A couple weeks ago, I sent my sister South Portland Rep. Hamann’s now infamous tweet. She was disappointed by the obscenity and hate, but she challenged me to explain why I support Donald Trump, who has also posted (what some folks say are) inappropriate tweets.
Here’s why:
First: I was sitting in Dallas at “Restoring Love” when I learned Ted Cruz had won his bid for the Senate. He became my favored candidate in 2016. At the convention in Bangor, I was annoyed and disappointed that Gov. LePage supported Donald Trump, but I still voted for the governor and Mrs. LePage as national delegates. I thought probably the governor knew something I didn’t. Rather than make a short story long: I came to understand what he knew. Donald Trump was the candidate who might spare America the horrors of a Clinton (Obama 3.0) presidency. He knew or at least believed Ted Cruz would lose.
I support Donald Trump now, but not because he spared America the humiliation of “Obama 3.0” or because he is a Republican. Trump didn’t spare us: the American people overwhelmingly rejected the Obama legacy and the Democrats’ empty wagon narrative. Trump is no Democrat, but he’s also no traditional Republican, comfortably enjoying the perquisites of office while being the ineffective opposition.
President Trump walks what he talks and is unrestrained in advocating for the values and principles I formed as a child and young adult. He’s played the liberal legacy media for duplicitous fools, stampeding them to indulge their hate and obliterate what little credibility they had left. He’s provoked Democrats into dropping their civility pose to openly and endlessly launch absurd personal attacks, devoid of truth, logic, or principle other than complete Democratic control. He understands his job is to be president of the USA, not the world, and he understands even our allies and “friends” will gladly pick our pockets, take our jobs, and blame their every failure on us, assisted by our own domestic leftist fanatics. In short, he does it my way!
If there were a Libertarian party, I would be tempted. There isn’t one. Between Republicans and Democrats, there is no contest for me. I believe, as Ulysses Grant believed, that it’s the Republican Party that genuinely seeks the greatest good for the greatest number of Americans. I believe, as first Grant and later Elbert Guillroy said, that the Democratic Party is and always has been about nothing but complete control of every aspect of government and of people’s lives, and that their every program, plan, policy, and act is intended only to expand that control under the guise of charity or protection of some invented victim class.
I believe, as Robert A. Hall (Massachusetts Senate, 1973-1983) wrote, that the role of government is to protect the lives, property, and freedom of its citizens. As he wrote, America has far more to be proud of in what it has given the world than to apologize for, and Americans are exceptional in history.
As he also wrote, I “… believe in the individual and individual rights and responsibilities and I oppose collectivism, statism, and the desire of the nanny state bureaucrats to care for and control us …”
I believe in equality of opportunity and reject the notion of equality of outcomes disguised as “leveling the playing field.” I know that capitalism has provided the highest standard of living ever known and that all forms of government collectivism have failed, always and everywhere. Government collectivism has always been sustained by brutally suppressing and imprisoning the people.
I believe in freedom of speech and deplore efforts to suppress or criminalize speech that some academic snowflake dislikes or cannot refute except by changing the subject and resorting to epithets, insults, accusations, obscenities, and violence.
I believe it is my absolute right to practice as a proud, if incomplete, Christian. I believe those who choose to feign offense as a pretext for suppressing free expression are enemies of our Constitution. I reject the legitimacy of any “religion” that demands or condones suppression of others. I know that life begins at conception and that the willful, wanton destruction of life is evil and barbaric.
I believe that government is inherently corruptible because, unchecked, it inevitably accumulates power in the hands of a few, then tempts them to abuse that power for personal gain. We must never fail to be suspicious of politicians and never stop striving to limit the size, remoteness, continuity (of individuals in office), and authority of government.
So, these are but a few of the reasons I am a Republican and why I support President Donald Trump.
(Ken Frederic is a Maine native and alumnus of Brewer High School and the University of Maine at Orono. Before retirement, he worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense. He and his wife, Betty Ann, now live in Bristol and volunteer with several community organizations.)
