The Trump Presidency Thread

[brvheart 1,755]

I’m going to put a plug in here for READTANGLE.COM.  It’s a political newsletter that releases one topic every day.  It shows 3 viewpoints from both sides of the political spectrum and then does a “my take” and summary.  It’s run by a Jewish liberal from Pennsylvania named Isaac Saul, but it’s incredibly fair to both sides.  Here are his articles on the Trump win and the Harris loss.  They are both worth reading even though I disagree with several of his conclusions.

Trump: https://www.readtangle.com/trump-wins-the-presidency

Harris: https://www.readtangle.com/kamala-harris-concedes-the-election/

 

 

 

Why did I vote for Trump, in spite of me disliking him as a person and actually being repulsed by much of his behavior?  I will try my best to articulate it.

Foundation:

“How do you reconcile [all of Trump’s salacious behavior] with supporting a person who is a misogynist, a rapist, a sexual predator, by words and deeds. How do you reconcile supporting a person who, by words and deeds, is a racist? How do you reconcile supporting a person who, by words and deeds, has lived the least Christian life possible?”

Let’s start with two foundational points in regards to my politics.  I want to mention these in hopes that it helps clarify some things later.  I believe that the Bible is clear on a few things, and I just want to mention them in case we don’t share those beliefs.  It may help you better understand my position. 

 

1)      I don’t believe that anyone is inherently good. 

I get that from a couple of Biblical places.  Romans 3:10-12, Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3 and other places say that, “there is none righteous, not even one.”  Our sin separates us from God and only by his grace are we saved.  Ephesians 2:8-10.  This means that compared to Jesus, none of us look good.  So, between myself and anyone, whether that be Trump, Harris, or Hitler, we are all on the wrong side of the chasm of holiness together.  Only Jesus can carry us to the other side by his mercy and grace, not our “goodness” or how well we’ve lived a Christian life.

 

2)      I don’t trust the media at all. 

I take nothing they say as accurate, and if the media is pushing something hard, I tend to be highly skeptical unless they have proven trustworthy over time.  This goes for any source on the right or left.  If Fox News is saying that Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, I tend not to believe it.  If MSNBC says that Trump is a racist and rapist (accused by a person in a book she was selling 20 years after it supposedly happened), I tend not to believe it.  Does that mean that I’m right about either thing?  No.  But my default will always be to distrust the media narratives that were silent for 20 years and only pop-up during an election or to sell a book.

 

3)      Even though he says he is, I don’t believe Trump is a Christian. 

Mind you, I don’t know his heart, but unless something has changed in the last few years, he has specifically said that he’s never asked for forgiveness of his sin and he doesn’t think he needs to.

Source:

Biblically, this makes him unsaved.  For more details on this, read this:  https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-must-i-believe-to-be-saved

 

4)         Kamala Harris says she’s a Christian, I have no idea if Harris is a Christian or just says she’s a Christian for votes, but it doesn’t matter to me either way.  A few weeks ago, conservative news sources were saying she wasn’t a Christian based on her saying “You’re at the wrong rally.”, when someone yelled “Jesus is King”, after which Harris pointed them to the Trump rally elsewhere in town. 

Read more here: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2024/10/17/kamala-harris-claps-back-at-rally-protesters-in-la-crosse-wisconsin/75724847007/

I quickly dismissed that as smearing her for her joke, instead of an actual fact about her heart toward God, but again, her heart toward God is irrelevant to me as it pertains how I vote and the two options I faced.  If I took her at face value and she was really saying that anyone who thinks Jesus is Lord should follow Trump not her, where does that get me?  I already don’t think Trump is a Christian. 

 

 

Now that my foundation is established, here are some reasons I still voted for him:

1)      I’m not voting for someone to be my pastor.  I’m voting for someone that is most likely to push policies that I agree with. I am casting a vote for a leader of a country, not whether or not that person claims to be a member of a shared faith.

 

2)      I would consider myself far-right on the abortion issue, as I, for instance, don’t think a baby should be condemned to death if her biological father happened to be a rapist.  I know what that means and what that implies, and it’s horrific.  However, the damage was already done, and adoption vs. death is always going to be the better option.  I promise you this is exactly how I would feel if it was one of my daughters in that situation.  Except neither of my daughters would want to give their baby up for adoption.  They would keep the baby to show people God’s grace in a terrible situation and how “[what man] meant for evil against me, God meant it for good” in Genesis 50:3.  We would be called to forgive the aggressor, and love the baby, and that’s what we would do.  If a family couldn’t do that, adoption is an alternative.

 

The only situation where abortion is an option for me is when the life of the mother is at stake.  I believe that in that particular situation that the mother or mother’s spouse (if mom is in a coma/unconscious) should be able to choose between her own death or the death of her child.  This situation is getting extremely rare however, because of our advanced medical care.  I would think in most cases, that if the fetus was viable that it could be saved regardless of if the mother died or lived.  However, if faced with the hypothetical Trolley Problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem)  and you are for sure going to lose your child or your wife, then I would most likely choose the death of my child over my wife.

