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Trump’s Virtues: An Important Speech
Very short and very challenging food for thought. I was drawn to read the entire piece and that proved to be a most rewarding exercise as it introduced me to an excellent short talk on the virtues of Donald Trump and why we shouldn’t be turning our backs on him at this early stage of the 2024 Presidential Campaign. Here, before linking to the video itself, is the opening paragraph of the article, which can be found here:
I recently wrote a column about why I believed Trump should not run in 2024. I was wrong. I allowed my distaste for Trump’s personality to override his virtues, which are considerable. Some people want Trump without his vices. I was among them — until yesterday, when I watched and listened to Tom Klingenstein’s speech titled “Trump’s virtues.” It was masterful and shamed me that I did not make the distinction between Trump’s character and his virtues, the former being deeply flawed, the latter being almost perfect. I need to man up in my defense of the former President’s virtues. The speech was among the most pointed I have heard and deserves some exposure. Klingenstein says:
Other Republicans say some version of “I like Trump policies but I don’t like the rest of him.” This gets it almost backwards. Although Trump advanced many important policies, it is the ‘rest of him’ that contains the virtue that inspires the movement… Trump was born for the current crisis, a life and death struggle against a totalitarian enemy I call woke communism… that control all the cultural and economic powers in America…
[Trump] revealed, not caused, the divide in this country. In war, you must make a stand… Trump is a manly man… traditional manhood, even when flawed, is absolutely essential… Trump plays to win… There are no clean hands in a fistfight…Trump is unreservedly, unquestionably pro-America… Trump is a refreshing break from the guilt and self-loathing that marks our age…
How wonderful it is to hear a speaker in this age of wokeness and cowardly cancellation for saying the “wrong” thing, i.e., something not within the approved narrative of the Ruling Elite come right out and refer to someone as “a manly man”! I must admit I had to go back and rerun that part of the video I enjoyed hearing it so much! I am sending this video along not in the interest of starting any kind of debate about the 2024 election as it is far too early to be joining that battle. I am, however, sending it along as I think it represents a very valuable contribution to that future debate and the decision we will all be required to make in the future. I hope you find it as interesting and illuminating as I did.
God Bless America!
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He’s an NPC. Anything outside his expected inputs results in “Does Not Compute” errors.
Jonah is a sad case. With all the horrors of the Biden administration and a plethora of Democrat targets, he still puts his energies into punching right. He’s now showing signs of DeSantis Derangement Syndrome. Which is early, but maybe he’s getting a fat bonus for it.
There’s a guy who (supposedly) left FNC because of Tucker Carlson, and denounced cable news in general on the way out.
So naturally, he goes to CNN where he gets to opine alongside Jeff Toobin and Sally Kohn.
Yeah, he claimed he was just too principled for FNC, and then he went to CNN, which makes me LOL.
Getting back to Trump’s character, he really, sincerely believes he was robbed of his re-election. We are so used to performative outrage from politicians — from AOC’s fake handcuffs to Mitch McConnell pretending to be furious that Democrats have reneged on a deal (as though it hasn’t happened 145,000 times already) — that it’s easy to write-off Trump’s fury over the election as performative, a gimmick, a political strategy. I don’t think it is that. Calling it “The Big Lie” implies that he knows he is lying. I don’t think that he thinks he is.
But I guess, “The Big Sincere Disagreement” doesn’t quite work on a bumpersticker.
I’ll go farther. All of us who still have working brain cells know the election was stolen. Everyone who insists that such a statement is a “Big Lie” is knowingly covering for the criminal actions of Democrats.
And Trump was right.
And Biden agreed; “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
And you didn’t actually vote for Biden. You knew that Biden is frail and has dementia, is not at all up to the task, and that the country would actually be run by a collection of unelected democrat party operatives. That’s what you voted for.
TDS is either emotional instability (at the lower end) or paid propaganda (at the upper end) or both (for the lucky few).
I’m more agnostic on how much difference the fraud made; but I cannot believe Mark Zuckerberg would spend half a billion dollars on an election without a particular result in mind.
No Drew, I would stake my life on three things.
First, that the sun rises in the east.
Second, that the world is not flat.
Third, that Trump actually lost the 2020 election and it was not stolen. See “LOST, NOT STOLEN: ‘The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election”’ https://ricochet.com/1285677/lost-not-stolen-the-conservative-case-that-trump-lost-and-biden-won-the-2020-presidential-election/.
While I could reproduce that post, as a 2,000+ word Comment, I will not do so.
I stake my life on the Truth of my Risen Lord.
I totally agree Bryan with the clip in Comment #100. “Truth” is the ulimate test for a knight. That and the courage of your convictions. This is what has beset my beloved Republican Party and my beloved country since 2015, the willingness to sacrifice truth for convenience. “Some one else will stand up to Trump,” “he will fail on his own steam,” “he will die sooner or later,” “the Democrats will take care of this problem for us” have been Republican politicians excuses. Very, very few people have had the courage to stand up to Trump when he lied. McCain did, but then he passed away. I wish Coker and Flake had both run for re-election in 2018; if they lost their primaries, then hopefully the Trumpists who had beat them would have lost their general elections.
