Like many of you, my Facebook feed is filled with posts about Donald Trump – the man you hate for always wanting being the center of attention, but whom you can not, for the life of you, stop talking about.
Today’s social media feed featured “How will Trump be remembered?”. I chuckled to myself a resigned, sad kind of guffaw, and mused “I wonder how long it will take for commenters to go completely insane?” It didn’t take long. Apparently, Trump is not just a racist Nazi pedophile hell bent on establishing a fascist dictatorship and starting World War 3 – he’s also the literal antichrist. Oh and he helped produce a whole series of pedophile snuff porn movies, which was something new and creative. Only a few replies in and we had some suburban mom praying that he would get assassinated.
The scariest part is that all of this incredibly hateful, violent, seething-with-the-deepest-of-loathing rhetoric is now normalized. Publicly declaring, without a hint of sarcasm, that the democratically-elected POTUS is an actual, literal Nazi demon isn’t seen as a “you need to be committed before you hurt someone” kind of warning of psychological distress; it’s not just normalized, it’s wholesale encouraged.
One of two things must be true. Either Donald Trump is the actual Devil, or the people convinced that he is are mentally deranged. Which seems more likely to you?
This post is NOT a glorification of Trump. I will attempt to look at the hot button issues individually and try to promote some sense of reason and sanity. Trump is a deeply flawed man. He is crude, overbearing, constantly exaggerates, and he’s a bit of a pig. None of these are admirable qualities, and not those you would normally want associated with the president of your country. They do not, however, prove that he is a fascist, baby-eating demonic warlord, bringing about the apocalypse.
Let’s collectively try for a moment to step back from the wild, arms-flaying, spittle-flying, bloodshot-eyed, screaming, thrashing precipice of insanity and break down the sober reality of the issues.
Trump was democratically elected. Because so many seem to have deleted what that means from their knowledge banks, I’ll explain: the majority of voters felt that his platform was preferable to the platform they had just spent 4 years being governed under. Such is the nature of democracy – it is a battle of ideas, presented to the public, and the most desired ideas become policy targets. This is important to remember: the winning ideas become a mandate for the elected official. Those who voted for him expect him to fulfill the promises of implementing the ideas they preferred. If you don’t want those policies, then you find a candidate with better ideas who will attract the majority and help them win an election.
The backbone of Trump’s successful, winning, mandate-forming election platform? Immigration reform, a protectionist trade policy, tax reform, ending ACA, environmental policies, preventing war in the middle east and Europe, national defence policies, enforcing the rule of law, protecting social security, cut regulations and costs in automotive production, revamping education, eliminating DEI/CRT and other extreme manifestations of ‘wokeness’, keeping men out of women’s sports and safe areas, and making voter ID and election security a priority.
None of the above, therefore, should be surprising to anyone. It was quite plainly and observably the platform he ran – and won – on. Moreover, Trump has remained at the forefront of US and global culture for 50 years. He is one of the most recognizable people in history. He was on TV for years playing himself. Nothing about Trump should be surprising. Still, the following issues seem to have found those who did not vote for him in a state of shock.
• Policy on Immigration:
It seems to me the two keystones of this issue are: whether or not one believes that the US has a problem with illegal immigration (in that there is a substantial negative impact on society that should be dealt with), and whether or not one believes in the rule of Law.
Democrats have been historically strongly opposed to illegal immigration. Clinton was ardently anti illegal immigration. Both he and Biden pushed the 1996 immigration enforcement bill. Obama campaigned on immigration enforcement and reform. Under Obama, a record 3 million illegal immigrants were deported under expedited removal (the same procedure that is now being called evil). Feinstein, Schumer, Hillary, Reid, Bixer, Gore, Kucinich, even Cesar Chavez were all unilaterally opposed to illegal immigration.
The US has about 2 million known “getaways” in the past 4 years. Those are people who evade detection and cross the border illegally and unvetted – and that is the number of known getaways. 2021-2024 saw 11 million US border encounters that ended in an apprehension, inadmissibility, or getaway – again, those known. These are people who – and this is important to remember – could not or would not go through the perfectly valid LEGAL immigration route. And how many legal immigrants were accepted in that 2021-2024 time frame? About 4 million. That is a generous number, just over a million a year, especially given all the screening, background checks, and other vetting procedures that legal migrants must go through in order to become official members of US society. At the same time, Biden fast-tracked approximately 3 million more through various humanitarian and parole programs. The unauthorized migrant population rose by millions under the Biden administration. There are currently somewhere between 10-25 million unauthorized residents in the US. These are big numbers.