 

All this to say, abortion is a very important issue for me personally, and I’ve wanted Roe v Wade overturned for 40 years.  However it happened, Trump helped make it happen.  Even though Republicans have been promising it since I was a toddler, he made it happen.  Normally it’s a bad personality trait of Trump that he doesn’t care about people and what they think, but in this case, his ability to be unaffected by the loud opinions of others, pushed Dobbs over the finish line.  This is a big deal to me.

 

3)      For his entire business career Trump has put women in high positions in his companies.  I don’t believe claims of misogyny. (See foundational point #1) He appointed a female Supreme.  He just appointed Susie Wiles the first female Chief of Staff in history.  He isn’t doing that for future political points.  He really believes she’s the best choice.  That’s not a decision a misogynist would make.

 

4)      I don’t think Harris or Clinton lost because of misogyny.  I think both of them were bad candidates that were hand-selected apart from an actual primary by the DNC because they were women, but I don’t think they lost because they were women.  For instance, if the Republicans primaried Candance Owens to be president in 2028, I believe that most if not all democrats would do whatever it took to keep her out of office.  Not only do they not support her positions, but they also would hate for the first black woman president to be a Republican.  In this hypothetical, are democrats’ racist misogynists?  Maybe.  But I think it’s more that they vehemently disagree with her politically, and that’s ok.  But if you accuse them of being misogynistic racists non-stop, prepare to lose the election.  Another point on this is that Trump received around the same amount of votes in 2016, 2020, and 2024.  However, Harris received like 10 million less votes than Biden.  So if anything, Democrats are misogynists. 

 

5)      The loudest progressives tend to require that everyone not only agree with all of their positions, but they must celebrate those positions.  If you don’t celebrate them then you are a racist, misogynistic, bigoted fascist Nazi.  Allowing these people to be the representatives of the party is going to cost the DNC every election until they stop it.  What Daniel N's been saying on X the last few weeks should be pretty eye-opening for the DNC.  Especially these two posts:

https://x.com/RealKidPoker/status/1854282870594142327

https://x.com/RealKidPoker/status/1854659584993960289

 

In summary: 

“The fact that America overwhelmingly looked past felonies and an impeachment, should tell you just how much people aren’t aligned with the direction the

@DNC has taken.

 

Millions of voters who do not like this man, or approve of his behavior, still felt he was the better option than what you offered up.”

 

😎       Speaking of felonies, here is the list from NPR: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts

 

Anything stand out to you? 

 

I hope you will take the time to read this piece written by leftist Isaac Saul:  https://www.readtangle.com/trump-verdict-hush-money-trial/

 

In summary, “Alvin Bragg introduced a new legal theory against a former president (for underlying actions on which the statute of limitations had expired), he stacked the charges, and he pursued the case despite other prosecutors seeing the same evidence and declining to do so (Bragg himself faced a staff revolt for initially refusing to bring the case).

 

Step back and think about it: Trump entered a consensual agreement with a woman to pay her to keep quiet about an alleged affair. This is totally legal (and not uncommon). The only thing illegal was how he falsified business records to cover up the payment (typically a misdemeanor), which Bragg has turned into a felony offense worthy of jail time by tying it to intent to violate a state election law.

 

These charges never would have been (and never have been) brought against anyone else. “

 

6)      The Democratic party (Gov. Newsom, Harris, and Tim Walz all come to mind immediately) have said on many occasions that they want to restrict the 1^st, 2^nd, and 10^th amendments.  This is an absolute deal breaker for me.  I will 100% always vote against anyone who wants to restrict the 1^st or 10^th amendments, as I think they are the two most important amendments in World History.  Reason magazine released a condemnation of Walz when he recently said that the 1^st amendment should be restricted.  (Which is just following the law passed in California that has since been struck down for violating the constitution) 

 

You can read the Reason article here:  https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/08/vp-candidate-tim-walz-on-theres-no-guarantee-to-free-speech-on-misinformation-or-hate-speech-and-especially-around-our-democracy/

 

In summary: “Walz was quite wrong in saying that "There's no guarantee to free speech" as to "hate speech." The Supreme Court has made clear that there is no "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment. The First Amendment generally protects the views that the government would label "hateful" as much as it protects other views.”

 

Trump is far less likely to restrict the 1^st, 10^th, or any other amendment and that’s a very big deal to me.

 

 

 

7)   Something to think about:  https://archive.ph/pEjgk#selection-1047.0-1061.39

 

In summary: “If you think Donald Trump is too crass or cruel or incompetent to be president—if you are disappointed or even astonished that, having tried and failed to subvert the will of the people in the last election, he has come back to win fair and square—you should be asking yourself this question: why, to so many Americans, does the Democratic Party seem worse?”

[mrfritz 897]

Harris wasn’t my first choice, but she’s not a criminally insane dementia patient so I thought she was the better choice. America disagreed!

[brvheart 1,755]

I think that's fair, Fritz!  Trump is a psycho!  

As it turns out, I don't mind a little psycho in my pres.