Christians should be removed from policy making positions, and the economy should be bankrupted to implement environmental policies that will not actually mitigate climate change,” he said.
“That party offers me no home and is deeply hostile to people of faith. The President has shown himself to not share my faith convictions any more than the other side, but the President has shown he is willing to defend my faith convictions and is supportive of them,” he wrote.
“While I understand and accept the sincere conviction of some of my friends who have decided they will just sit out the process, I have decided otherwise. In 2016, we knew who the Democrats were and were not sure of who Donald Trump was. Now we know both and I prefer this President to the alternative.”
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