Thread: I Voted for Trump. And I Sorely Regret It.

I Voted for Trump. And I Sorely Regret It.

By JULIUS KREIN
AUG. 17, 2017

When Donald Trump first announced his presidential campaign, I, like most people, thought it would be a short-lived publicity stunt. A month later, though, I happened to catch one of his political rallies on C-Span. I was riveted.

I supported the Republican in dozens of articles, radio and TV appearances, even as conservative friends and colleagues said I had to be kidding. As early as September 2015, I wrote that Mr. Trump was “the most serious candidate in the race.” Critics of the pro-Trump blog and then the nonprofit journal that I founded accused us of attempting to “understand Trump better than he understands himself.” I hoped that was the case. I saw the decline in this country — its weak economy and frayed social fabric — and I thought Mr. Trump’s willingness to move past partisan stalemates could begin a process of renewal.

It is now clear that my optimism was unfounded. I can’t stand by this disgraceful administration any longer, and I would urge anyone who once supported him as I did to stop defending the 45th president.

Far from making America great again, Mr. Trump has betrayed the foundations of our common citizenship. And his actions are jeopardizing any prospect of enacting an agenda that might restore the promise of American life.

***

What, you may wonder, especially in the wake of Charlottesville, Va., did I possibly see in this candidate?
Although crude and meandering for almost all of the primary campaign, Mr. Trump eschewed strict ideologies and directly addressed themes that the more conventional candidates of both parties preferred to ignore. Rather than recite paeans to American enterprise, he acknowledged that our “information economy” has delivered little wage or productivity growth. He was willing to criticize the bipartisan consensus on trade and pointed out the devastating effects of deindustrialization felt in many communities. He forthrightly addressed the foreign policy failures of both parties, such as the debacles in Iraq and Libya, and rejected the utopian rhetoric of “democracy promotion.” He talked about the issue of widening income inequality — almost unheard of for a Republican candidate — and didn’t pretend that simply cutting taxes or shrinking government would solve the problem.

He criticized corporations for offshoring jobs, attacked financial-industry executives for avoiding taxes and bemoaned America’s reliance on economic bubbles over the last few decades. He blasted the Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz campaigns for insincerely mouthing focus-grouped platitudes while catering to their largest donors — and he was right. Voters loved that he was willing to buck conventional wisdom and the establishment.

He flouted GOP orthodoxy on entitlements, infrastructure spending and, at times, even health care and “culture war” issues like funding Planned Parenthood. His statements on immigration were often needlessly inflammatory, but he correctly diagnosed that our current system makes little sense for most Americans, as well as many immigrants, and seems designed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of working people.

Yes, Mr. Trump’s policy positions were poorly defined, but these days, most candidates’ positions are. And yes, he had little support from the Republican Party leadership. But many of us thought even this might be a positive if it forced him to focus on “making deals” rather than on Washington’s usual ideological posturing. He was never going to fulfill all of his over-the-top promises, but we believed that his administration might achieve some meaningful successes.

In my writing, I tried to steer this administration in the right direction. During the presidential primaries, the blog I helped organize, called the Journal of American Greatness, was one of the leading voices supporting certain themes of Trump’s campaign. (Michael Anton, now a National Security Council adviser, was our most prolific writer.) Then, after the election, I founded a quarterly journal, American Affairs, largely to question elements of what is often called the neoliberal policy consensus — totally open borders for capital and labor; transferring power from national governments to transnational technocracies; unfettered markets; and democracy promotion as the sole premise of foreign policy. In other words, the disappointing legacy we inherited from the Bushes and the Clintons that helped pave the way to Mr. Trump’s election.

In this role, as one of the few people in the media who has been somewhat sympathetic to Mr. Trump, I am often asked to comment on his surprise victory, or more recently on his statements, policies and the gusher of news pouring out of this White House. For months, despite increasing chaos and incoherence, I have given Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt: “No, I don’t really think he is a racist,” I have told skeptical audiences. “Yes, he says some stupid things, but none of it really matters; he’s not really that incompetent.” Or: “They’ve made some mistakes, but it’s still early.”

It’s no longer early. Not only has the president failed to make the course corrections necessary to save his administration, but his increasingly appalling conduct will continue to repel anyone who might once have been inclined to work with him.