The estimated cost per year of these illegal migrants is $180 billion. That’s billion with a B. All to service people who deliberately avoided the legal immigration route for a number of different reasons, very few of which end in you sleeping well at night. But what about those fleeing war and oppression, you say? There are programs for that too; perhaps not at the level of “Oh shit we have a problem now” Germany, but the US has done more than it’s fair share of taking in people who are in need. The idea of limitless, conditionless, open-border immigration is not a sustainable idea. Believe it or not, people living in Western countries have it pretty darn good. Life is pretty brutal for many people. Brutal lives make for brutal people; not in totality, but certainly something to strongly consider before inviting anyone – literally anyone – into your neighborhood where your children play. By anyone, I don’t mean illegal migrants are inherently evil, I mean “anyone” as in, “they could be anyone, I wouldn’t have any way of knowing”. There are no records, criminal or otherwise. They aren’t in the system in any way, so if they commit a crime, society doesn’t even known their name, let alone their fingerprints or address or criminal record. They are total unknowns who, once again, deliberately skirted the legal ways to enter the country.
The US has a big problem with illegal immigration. Democrats knew it, Republicans knew it, and until very recently, the average citizen knew it as well.
The key word is “illegal”. Do you want to be a nation of laws or not? Laws must be unbiased, fair and just. One can’t support aggressive use of the justice system to make one man the most investigated human in history, then cry foul when that same justice system is used to look for skeletons among others with questionable closets. There are laws, the result of centuries of debate and compromise in order to craft the best system to protect people from one another, that don’t cease to become laws when they are inconvenient to you. It’s not okay for you to rob a bank, no matter how righteous you believe yourself to be, and you’d expect that your neighbor not be allowed to rob banks either.
Immigration enforcement agents are doing the same job today that they have been doing for decades, for multiple administrations both Democrat and Republican. Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations of – again, important – illegal immigrants. I can promise you that the Trump administration did not send ICE offices a memo stating anything similar to: “Attention! You will abandon the list of targets you have been working on for decades. You will now patrol neighborhoods with “brown” people, make random aggressive stops of people who aren’t white enough, and make your takedowns extra newsworthy! Thank you for your attention to this matter!” They are lawful officers, carrying out their lawful duty, same as they did before, targeting people who are exactly who they are hired to target. Is every operation going to go flawlessly? No. Good thing every single one of them wears a body camera we can review when an action is questioned (surprisingly not the favoured choice of fascist states). And if it comes out that an agent broke the law while executing an arrest? Well, wait now, all of a sudden you want laws to be enforced again?
The raids themselves are meant to be street level, are meant to be showy, and are meant to intimidate would-be illegal migrants. They are not the actions of an unaccountable, non-transparent group of yahoos. Perhaps in the safety of your soft suburban neighborhood, you haven’t had to see many arrests outside of the occasional side of the highway DUI. Criminals, as it turns out, do not want to be arrested, and will go to great and dangerous lengths to avoid it. Law enforcement exists to prevent and remove threats to the public safety, so dangerous criminals aren’t meant to be given a “tut-tut” talking to and left to their own devices – they are meant to be arrested. Unfortunately, this often requires a physical takedown. If you’ve never tried taken down someone who fights back with all they’ve got, then I highly recommend you go out and start a Fight Club before commenting on the physicality necessary; it’s something you can’t learn from watching World Star videos. They are highly dangerous, and are done for you by these law enforcement agents so that you don’t need to know anything more physically demanding than a yoga class, or more dangerous than a fender-bender.
People protesting ICE don’t have a single logical leg to stand on, unless they want to live in a lawless, unjust nation. It’s manufactured outrage, and another example of the bizarre reality-denying agenda that is pushed down the propaganda pipeline. Laws are now bad… but also good… but only good if anti-Trump… everyone’s a Nazi.
