Monday, September 12, 2016

Open Letter to Jonah Goldberg & #NeverTrump Groupies

Dear Jonah,

I just took a look at your page on Twitter. That is one adorable dog! But you know the expression on your pup's face in that pic? That guilty look that says, "Oops! I really messed up - Dad's gonna be pissed."

That's what I want to talk to you about today: forgiveness.

It's the case of knowing we've screwed up, and knowing that someone important to us will get mad, but we hope they will make the effort to separate the act from the individual. Which is something that takes character - accepting that when someone does or says something foolish, separating the act from the person. Colleagues, friends, parents and lovers do it all the time. It's part of living.

When someone we know, care about, like or love does something "stupid" or unthinking we don't, as a general rule, throw them out like trash.

Instead, we try to help them learn not to do the same thing again because no one of us, not you, not me, not anyone else on this planet is perfect. When we screw up it's incumbent on one decent human being to another, to help us get better.

I get that you don't like Trump. I do, and I respect that. What I have trouble respecting though, is your "baby out with the bathwater" approach to this situation. We do not have another viable choice. One of these two people will be our next president for the next four years, and unless we're planning on leaving the planet, there's just no getting around the fact that we will live with whatever they put in place.

Now, you have principles you can't bring yourself to violate. Got it. Respect it. But! Given the realistic choices come November - crap sandwich on wheat v. crap sandwich on white - there ain't a lot of wiggle room.

Yes, you, yourself, have only one vote. But you influence, through your articles and television appearances, a lot of people who might be on the fence. If you remain standing in your corner, face to the wall and fingers in your ears, stamping your feet because you just don't want to see reality, Hillary Clinton could well become our next president.

Have you never heard of the fine art of compromise? Do you never compromise with your wife, your siblings or people with whom you work? Of course you do, and those are times when you put your self off to the side and accept something you might not necessarily like 100%.

Putting yourself, your self, your ego and principles aside, and looking at what that would mean for the United States of America, what do you suppose the future of this country will be if she wins?

Is that the kind of place you want your kids and your grandkids to live in?

No free speech because the Supreme Court will decide what speech is allowed and what falls in the purely subjective bucket of "hate-speech". We're already seeing this mindset spreading itself across college campuses. What do you suppose the speech-police will say to you and to Rush and to anyone else who doesn't fall into their narrow line of expression?

No Second Amendment because the left doesn't understand it and are frightened by it - yet it is the one true guarantee our country's Founders put in place to ensure we would not be subjected to tyranny.

No States Rights, or Protection from Illegal Search & Seizure? Do you really want the kind of America Hillary Clinton will create through her appointments to the Supreme Court?

Thinking Congress will stop her from doing that is delusional at best. When has Congress last been effective at doing anything that has benefited America and her citizens? 1998?

No, Jonah. I am afraid that your selfish adherence to self and stance on your principles could well doom this country.

Sometimes we have to weigh the alternatives and sometimes we have to put our self aside. We have to think bigger picture and swallow our pride.

I am confident that were many in the GOP who threw up their hands in horror at the idea of having Ronald Reagan as Governor of California. Yes, he cut his teeth on a smaller stage, but he was, arguably, the BEST president of the past 75-years. I proudly voted for him in 1980 and again in 1984 - and I am damned glad that I did.

In Trump, believe it or not, I see similar characteristics. I see that Trump, while full of bluff and bluster does get that he's not the smartest guy in the room. Just as Reagan did. I'm also pretty confident that he knows pretty well what he doesn't know, and he has surrounded himself with advisers who do. Just how much real foreign policy experience did Reagan have before taking on the Soviet Union?

Step back for a minute. Look over the past year and look at just how far Trump has come in his policies and positions since announcing his intent to run. Look at who he's surrounded himself with as advisors and surrogates.

These people aren't slouches, and the people he's listening to and learning from do, I believe, love this country just as you and I do, and, as I believe Donald Trump does. I am confident they will continue to put her interests ahead of their own - as you and the other #NeverTrump groupies should do.

Just get over yourselves. Look out at America. Look at what she has become in the past twenty-five years and ask yourself, can we really afford another generation of degeneration through the courts and Executive Orders?

Think about it - hard, long and generously, putting the American people ahead of your principles for five minutes, and then decide.

The Basket of Deplorables will welcome you and your friends with open arms.

Best,

DeplorablePhil

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