The Republican establishment should wake up. Over the last few weeks I am heard many renowned and accomplished conservatives say that they will not vote for Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a buffoon. He is a crude, a bully and a clown with migrating ideas and values, to the extent that he has any thoughts at all. But life does not present us with perfect or sometimes even good choices. Was Bob Dole even a good choice? John McCain is far more liberal than conservative, and worse yet he has repeatedly furthered liberal propaganda by allowing himself to be the poster boy for bipartisanship (defined as a singular John McCain joining the Democrats.) In fact we have had exactly 2 presidents in the 20th and 21st century that qualify as “good choices,” Calvin Coolidge and of course Ronald Reagan. I promise you most of the “I won’t vote for Trump” crowd who are old enough, voted for Richard Nixon. He was a liberals dream. He created the EPA, passed cost of living increases, imposed wage and price controls, and his dream of universal healthcare came close to reality.. George H. W. Bush found it more expeditious to violate his oath on taxes than to withstand the heat from the entrenched political class. George W Bush signed campaign finance reform after telling the world that it was patently unconstitutional, signed No Child Left Behind with the support of Teddy Kennedy (frightening), a law that any observer of public policy knew would only pour more money into the bottomless pit called education reform, and then he tried to give us Harriet Miers, who likely would have been as much a disaster on the Supreme Court as his father’s appointee David Souter.
And so along comes Donald Trump. I will not defend him. He is indefensible. His language, his thought process, his knowledge base and his chameleon nature, are repugnant. Who knows what he will do as president? Not me. But there is one thing of which I have no doubt. He will be infinitely better than the Hillary Clinton. Charles Koch said that Obama is driving us towards a cliff at 100 miles per hour. He also said that George Bush was pushing us there at 50 miles per hour. Sadly, those are our only choices. Should conservatives run towards the cliff at 100 miles an hour by not voting, or at 50, holding our noses while we vote for Trump and pray that a savior is on the way? Donald Rumsfeld wisely said you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.