If you disagree with Trump’s immigration policy, then make a better policy. One that will make the majority of the people believe your idea is better than his. So far, that hasn’t happened. So rather than try to change policy, or even adjust it slightly, you’ve got minivan moms ditching kids and work to obstruct federal agents from doing the job that everyone they’ve ever voted for over the past 30 years has supported. So the problem isn’t policy, the problem is the inability to accept any outcome where this man you hate so much is not the literal Devil. And that’s nuts.
• January 6th Capitol Riot:
Before you claim that Trump publicly encouraged supporters to riot or storm a building or be violent in any way, remember that the BBC was forced into apology for falsely and deliberately saying the same. As in, it didn’t happen. That doesn’t stop people from saying that it did, but sadly for them, it did not. Even if it had happened, which once again it did not, the doctored BBC clip was of rhetoric that pales in comparison to the ugly, disgusting slander and spin coming off the Left, so methinks the lady doth protest too much.
My take is that media hyperbole over the previous 4 years eroded whatever little trust Americans had in any political party so that neither side was confident of a fair election. And to be fair, there were a lot of perfectly valid reasons to at least question the 2020 election. That being said, there was no proof that this happened. Sure, out of the 15 states that don’t require photo ID to vote, 13 of them voted Democrat and the other two were marginal Trump victories. Sure, rapidly-introduced Covid-19 measures meant 36.2 million more mail in ballots were cast than before. Sure, the 4 states that auto-mailed ballots to voters all went Democrat. Sure, signature and ID requirements were reduced or even waived completely. Sure, emergency authority was used to merge voting sites and provisional ballot use was extended. Sure, suddenly Democrat votes surged up 16 million compared to 8 million for Trump from the previous election, despite the population largely voting for the same party both years. But was the election “stolen”?
Certainly the system was changed to favor the Democrats, but Republicans have done similar, so I say as long as it was done legally and transparently, it is what it is. Until hard evidence shows that there was widespread voter fraud, I will find the situation suspicious, but far from confirmed.
Regardless, you had a large group of 10-50k angry people, who looked at the situation and concluded fraud. They rioted. A few years earlier, a multiple-time violent felon, who was high on drugs after spending counterfeit money, was killed while being arrested. I don’t think crushing someone’s neck is ever necessary in an arrest, and I fully supported the officer being fired. A large group of 15-26 million angry people looked at that situation and concluded the officer was a racist murderer and that law enforcement across the board is violently racist against black people. They rioted. I’m not going to get in to a comparison of the numbers for injuries or property damage because we all know how that is going to turn out. Ironically, the one person shot on January 6th was a woman who was climbing through a window- shot in the neck by a federal agent. I don’t want to give away the plot twist, but let’s just say that federal officer wasn’t seen as an evil, neck-shooting (what is the obsession with the neck?) monster, but a dutiful officer protecting his country.
At the end of the day, the BLM riots resulted in 2000+ police injured, but nearly no felony charges. Most were misdemeanours, curfew violations, disorderly conduct, that sort of thing. The January 6th rioters – despite being far less destructive and over and done with in 7 hours – were subject to the largest FBI probe in history, were charged en masse with heavy felony charges, and sentenced to terms up to 22 years. This is not to say that either was excusable. But it does expose hypocrisy. The motto of the Left is “Rules for thee, but not for me!” it seems.
January 6th was a bunch of idiots who were poor losers and became violent. The only thing that marks it as “worse” than the oft-praised-as-righteous BLM riots is the media narrative. But hey, if a man can become a woman, and federal agents went from hero to Nazi overnight, why can’t riots go from heroic to 22 years in prison?
• Tax Reforms:
I’ll expand on this sometime in a different post, but there seems to be some misunderstanding of billionaires. Going by leftist social media, billionaires are amoral, monocle-wearing Scrooge McDucks, diving into a money bin filled with gold coin. Elon Musk’s wealth doesn’t mean he’s taking money that would otherwise go to other people. His wealth doesn’t exist as a mountain of cash. His wealth is based on the value of his companies. He created these companies from nothing, so the value and subsequent wealth created by those companies was brought into existence by the companies themselves and would not exist without them. That wealth is maintained and added to by maintaining the value and wealth the companies create. This is entirely aside from the innovation, employment, research, and paid taxes that these entities are responsible for. Why this isn’t common knowledge. I don’t know, but what I do know is that billionaires aren’t “stealing your money”.
