Trump as a crutch

The nation is bigger than one man.

The Trump 2016 headquarters in Salisbury, Maryland. I used this photo on monoblogue only to see a version of it a few days later on PJ Media. The writer was seeking something that looked forlorn and liked the shot.

In the immediate area where I live, I’m in the midst of Trump country.

It didn’t matter if it were the primary or general election for President: if Donald Trump was on the ballot he won, despite my best efforts in 2016 in voting for Ted Cruz in the primary and Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party in the general, and half-hearted backing in the 2020 general.

But Trump’s depth of support is sometimes scary, to a point where I’m starting to believe that he’s reached deity status with selected people. We are 16 months away from a general election that he may not participate in because of conviction, death, or simply losing the primary (although at this moment that seems doubtful thanks to his name recognition and a crowded field) and yet I see lit up Trump signs in yards along the major highways and byways that I travel.

So let’s consider something here. There are a number of people who have made a career out of telling black people that they cannot succeed because of their race, and that they need the crutch of government assistance in return for voting a certain way.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s becoming a group of mostly working-class white people who are similarly convinced that the only salvation to this nation is voting for Donald Trump, and if he somehow cannot succeed in getting back to the White House their lives are doomed. Certainly a few of them were followers of QAnon and believed that Trump was the linchpin of a white hat group that was going to save the world from a one-world global government cabal that was dealing in child trafficking and even sacrifice on the side. Now I’m not completely dismissing the possibility that such a cabal could exist - after all, as I often quote, absolute power corrupts absolutely - but if you’re putting the sort of trust in one man to eliminate the threat that leads you to donate to his cause from the few pennies you have to spare, all that’s actually being done is lining the pockets of his attorneys and consultants.

I remember what I said when Donald Trump won the nomination in 2016 and I left the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee because of it:

I guess the way I look at it there are three possibilities here: either Trump is going to lose to Hillary, he will beat Hillary and govern exactly as I predict he will, or he will be a great President and I will have assessed him incorrectly. Truly I wouldn’t mind being wrong for the sake of this great nation, but I have no evidence to believe I will be.

At one time I may have gone for the “great president” door number three, but as time goes on his legacy shows that he was more in the number two “govern exactly as I predict he will” camp. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on perspective, all government policy is subject to reversal and whatever Trump policies Joe Biden hasn’t reversed already could be undone by time itself - for example, certain provisions of Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire in the next couple years. About the only real legacy Trump had was his Supreme Court selections, and even they have been disappointing from time to time. Try as he might, Donald Trump was never as inspiring as Ronald Reagan was because, while Reagan played to optimism (“Morning in America”), Trump often played to pent-up anger. Thus, Reagan won re-election in such a landslide that they couldn’t cheat him out of it.

But let’s say Trump somehow manages to be re-elected, a modern-day Grover Cleveland who makes a political comeback after a term away from the White House. Many of those rabid fans are going to be bitterly disappointed when they see the Biden crime family, the Clinton crime family, and others continue to walk free. They’re going to be crushed when they see the same old political games that thwarted his first term play out in Washington, D.C. And the reason is these fans have become just as dependent on government as the black women they often criticize for being the proverbial welfare queens who pop out six kids from five baby daddies just to increase that government check. Those true Trump believers are just looking at it from a different direction, one of dependence on getting even for the perceived slights they’ve endured from previous administrations of all stripes. They remind me of those at the TEA Party rallies who demanded government cut everything but not touch “their” Social Security and Medicare.

One man cannot change all of government, as there will be sluggards and harpies who reside there regardless of the level of jurisdiction or the person in charge. So let’s not waste our time trying to give Donald Trump (or any other politician) superhero status. Even the Constitution was a group effort created by men who debated through a hot Pennsylvania summer in a closed hall to maintain secrecy before hammering out a compromise deal that Delaware was the first to ratify.

I give out a lot of advice on how to improve our country, and once in awhile I’ll suggest who you should vote for. But I do so knowing that I’m making an incremental change at best because the real push toward freedom comes from changing hearts and minds. There are some who prefer just to go with the flow, and I pray their chains rest lightly because that’s what they are bound by. As for the rest of us, we live in the tension between having to deal with whatever restrictions the powers that be dream up for us today and scheming on how to get around them to live our lives with the maximum freedom possible. Sometimes, as Waylon Jennings once sang, “that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow.”

Here’s a quick case in point. Delaware is foolishly trying to adopt the California regulations that say no new gas-powered cars will be sold in the state beyond 2035. Well guess what, Delaware? I just bought a gas-powered truck and that’s the last new truck I’m going to buy because I have no interest in buying an electric model that’s less practical and will lead to my already-climbing electric bill to go up even more, not to mention the rigamarole I would have to endure to upgrade my electric service so I could charge the thing at home. (I’m sure the government will subsidize that service for low-income people just like they do the cars.) But other people could find other ways to get around the restriction, such as buying a gas-powered truck in another more freedom-friendly state and tagging it there. (If Maine wanted to make a real killing, they would expand their practice from trailers.)

Unfortunately, quick reform is impossible because of the number of people dependent on government to varying extents. While some would love to believe all their problems would be solved by electing Donald Trump, I would prefer they find their problem-solver by looking in the mirror.