Former Senator Lamar Alexander stated after the first impeachment trial that the House Managers had made their case, but no, retiring Senator Lamar Alexander would not speak the truth. In the Senate, only one Senator, Mitt Romney had the courage to speak the truth. Shame on Lamar Alexander for knowing the truth by not having the courage of his convictions.
In the second impeachment, ten brave Republican members of the House voted on January 13, 2021 for impeachment while the smell of the battle a week earlier hung in the air at the Capitol from it being overrun a week earlier. Four members of the House decided to not run for re-election, one has survived his primary, one lost his primary, and four more are facing their primaries. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3525062-where-the-10-house-republicans-who-impeached-trump-stand/ Shame on us Republicans for abandoning these brave men and women.
We have seven Republican Senators who voted to convict in the impeachment trial. Three of them were up this cycle. Burr and Toomey both retired. The Democrats may take those seats, which frankly would serve us right since the nominees for those seats were endorsed by Trump. Murkowski is up in Alaska. I think that she will win. The others, Cassidy, Collins, Romney and Sasse are not up this election.
I fear for my party. But I fear more for my country.
Every morning since 1993 I start my day on one or two knees, with the Third Step Prayer, “I turn my will and my life over to the care of God.”
Did I say any of those were despicable occupations? No. Why would you assume I thought they were?
I think his four years were better for the country than his predecessor and successor, and I also think he was a chubby dude with a spray-tan. I think his taste in interior design was pure Queens and his taste in skyscraper design was pretty sharp. I think his casinos were gimcrack, but that was the paradigm. I think his energy policies were fantastic. He was right on immigration, and I wish he’d built more wall.
So, what you’re saying is that you voted for Biden
I actually wasted time reading this nonsense. Never again.
Does anyone think that a debate between Trump and DeSantis would not involve DJT doing his best to rip down DeSantis’ record, perhaps parroting the line the left has been declaiming the last two years? How else is he going to get over on the guy?
Hopefully he won’t.
To me that is the test for both. If either “rips” the other, then the Hell with them both. BTW, I’d gladly vote for either one as it stands now.
Voting is just a part of it. The cronyism is pervasive. Gaming the pension system, Governor appointments of unqualified but ideologically sympathetic people to cabinet and agency positions, undercover deals with big contractors and unions that throw extraordinary power to unions and/or promises of public to private transition of state managers/execs from rich state retirement to cushy corporate positions in trade for big dollar contracts, etc. That goes on for a decade or so and you’ve established a stronghold on government. It’s so bad they don’t even try to hide it anymore. The money from the unions that goes toward elections is astonishing. Cali is a bubble.
I don’t think so. I think Trump would be advancing what he did and pointing out that DeSantis has never been in the position to do anything (nationally or internationally) — if it ever came to that. But I don’t think it will. I think Trump is a meritocrat. And I think that Trump and DeSantis are in communication and moreover that DeSantis would never take on Trump.
Either way, I don’t think there’s be any more Cruz’s father type slanders.
Actually…
@garyrobbins , you’re telling us that the most important factor in your decision selected the guy who claims to have put together the most extensive voter fraud organization over the guy who didn’t commit to respecting election results.
Let that sink in for juuust a little bit.
Look, man… You can believe whatever the hell you want to believe, it makes no difference to me. Or anybody thinking remotely like me. But when you back it up with this jive-ass jibber-jabber, with the expectation that we should take this nonsense seriously, just expect a little blowback, m’kay?
I would like to see this story, but I was convinced of the fraud after they blatantly admitted their organized efforts and and named names and organizations that helped them. The biggest and most obvious admission is in this Time article, where they say late in the evening, when they saw the direction the election was taking (toward Trump), they “went into action”. This is election night – not before, but when voting was happening that they went into action:
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
The title also says it all.
Cali is a contagion.
I don’t think you know what it means to be a manly man based on your first comment.
I would expect Trump to play to win. I would hope DeSantis would as well. I should think Trump would have some difficulty on the policy criticism given how alike their policies are. I also expect at the end of the nomination process, they’d shake hands and laugh.
I believe Trump wants what’s best for the country and he knows the real enemy is on the Left, not Ron DeSantis. I could be wrong and maybe he’d use the Left’s attacks on DeSantis, but I sincerely doubt it.
How DJT responds when (not if) RDS steps up will be a litmus test for our assumptions about his character.
Yeah, that’ll show Trump. 🙄
It was an offhand reaction, but sure, you might be right, and I don’t know what it means to be a manly man. Well, my standard is my father, who joined the Navy in wartime, took the wheel on Caribbean sub hunts when he was 17, shot down planes in the Pacific theater, demobbed, started his own business (which he defended one night at gunpoint), got married, stayed married, was devoted to his church, hunted deer, learned to fly, drove semis for a living into his 80, and drove his Harley to Sturgis when he was 90.
That’s my standard of a manly man, and you’re welcome to conclude I’m still confused on the idea.