With that clarification out of the way, I personally think that the wealthy people should pay more tax dollars into the public coffer as poor people. As fact (remember those?) would have it – they do! The top 10% of earners pay 75% of the taxes. The top 1% pays 40-45% of all taxes. Elon Musk is likely the single highest payer of US taxes ever. So let’s do away with the notion that the wealthy aren’t “paying their fair share”.
The free market allows for companies like Tesla and SpaceX to become wealthy and powerful. It also allows them a lot of freedom of choice, such as where to build factories. If California has taxes and social policies that are unfriendly to a company, that company will move out of California. Make the country unfriendly? The company will move overseas. The state of California has lost billions due to Musk’s corporate exodus. This is reality, where freedom means you can’t realistically expect to tax wealth creators to pay for others endlessly. Reducing the corporate tax rate – which is far from the only action suggested by his tax policy – really does encourage companies to stay put. It’s hard numbers.
What about the rest of Trump’s platform on taxes? Make TCJA tax cuts permanent. No taxes on tips. Maintain deductions. No taxes on overtime pay. No taxes on social security benefits. Expand child tax credits. Allow auto loan deductions. Please, explain to me why you are against any of those. Oh, it’s not those parts you’re talking about? Imagine my Wonka face.
It’s the tariffs, isn’t it? Okay, well, I’m Canadian and the tariffs certainly hurt us, but I’m not quite ready to behead an effigy of Trump or murder a podcaster. Free trade agreements resulted in a lowering of costs to the consumer, but also resulted in the outsourcing of million upon millions of jobs. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather pay $2/liter for gasoline and have a job than to try to pay half as much from an empty bank account. US-made producers suffered heavily, being vastly out-competed on price by Chinese imports; the system was rewarding the sweatshop authoritarianism of China while punishing the American entrepreneur. Let’s maybe agree that tariffs are controversial, but that neither the previous free trade arrangements, nor the current tariffs, are the best thing for the States.
Trump’s “America First” trade protectionism is not a surprise reveal. That was the plan all along. Instead of sitting back, seeing what happens, then presenting a superior methodology that people agree to try after they’ve tried this, it’s “The End is Nigh” sandwich boards and people who have never owned a passport vowing to move to another country despite having no permission to do so (it’s a difficult concept for them). The positive so far? I’m limiting this to second term only, but $300 billion (triple the year before) tariffs collected (see, tariffs aren’t new, just expanded), a massive surge in investment into US companies, wage increases outpace inflation by nearly double, October’s trade deficit (an important number) dropped to a 16 year low, the overall trade deficit dropped a percent through the first half of 2025, and tariffs were used as leverage in other negotiations with China, the EU, Japan and others, resulting in the development of 12 new framework agreements on trade, all while reducing reliance on adversaries for critical goods.
Critics say that tariffs have raised prices by half a percent, but GDP grew by 1.8%, and price increases were mixed, sector-specific, and overstated. Prices for things like steel and aluminum went up, but Trump also added hundreds of thousands of jobs over his first and current term to those exact industries. Chinese goods like electronics, light manufactured goods, furniture, and some agricultural goods went up, but the trade-off was increased security by reducing dependancy on opponent states, in addition to promoting domestic businesses. There was a bit of obfuscating of a 2.3% short-run price increase from tariffs, but only short-term. Exports fell 18%, hopefully to be made up for by increased domestic demand. And of course, alienating other countries, but I’ll touch on that more later.
At the very worst, Trump’s economic policies are ill-advised, and will trigger a massive depression. At best, it turns out to be a big win and America gains in global position. We’re only a year in to his second term, but it seems prudent to remind you that he was already president for 4 years and he didn’t start WW3, bankrupt the country, or attempt to install a fascist dictatorship. I’m gonna bet that he doesn’t do those things this time around. The truth over the best economic policy is somewhere in the middle, with his policies helping some and hurting others, as it is with all government policies. That’s why rational, sane adults sit down and debate such things, bieng willing to make compromises for the greater good. One thing is for certain though, and that is Trump’s policies aren’t something to murder over.
