The (Unfortunate) Case For Voting for President Trump

I am voting against President Trump because he is clearly unfit for the job.  That offends me and scares me.  Unfortunately, former VP Biden, the Democrats and the “Resistance” have made it harder to persuade conservatives to vote against President Trump, making this election closer than it should be.

It is important for moderates, liberals and progressives to understand reasons why some conservatives won’t abandon President Trump.  I’m not maintaining that the following thoughts represent all or even a majority of Trump voters, but they represent a majority of the Trump voters with whom I have spoken.

Many leftist voters perceive themselves to be tolerant and Trump voters to be intolerant.  Is it tolerant to wantonly describe opponents as "crooks", "racists", or with other epithets?  Is it tolerant to feel morally superior to others and want to impose your "superior" views with a "cancel" culture and other suppressions of free speech?  Is it tolerant to expel members of your "faith" when that person doesn't completely agree with one of the (perhaps morphing or new) tenets?  If you're a "progressive" and don't participate in such intolerance, should you challenge your brethren who behave in such fashion?

There certainly are intolerant Trump supporters.  I object to intolerance on both sides and try to discipline myself to minimize such behavior and to challenge it.  My point here is that the many leftists who write off Trump supporters as "intolerant people" miss the fact that a significant number of Trump supporters do not approve of his behavior but vote for him because of the intolerance of the political left and for the reasons cited below.

In a 9/17 letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Adam Graham of Charleston SC wrote “President Trump’s worst instincts are held in check” by a vast array of people and institutions, whereas ex-VP Biden’s feared leftist agenda “would face few institutional impediments.”

It is telling that Mr. Graham did not identify Republicans as an entity helping to curb President Trump’s worst instincts.  Clearly, Republicans should object to “worst instincts”.

It is not possible to hold all of President Trump’s worst instincts in check because he acts impulsively and causes damage without checks and balances being able to affect his salvo.  While I don’t agree that all of President Trump’s worst instincts are held in check, I do agree that President Trump’s administration is blocked and distracted much more than an ex-VP Biden leftist administration would be.

Many people voted for Trump in 2016 because of Supreme Court issues.  He had identified a list of seemingly highly-qualified potential judges.  While his opponents claim that he has stacked the court, I believe Trump restored some balance to the court.  An indicator of whether a court is stacked is whether judges vote uniformly.  Clearly, the “liberal” judges vote more as a bloc than do conservative judges.  In my opinion, it was the Democrats who stacked the Supreme Court.

Some of my liberal friends would likely argue that the reason the conservatives don’t vote as a bloc is because sometimes the “rightness” of the liberals is so overwhelming that one or another conservative must vote his/her conscience.  That perspective is mired in the myopic presumption that conservatives are generally not voting their conscience.

I think the liberal judges believe in a “living Constitution” and are more willing to find ways to interpret the Constitution to support what they think are the right decisions.  The conservative judges are more likely “strict Constructionists” but not entirely uniform in their interpretations, particularly when it comes to prioritizing competing principles.  I applauded when Judge Gorsuch stated that a good judge won’t like all of his/her decisions because the law may not support his/her personal preferences.

Some people continue to favor Trump because of future Supreme Court openings.  I understand that (and would understand a similar attitude by liberals; I respect their resentment regarding Merrick Garland being blocked by the Republican Senate in 2016).  However, the bigger issue is that some Democrats talk about expanding the Supreme Court, which is an outrageous blatant expression of intent to stack the court.  Is it not reasonable for conservatives to fear that Biden might set the terrible precedent of a President and Congress conspiring to create a Supreme Court which will support the President's and Congress's goals?  Doing so permanently undermines the independence of the Supreme Court, making the USA government more like a third-world country's government.  It is amazing to me that the Democrats have worked so hard to create a major reason to vote for President Trump.

By the way, I’d support staggered 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices to reduce the enduring influence one President can have.

(The above was written before Justice Ginsburg died.  I’d like to see the Republicans in the Senate delay the next Supreme Court selection to balance the Merrick Garland fiasco.  But if Republicans succeed in replacing Ginsburg, conservatives’ Supreme Court reasons to vote for President Trump should be weaker.  Sadly, they won’t be weaker because of the Democrats’ desire to stack the court by expanding it.)

