The choice of who to support for president has never been more difficult. Trump is wildly different from the norm – another Andrew Jackson. He will be hated by everyone on the left, but he also is not liked or respected by many within the Republican establishment and those whose support he will need.
He may have had what is required but he may also not have the mental discipline, never mind the background knowledge, to do what’s needed. Trump might have been able to do what’s needed but you can’t do it by alienating everyone in your path. A leader brings people together. A businessperson makes everyone do what they want because a decision has been reached. And his sensational thin skin is a massive worry. And now with the death of Antonin Scalia, only one of a number of Supreme Court justices who might end up being chosen in the next 4-8 years, the stakes are extraordinary. You might be willing to compromise on a less adventurous president if it raises the probability that a Republican gets to choose.
With the appointment to the Supreme Court right there in the mix, there will be no doubting in anyone’s mind, that this is not just a decision for the next four years, but for the next 20-30 years. Everything about the future of the US will be in the mix. And while I think the Republican establishment is bizarrely out of touch – Jeb Bush is their chosen vehicle, for heaven’s sake! – I am hopeful that there will be a coming together among the candidates about what must be done.
The major impression I received in listening to Donald Trump at the debate in South Carolina was that he has spent too many years reading The New York Times. It is what Ted Cruz has said, about Trump being infused with “New York values”. I’m not sure it was the best way to put it, but I knew what he meant. There is a smarmy left-liberal condescension towards any other way of thinking that is tearing down the world we have built. We live in the freest, most tolerant society that may ever have been, but that freedom is being ground to dust by a liberal intolerance that if left unstopped will be our ruin. I thought Trump might have done something to stop it, but I am becoming less sure he can. I don’t think anyone else can, so I will just have to wait on events.
Law of Markets 