• Environmental Policies:
Trump’s environmental policy is highlighted by aggressive rollback of regulations, promotion of fossil fuels, withdrawal from international climate agreements, and elimination of clean energy incentives. They prioritize the economy over nature, and show a distaste for expensive, inefficient experiments with large-scale clean energy. So far, there have been some positive changes in US energy independence, and has created millions of jobs in extraction, refining, and related industries. The premise is that many environmental regulations are outdated or redundant, and the aim is to reduce the compliance costs for businesses. For instance, the Affordable Clean Energy Rule was supposed to replace the Clean Power Plan, giving states more flexibility in reducing emissions and avoiding expensive federal mandates. The permit process for infrastructure projects was streamlined, and boosted economic development without drastically compromising environmental responsibility. It prioritizes tech solutions rather than prescriptive mandates. Incentives for energy sources like clean coal, carbon capture, and next-gen nuclear power encourage innovation rather than restriction. These are things most people don’t know because it’s too laborious to learn.
He does like to deny climate change as a real thing though. I’m convinced that human activity has negatively impacted the ecosystems of our planet in a massive way, and that policies need to recognize this. I also believe the way to solve this problem is through technological innovation. Turns out it is possible to have a sane, centrist position after all. Best case scenario, his approach becomes a pragmatic model for sustainable development. Worst case, it’s a failure, and you get 4 years of slightly higher pollution with no economic benefit; things that you can work to counteract in future administrations.
• Foreign Policy:
First and foremost, if you have never lived abroad, and have never travelled more than a couple hours outside the resort when travelling, you should recognize that your contextual knowledge of the world is lacking, and that your opinions may be uninformed.
It is critical to understand that Trump’s overarching mission, the struggle that he sees facing America, is an existential final battle between “good” and “evil”, and that in all scenarios, the USA must be the “good” and must be victorious. Before pshhawing on that, have a look outside at the “Trump = 666” bumper stickers – the Left seems all onboard with the apocalypse. In fact, I think anything less would fail miserably to sate them.
So you have to ask yourself, “In what does this man believe that is so important to vanquish the final boss of evil?” As I see it, he believes in a free market, limited government, greater individual responsibility, democracy, and the socio-cultural moral imperative of the West to make life free and just. I am afraid I just don’t see the evidence for him being an SS zombie hellspawn, feasting on the souls of babies and kittens. In opposition, he sees totalitarian states like China and Russia, where the government is all powerful, owns everything, and violently suppresses dissent. I’m a bit sick of the “Yeehaw! Fuckin’ A! World cowboy police A’murika!” schtick. It’s obnoxious in the extreme. However, I would far prefer that to Tiananmen Square.
Slightly less than half of Americans even own a passport. Only a quarter have ever travelled outside the continent, and even then, predominantly to Europe. Believe me when I say that if you live in a western country, you’ve got it pretty damn good. That kind of thing is important to bear in mind when criticizing an approach to a world you’ve never experienced.
But let’s say you’re a well-travelled American leftist and former ex-pat. Let’s go through the policies:
Ukraine:
This is a really sad situation. Ukraine is an ally, but not a NATO member and therefore not included in mutual defence treaties. The EU has zero interest in committing to the military defence of Ukraine beyond profiting from weapons sales. The US, despite carrying NATO on its back for years, is expected to do what exactly? Pit armed American troops against Russians in open war over a nation it’s not obligated to defend, triggering WW3? Impose more ineffectual sanctions? Nuke Moscow?
The sad, harsh reality is that any territory the Ukraine has ceded to Russia will remain lost until militarily recaptured. Russia is not going to surrender this hard-won territory after investing so heavily in it. Best case scenario you negotiate an end to hostilities, rehousing for people who would rather be on one side of the border and not the other, and non-aggression/mutual defence treaties to prevent further conflicts. Unless you want to actually have a hot war with Russia.
Isreal/Gaza:
My belief is that the creation of Isreal, especially in that area, was a huge mistake, a giant “go fuck yourself” to the entire southern hemisphere, and a humanitarian disaster. It’s not realistic to simply withdraw, but a two-state solution makes the most sense. Isreal has rejected this, and Zionists have pushed progressively deeper into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, being disgusting assholes as they go along. On the other side, you have Palestinians, led by Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. There is no debate there. It has the support of the Palestinian people because they have been dispossessed and driven to refugee conditions for generations, and they’d rather resist than kiss the ring of their torturers. It’s a mess.