Unfortunately, Trump has also been handed a ‘law and order’ campaign issue.  Before discussing that, I’ll state unequivocally that George Floyd’s death was appalling, which creates an appropriate campaign issue that Republicans have not adequately addressed.  Police reforms such as modifying qualified immunity, oversight boards, the power of police unions, etc. need to be considered. 

However, I was also upset at the response of the city of Minneapolis.  As we’ve had protests and riots before, city management should be well-prepared for such occurrences.  Kneeling with peaceful protesters is a great response, if sincere.  Yet Minneapolis’ elected and appointed leaders abandoned their duties, allowing uncontested violence that was televised nationally, thereby encouraging violence in other cities.  Other cities did the same; Seattle's mayor saw a "block party atmosphere" and "summer of love".  In Portland’s case, the media continues to count the days of Portland’s protests since George Floyd’s death, ignoring that Portland seemed to be turning a blind eye to such violence even before Floyd’s death.

For a long time, the Democrats ignored and accepted the violence, denying its existence.  Finally, some Democrats began to speak against the violence but that appeared to be for belated political expediency rather than firm belief.

I sympathize with people who fear coddling violence.  However, President Trump stimulates aggressive resistance and is unable and unwilling to calm it.  He does not respect peaceful protest.  Although I recognize 'law and order' as a big issue, it does not sway my vote.

Trump stimulated impressive job growth before his trade failures and the pandemic interfered.  In an example of distorted history, some people claim that President Obama’s actions fueled the Trump administration job growth, job gains that President Obama's administration had said were impossible.

For several reasons, President Obama’s record relative to jobs is much less positive than claimed.

1.     For example, the mislabeled “bail out” was the key step that helped us out of the financial crisis.  President Obama benefitted greatly from that effort which was done by George W. Bush.

2.      The unemployment rate is distorted because it does not count people who have stopped looking for jobs.  Many people sat on the sideline during President Obama’s terms, thereby artificially reducing the unemployment rate.  Some came off the sideline in the first couple of years of Trump’s administration, making his low unemployment rate more impressive.  (From November 2008, when President Obama was elected, to November 2016 when President Trump was elected, the labor force participation rate dropped from 65.9% to 62.7%.  In February 2020, it was 63.4%.  Under President Obama, the unemployment rate dropped 2.1% but the non-participant rate rose 3.2%.)

3.      Fracking was a key stimulant of jobs under President Obama and improved our independence and economy.  President Obama opposed fracking.   

      3-D printing and drones were other job stimuli.  President Obama slowed our drone industry because he wanted to develop standards first.  That would have been a good idea if the standards had been created in timely fashion.  Other countries benefited more than the USA relative to drone jobs because we were hamstrung.

Trump's deregulation stimulated jobs.  Some of the deregulation was not good, but a lot of it appears to have been good.  It encouraged the business sector to expand, invest and hire.

President Trump reined in some government actions which violated due process.  Prior to Trump, increasingly (it seemed), when an administration department would bring a complaint against a private business or person, that department would serve as prosecutor, judge and jury.

I don’t know how much the tax law helped employment.  I favor high taxes, but I want to lower national debt, which is much higher than generally advertised because off-ledger items are often ignored.  Our nation rebelled against taxation without representation, so why do we continually create huge debt for future generations?  Who represents their interests?

While I’m not a fan of President Trump’s tax law, I studied it when it came out and concluded that it was significantly better than I would have expected.  For example, because of the innovative approach for S-Corporations, I did not benefit from it, which suited me fine.  Democrats criticized even things they had previously espoused.

A Biden administration seems likely to go back to practices which have harmed job growth.

Vice President Joe Biden and the Democrats cater to their teacher union supporters handing another issue to Trump by opposing Charter Schools.  Had we promoted Charter Schools historically, the gap between minority income and Caucasian income would be much lower today.  I think this is a big issue and should carry more weight in the inner city.

