Monday, March 7, 2016

Why Voting For Trump Makes Sense...(For Now, At Least...)

Come Tuesday, March 15, yours truly will be voting for Donald J. Trump.

Not because I agree with him on his policies. (I don’t.) 

Not because I see leadership qualities in him. (I don’t.) 

Not because I think he can spark the economy, improve our broken healthcare delivery system or fix the Veteran’s Administration’s problems, etc. (I don’t.) 

Certainly not because he shares the same values that I do. (He doesn’t.)

Why will I be voting for him, then?

I’ll vote for Trump because I think his winning the Republican Nomination produces the best chance to force the current Republican Party to seriously reinvent itself. Which would be good for the Country, regardless of a person’s individual political tastes.

When President Obama won reelection in 2012, the Republican National Committee conducted a “GOP Autopsy.” A large project, the RNC’s report came up with many recommendations, including reaching out to minorities, addressing the notion the party doesn’t care about people and attacking corporate welfare.

As a former Republican, I wish I could point to some concrete improvements along these lines, but I can’t. If anything, the far right wing of the GOP has won the argument on what sort of candidates to run. There are no real moderates. Our Governor, John Kasich a clear-cut conservative, is the most reasonable of those remaining, but his path to the nomination is hard to see.

The GOP’s base mocks and attacks our current President, a decent and thoughtful man, while cheering for a con-man because of his bluster. The Republican establishment is doing their best to move voters away from Trump to either Rubio or Cruz. It’s unclear to me how successful they will be.
Trump embraces much of the nonsense the GOP has been selling over the last two decades. Symbolically, he is the Republican Party’s Frankenstein, who has sprung to life and seems intent on destroying the voices and thinking that gave him life. His simple message, and it is simple, is that America isn’t great anymore, but if we elect him, She can be once more. He never really says exactly how this would happen, but the millions who have voted for him so far don’t care. They’re not overly interested in policy. They’ve heard it all before. They don’t want to hear promises, because they’ve been lied to before as well. They want something different this time.

If Trump faces Hillary Clinton in the General, it’s my belief and hope the Democrats will win the Presidency by a large margin and regain seats in the US Senate. In spite of Clinton being a rather dreary candidate herself.

The Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.  Catering to the extreme voices comes at a cost, and the bill needs to be paid. It won’t be easy. Congressmen who compromise are targeted by special interests with deep pockets. They’re afraid to take any stands that would result in them being “primaried” by a more pure conservative challenger-with unlimited cash to spend.  

Maybe at that point, the adults in the GOP will rise up, tell the hard core tea party and right wing talk radio voices to take a back seat and remold the Republican Party in a modern, expansive and intelligent fashion.