Pro-Palestinian protesters, as with many left wing protesters, seem to have very little understanding of the complex underpinnings of Middle East geopolitics. But they have really strong opinions that they shout really, really loudly. In this case, I’m with them in the spirit of ending the stateless plight of these people who have lost everything and have been driven to desperation with no way out and no place to go. No recourse. The international community has abandoned them, then made their starving children into props for a camera crew. October 7th was a special kind of evil, one not totally undeserved by the Zionists, but something can never be tolerated in a sane society.
The sober fact is that the 20-point Trump peace proposal is one of the most significant US-mediated conflict-resolution efforts ever, whether it ultimately succeeds or fails. Hamas agrees to disarm and relinquish control of the Palestinian government to a less radical and more cooperative government. Isreal agrees to withdraw from Gaza, demilitarize and to help rebuild. Most importantly, an agreement to start down the path of self-determination. All of these are big asks. For generations, the extremists on both ideological sides have dehumanized the opposite side. You see, when you scream hate at and reduce your ideological opponent to less than human, it generally follows that there is gratuitous and unapologetic violence. Trump’s plan is something, even if you loathe to admit that it is a good thing.
Venezuela:
This one seems like a no-brainer, but I keep forgetting that large contingent of brainless people. Straight off, can we all just take a moment to admit that Operation Absolute Resolve was some badassery? That was straight out of Hollywood. Wow. Standing ovation. If you were a dictator thinking you could piss on the US and get away with it, you are probably thinking a bit less cocky now. This was a country prepared for attack. The next gen tech that was apparently used is described in a very impressive way. It gives America’s enemies pause – this could happen to them too.
Maduro was an actual totalitarian dictator. He was no bueno. And the Democrats were all gung ho on bringing him to justice – until Trump did it, and then it became the devil’s work. One of Biden’s final acts was to raise the bounty on Maduro. He was on the most wanted list for years. Regardless of the way this all ends up breaking, most sane people would agree that arresting Maduro – and especially doing it so surgically and quickly – was a good thing.
Was the larger goal greater control of the region and its resources? Of fucking course it was! Don’t kid yourselves; the Democrats play the global domination game too, and always have. Personally I like this Seal Team 6 approach to a decade-long un-winnable war that decimates the country and its people.
Iran:
Isn’t it odd how the same people who were so, SO into demonstrating support for Hamas and the intifada were whisper quiet when it came to Iran’s demonstrations against its brutal authoritarian theocracy? It must have been confusing when the screen didn’t tell them what to think about it.
Trump could cure cancer tomorrow, single-handedly, and there would be “End Tumor Genocide!” and “Malignant is Marvelous” demonstrations the next day.
At the end of the day, he didn’t do much. He couldn’t win. If he acted, he’s acting beyond his mandate. If he doesn’t act, he’s soft on dictators. Iran will absolutely, 100% continue to try to build atomic weapons. It’s the regime’s only move, aside from suddenly accepting Western cultural hegemony, and that ain’t happening. It is in everyone’s best interest, aside from the Ayahtolla himself, that this does not happen. Personally I think the carrot would be more effective that the stick, but I have no love for Iran’s current leadership.
Greenland:
Have you read… (I’m about to name a book and I keep forgetting people don’t read those anymore)… The Art of the Deal? Trump hired a ghostwriter who ended up disliking him (it seems like it would be really easy to dislike him), which is neither here nor there, but Leftists like to bring it up as if it is. If for no other reason that understanding your opponent Art of War-style, I suggest giving it a browse. It details Trump’s (highly successful) negotiation tactics such as being very aggressive, using leverage whenever possible, thinking and acting Big to create momentum and increase odds of success, being opportunistic, and the importance of perception and publicity to project strength and shape how the other side negotiates. He also advocates walking away from a negotiation and changing tactics over time.