From the very start of his run, one of the most serious charges against Mr. Trump was that he panders to racists. Many of his supporters, myself included, managed to convince ourselves that his more outrageous comments — such as the Judge Gonzalo Curiel controversy or his initial hesitance to disavow David Duke’s endorsement — were merely Bidenesque gaffes committed during the heat of a campaign.

It is now clear that we were deluding ourselves. Either Mr. Trump is genuinely sympathetic to the David Duke types, or he is so obtuse as to be utterly incapable of learning from his worst mistakes. Either way, he continues to prove his harshest critics right.

Mr. Trump once boasted that he could shoot someone in the street and not lose voters. Well, someone was just killed in the street by a white supremacist in Charlottesville. His refusal this weekend to specifically and immediately denounce the groups responsible for this intolerable violence was both morally disgusting and monumentally stupid. In this, Mr. Trump failed perhaps the easiest imaginable test of presidential leadership. Rather than advance a vision of national unity that he claims to represent, his indefensible equivocation can only inflame the most vicious forces of division within our country.

If Mr. Trump had been speaking about the overall political climate, he might have been right to say that “many sides” are responsible for exacerbating social tensions. Yet during the events in Charlottesville this past weekend, only one side — a deranged white nationalist — was responsible for killing anyone. To equivocate about this fact is the height of irresponsibility. Even those concerned about the overzealous enforcement of political correctness can hardly think that apologizing for neo-Nazis is a sensible alternative.

Those of us who supported Mr. Trump were never so naïve as to expect that he would transform himself into a model of presidential decorum upon taking office. But our calculation was that a few cringe-inducing tweets were an acceptable trade-off for a successful governing agenda.

Yet after more than 200 days in office, Mr. Trump’s behavior grows only more reprehensible. Meanwhile, his administration has no significant legislative accomplishments — and no apparent plan to deliver any. Wilbur Ross’s Commerce Department has advanced some sensible and appropriately incremental changes to trade policy, but no long-term agenda has been articulated. Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue’s recently proposed legislation offers a sound basis for reforming immigration policy, but seems to have no prospects and has received comparatively little attention. The administration inexplicably downgraded infrastructure and corporate tax reform — issues with potentially broad-based support — to pursue a warmed-over version of Paul Ryan’s Obamacare repeal, which ended, predictably, in a humiliating failure.

Nothing disastrous has occurred on the foreign policy front — yet — but the never-ending chaos within the administration hardly inspires confidence. Many senior-level appointees are still not in place, including the assistant secretaries of state, for example. And too many of those who are in office appear to be petty, clueless, and rather repulsive ideologues, like Steve Bannon, who seem to spend most of their time accusing one another of being “swamp creatures.” It’s pathetic. No wonder an increasing number of officials are simply ignoring the president, an alarming but understandable development.

Effectively a third-party president without a party, Mr. Trump has faced extraordinary resistance from the media, the bureaucracy and even within the Republican Party. But the administration has committed too many unforced errors and deserves most of the blame for its failures. Far from making the transformative “deals” he promised voters, his only talent appears to be creating grotesque media frenzies — just as all his critics said.

Those who found some admirable things in the hazy outlines of Mr. Trump’s campaign — a trade policy focused on national industrial development; a less quixotic foreign policy; less ideological approaches to infrastructure, health care and entitlements — will have to salvage that agenda from the wreckage of his presidency. On that, I’m not ready to give up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/o...t.html?mcubz=1

It's so strange isn't it, how a writer who gives you one of the most articulate descriptions of why every American of every walk of life should support Donald Trump for President, as Julius Krein did in this article, then decides to allow something that has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump or the Presidency of the United States such as a murder in Charlottesville, VA to cause regrets for having voted for Trump!!

It's a Wacko-Doodle Deal.

The Charlottesville murder has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn't order the removal of the Robert E Lee Statue. Donald Trump didn't organize the protest against it and he didn't hand out permits for the protests. Donald Trump didn't organize the counter-protests against the protesters or give them permits for the protests. He didn't start the violence we saw between the protesters and the counter-protesters. He had nothing to do with the guy in the car who drove through the crowd and killed Heather Meyer and injured 19 others. He condemned the murder and the protest violence by all sides involved.