Ex-Vice President Biden is hugely more capable of providing moral leadership to help restore a cooperative culture in our society.  However, I fear he may not live up to my hopes in that regard.  He is a “nice guy” but his desire to be liked may lead him to respond to those who shout the most.  Thus, I fear he will bend too far left, as demonstrated by the Democratic platform.  In the past I wrote “President Obama’s misdeeds led to a wave of Tea Party people being elected.  Now Trump has led to some socialists being elected.”  That negative Trump effect is still surging and moderates as well as conservatives should fear it.  Even liberals should fear it.

It has surprised me that the pandemic has not resulted in the following two points being recognized:

·        The extraordinary expenses our government incurs because of the pandemic underscores the importance of fiscal prudence.  We should have built reserves that we could tap into for these expenses.  We should be expecting to revert to an economy which would amortize the pandemic costs.  Why is this not being recognized?

·        The pandemic put a focus on jobs and spotlighted the fragility of business.  Why hasn’t the public become more appreciation of business owners and more tolerant of profit?

I think highly of idealistic people, as they want to accomplish good things and are willing to sacrifice.  Unfortunately, many are oblivious to the principle that ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.  They tend to believe that if people with their attitudes could make all the decisions, we’d have a wonderful world.  Eventually, many politicians believe that good can occur only if they are in charge.  That leads to “end justifies the means” thinking which is used to justify corrupt behavior.  It can also lead to too much government control.

I, on the other hand, am a firm believer in Separation of Powers (Checks and Balances).  My Separation of Powers blog addresses the issue more broadly than you might anticipate.  We need government to monitor the situation and call out the people/entities who do wrong.  When the government is in charge, we lose not only creative competition, but also that important independent watchdog.

Similarly, I am a strong believer in free speech and the importance of having political discussions with family, friends and associates.  If we eschew such conversations, we shut off opportunities to learn, to teach, to gain respect for each other and to find solutions.  The left supports big government and does not support free speech.  Governmental principles are less important to Democrats than accomplishing their goals.  It is reasonable for conservatives to fear big government and loss of rights under a “progressive” regime.

I believe climate change is an important issue, but as with many issues, I am not prepared to support either extreme.  The left lacks a coherent transition plan or safety net.  To me, a carbon tax seems to be a good idea and possibly some capital gains tax breaks for renewable energy.

Note: Health care is not a major election vote determinant for me.  I wrote a paper more than 10 years ago regarding health care, noting that any of three radically different systems could work if they followed key principles.  Unfortunately, some of those principles have not been followed.  So, my concern is not the philosophy (even if a program is not my preferred approach, we could make it work), it is how it is structured.  For example, the false funding of Medicaid expansion is a travesty, regardless of whether Medicaid expansion is good or bad.

While I’ll much prefer Vice President Biden’s negotiating style, I’m leery of his likely results.  We have had a string of presidents who have been weak international negotiators, as evidenced by our failure to halt the existential threat of nuclear weapon proliferation.  As I’ve written in the past, we’ve encouraged the proliferation of nuclear weapons by rewarding countries which develop them.  I opposed the Iran nuclear deal but also opposed withdrawing from it.  However, now that we have withdrawn, I would not re-enter such a deal.  The world needs to take a strong collective stance against new entities developing nuclear weapons.  President Obama’s Iran deal established a new principle that it is OK for countries to develop nuclear arm capability.

Although President Trump's self-touted negotiation skill has not been seen much during his Presidency, he made real progress relative to Israeli-Arab peace in the Middle East and relative to the Kosovo-Serbia hostilities.  His opponents have tried downplay such progress rather than embrace it or at least acknowledge it.

Throughout the Trump administration, I’ve told my liberal friends that the bias, distortions and lies of the media and the Resistance make it harder to persuade conservatives to abandon Trump.  They have dismissed my arguments entirely, basking in rhetoric that makes them feel morally superior and energizes their strongest supporters.

It would be much better if Democrats paid attention to the reasons people vote for President Trump and if they respected those people and took steps to engage in positive discussion with them.

The desire on both sides of the aisle to divide us and energize extremists will continue to haunt us as long as voters don't punish such behavior.