Does Trump want control of Greenland? Sure he does! It makes sense to me, though I certainly don’t endorse taking it by force. Greenland has a population of 30,000 people, and the highest suicide rate in the world by far. It’s the end of the civilized world… and an untapped fountain of resources. It is also very important to the US military strategy. The US is far better equipped to make use of the resources of Greenland than Denmark is, although certainly we can argue whether those resources need to be extracted now. It is also a large gap in the polar region separating Russia from the West. Yes, the US has a military presence there. Yes they have been invited to expand that presence. Whether the US annexes Greenland or not, the Golden Dome system will be built there, and there will be a US and NORAD military presence. In the meantime, Trump is angling for some sort of tangible return on this multi-billion-dollar investment into foreign territory.
Remember that Trump has been president for 5 total years now and has not launched any ground invasion of any foreign nation. The Maduro snatch and grab was by no means an invasion, so let’s just… not… okay? He’s talked about it, but it hasn’t happened. Besides, Greenland is defenceless save for the US presence, it would be the least bloody invasion ever if it did happen, which I highly doubt. Will he use it as leverage against our European allies? Yes. He believes they take advantage of the US and aren’t very good allies. He’s part right, part wrong, but that doesn’t matter because refer back to the recommended reading – its all a negotiating methodology that he’s not trying to hide using. He’s been doing it for years. He was teaching other people how to do it. He even had a whole TV show about it.
• Personal Character and Ethics:
Trump is the quintessential American, as seen by every non-American person: an obnoxious, overly loud, arrogant, confrontational, and crude… but not necessarily wrong.
He’s a bit of a pig. He lies and grossly exaggerates constantly, making it difficult to know when he’s trying to be level with you. He was found guilty of felony falsification of business documents (the source of the “felon” tag), which is obviously not good, but far from the thinly-veiled attempts to make it sound like a violent or sexually violent felony, which it isn’t. Which matters, because facts do matter. His ethics are frequently questionable, but then so are the ethics of pretty much every Democrat leader (check out Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio history – she missed her calling as one of the most miraculous investors in history). And I’d rather be lied to my face in a obvious way than to have someone smile as they stab me. If I have to hear multi-millionaire Bernie Sanders lecture me about the wonders of socialism one more time I’m going to scream.
Trump’s character was well known way before he ran for president. Like I said: forefront of pop culture for 50 years. He didn’t run with one personality and suddenly reveal another once he was in office. People knew exactly what they were voting for. The majority – an important thing in a democracy – felt that, despite his flaws, he was the lesser of two evils compared to a Democrat Party that was rapidly accelerating ever deeper into Orwellian territory. They preferred not to have their speech mandated. They preferred not to believe that men can turn into literal women through sheer force of wishing it were true, and to not have men who delusionally thought they were women access to women’s private spaces. They didn’t want the rampant censorship. They didn’t want unchecked borders allowing millions of people from war-torn nations to flood the country. They didn’t want taxes going to echo-chamber schools where only one – very extreme – ideology is taught, to the exclusion of all others, so that their children could be indoctrinated into what is often a very hateful and violent way of thinking, when it isn’t outright denying basic biology. They were tired of being commanded what to say, what to think, and being assaulted and attacked in truly awful, evil ways for refusing to have the dictated opinion. They judged Trump’s personal excesses as containable, but viewed institutional capture as irreversible. These are things one may not think about while writing “thoughts and prayers to the bullet” and re-posting very public calls for violence and murder from among key Democrat leaders and their rabid ideologues.
It’s possible to dislike certain characteristics of the man – I sure do – without making him the Devil Incarnate and refusing to even consider ANY alternative view of the world, regardless of how much logic, reason, and facts are dumped on it. He’s a mouthy, handsy, frequently unlikable orange man – he is not a Nazi pedophile fascist dictator lizard person Russian asset, or whatever other Hateful Word of the Day got ripped from today’s Leftist PR department tear-away calendar.
• Racial and Social Issues:
Trump and his father were sued in the 1973 for discriminating against black tenants. He took out a full page ad calling for the death penalty for The Central Park Five after the arrest of five black and latino teenagers – they were later exonerated by DNA evidence. He promoted the narrative that Barak Obama was not born in the United States, persisting even after evidence was provided.