If you understand the First Amendment as Trump does, everything he has said and done on the subject of Charlottesville, is absolutely spot-on. Here is the First Amendment for those who have forgotten it:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

If you truly believe in the First Amendment, you have to endure speech you don't like to protect your own right of free speech. To protect your right to assemble, you have to enforce the "peaceful" aspect of it and condemn the violent unruly aspects or risk your own right to assemble.

Trump rightfully condemned all the violence by everyone, because that is his job as President to do. That is his sworn duty to uphold the US Constitution as President of the United States.

The statue of Lee and his horse Traveller was part of a project by a famous sculptor who died before it was finished, that sculptor also did one of Grant, he did Grant's first, took years, then died while perfecting his model for Lee and Traveller. Another sculptor finished it but as with any change in artist, the second sculptor made it a little different than the original sculptor had planned.

When you erase Lee from our history, you might as well erase Grant who defeated him. These men were Generals, who fought the bloodiest war ever fought by Americans, ironically they both opposed Slavery. Grant found slavery to be the most "peculiar of institutions" and should be ended forthwith. Lee believed it should be ended but over time and considered their servitude necessary for their gradual assimilation to freedom through Christianity (?).

The North won, Grant won, the slaves were freed and what would ultimately be a long and difficult road to equal rights and acceptance into our society began. It shouldn't have been so difficult, it shouldn't have taken so long, you can hold the Democrats responsible for obstacles they created after the war that resulted in the long difficult journey that has spanned more than 150 years.

But blaming Robert E Lee who lost the war? Makes no sense.

Blaming Donald Trump who had nothing to do with it? Makes no sense.

You know who I would blame for Heather's murder? The 20 year old who killed her. I would mention his name, but don't know it. I re-read Julius Krein's article 3 times hoping he would have mentioned Heather and the name of her killer, but alas, no mention of either one. I think that sums up the essence of his article, obviously written to keep his job at the New York Times.

If you want to live in a country with angry mob-rule, vote Democrat next time. If you want to live in a country with beautiful safe cities and towns with tons of manufacturing jobs, higher wages at full time jobs with benefits, redevelopment of broken down areas and good times for all ... you get on the Trump Train and hang on for your life.

He is just "getting on board".

Trump had nothing to do with Charlottesville and he inherited a climate of racial discord that had been fueled for 8 years under Obama. (Beer summit, Ferguson etc.) I don't belive that Black Lives Matter or Antifa is any more morally Superior to any of the other extremists that were there in fact, I think it was a draw. Incidentally, Both Black Lives Matter and Antifa still have Paypal accounts as does the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam. So much for the SPLC hate groups being banned by Paypal.

Barrage of garbage. IMO

Originally Posted by Newmexican

He is just "getting on board".

Trump had nothing to do with Charlottesville and he inherited a climate of racial discord that had been fueled for 8 years under Obama. (Beer summit, Ferguson etc.) I don't belive that Black Lives Matter or Antifa is any more morally Superior to any of the other extremists that were there in fact, I think it was a draw. Incidentally, Both Black Lives Matter and Antifa still have Paypal accounts ss does the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam. So much for the SPLC hate groups being banned by Paypal.

Barrage of garbage. IMO

Exactly. He did this article to keep his job at the NYT.

Trump's firing of Steve Bannon doesn't make me feel any better about him (Trump) on the immigration and border wall issue.

The globalist ilk pratically have ownership of the White House now. With the exception of Stephen Miller, I can't think of anyone close to Trump that aligns with us on immigration and border security.

General Kelly was not elected to run the agenda.

It's Trump's Agenda, Trump was elected to run his Trump Agenda, and that's exactly what Trump is doing.

Donald Trump and John Kelly's agenda to give DACA and Comprehensive Amnesty to illegal aliens is wrong, violates our current laws, and contradicts most of Trump's campaign promises on immigration issues.

W

That is not the Trump Agenda. John Kelly will learn like all the others who got the boot, if you are not on board with the Trump Agenda you will not be in the White House or this Administration very long.

Originally Posted by Judy

That is not the Trump Agenda. John Kelly will learn like all the others who got the boot, if you are not on board with the Trump Agenda you will not be in the White House or this Administration very long.

Trump is giving amnesty to old and new DACA illegals as we speak. I guess an agenda can change.