On the other hand, he signed the First Step Act – a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill reducing sentences for nonviolent offenders where 90% of the beneficiaries were black. He secured permanent funding for historically black universites and colleges via the FUTURE Act. The 2017 Tax Cutes and Jobs Act spurred investment in distressed, largely black, communities, listing 350,000 black Americans out of poverty pre-COVID. Black unemployment reached historic lows under Trump, and median black household income rose.
I’m not quite ready to march him to the guillotine on behalf of my 5 bi-racial kids just yet.
DEI initiatives are massively controversial. I wholeheartedly believe in meritocracy. I think its a crime that so many government departments spent untold millions on DEI materials pushing a very radical and highly controversial agenda. I don’t think that children, who have not developed a sexual identity, need a huge wave of materials trying to to explain fringe sexual identities. I disagree that trans women are actual women, as that is objectively insane and based on a straight -up denial of basic reality. I believe that if you literally believe that you are a different gender than is hard coded into every cell you have ever had or ever will have, you are suffering from serious and concerning delusions no different from if you declared you were an animal of an entirely different species. If you further believe that, as a trans person, you are having rights taken away from you, I’d like to hear what rights those are. Being homosexual, I can understand, though it isn’t my personal preference. It occurs throughout nature, and the gender of who you are attracted to is a matter of preference much as preference of height, or hair color.
As such, I support efforts to end DEI and erase it permanently from our education system, save for a footnote in history texts. I was happy the DoE was dismantled. Remember that ending the DoE is not the same as ending education. Schools of all levels in the US – and in most of the Western world – have become echo chambers of extremism where NO dissenting opinions are allowed. What the fuck? Schools absolutely must be as objective and impartial as possible. They are not meant to be indoctrinating children to any political ideology, nor are they meant to be teaching kids that biology is real, except for when it’s not.
There are other social issues at play, but this post is far longer than it was meant to be, and I have to save something for later posts 🙂 The essence though is that while Trump may not be Mother Theresa, he also isn’t Mephistopheles, and that I support nearly all anti-woke policies as I believe wokeism accomplishes exactly the opposite of its stated purpose, and victimizes far more people than it helps.
• Judicial Appointments:
The pro-life/pro-choice issue is a really complex one that existed long before Trump and likely will long after he’s dead. On the one hand, I’m a father of five, and went through 3 miscarriages along the way. I can’t imagine aborting any of them. On the other hand, they are all daughters, and I can understand that in certain cases, such as rape, that they should not be expected to birth and care for a child conceived through no fault or action of their own. I’ll tell you what I am ardently against: people like Tim Walz making abortions legal up until birth, publicly funded abortions for the results of consensual sex but irresponsibility, the idea that babies “don’t count” until they breath air. When it comes to ending a life, I’d like to err more on the side of caution than hedonism, so I’m not going to find much fault with his appointees as justices.
Every successive administration, regardless of party, tries to get appointees to the Supreme Court that share that party’s core values. Democrats have benefitted from this just as well as Republicans have. It’s disingenuous to criticize Trump for doing what his predecessors have done. It’s also radically irresponsible to suggest that the highest justices in the land will break the law because of who appointed them. I’ll take my SCOTUS opinions on a case by case basis, thank you very much.
Besides, all of this – or most of it – is voter-mandated. This is, by an large, what they voted for. You remember them, right? The democratic majority?
So hey, if you want to have a rational back and forth on the merits or demerits of any particular policy, or even personality trait, I will engage with an open mind insofar as the other party remains committed to logically sound and tempered exchange. That means no calling people Nazis, unless you have found a 100-year-old former German SS soldier who has been hiding out in Argentina for 80 years. It means no labelling people pedophile without actually having any evidence whatsoever of such. It means not declaring the US of being in imminent danger of becoming a fascist dictatorship. It means chill, Winston.
FFS chill.
At the end of the day, Trump is a flawed, crass, over-the-top, orange man — and that’s fine, even if unlikable, because being human is messy. What isn’t fine is reducing every policy, every action, and every word to the end of the world. Facts still matter. Context still matters. Reality still matters. So before you shriek at the screen or post another obituary for democracy, take a breath, step back, and consider the world as it actually is – not the one your feed tells you exists. That’s the only way any of us will make sense of the chaos, and maybe even learn to have a rational conversation again.
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