Very often conservative support for President Donald Trump starts with an apology. It goes something like the following.
I know he writes mean tweets and makes nasty insults, calls people names like a jr. higher. He is badly flawed, foul, immoral, a lawbreaker, braggadocios, self-centered, divisive, petty, a liar, a con man, a flip flopper, a criminal, authoritarian, and banal. But, I still voted for him because, you know, I look at performance.
People who start with an apology, I believe, think they’re warding off the expected angry reaction. Or, they won’t be associated with the worst character traits of Trump, readying themselves to hear them. I’m writing to say that it won’t do you any good to apologize for Trump. Embrace him. Accept his 2016 victory and his presidency.
None of the other 16 candidates would have defeated Hillary Clinton. Trump did almost everything he said he would do. He stuck his thumb in the eye of the corrupt media. He battled and fought for conservatives against the greatest political opposition in my lifetime and maybe all of American history.
In 1836, Sir Henry Taylor wrote the classic book, The Statesman, the first modern book devoted to that subject. He wrote:
[A] statesman has already, in the commonwealth of his own nature, given to the nobler functions the higher place; and as a minister; therefore, he is one whom his country may be satisfied to trust, and its best men be glad to serve. He, on the other hand, who sees in the party he forms only the pedestal of his own statue, or the plinth of a column to be erected to his honour, may, by inferior means and lower service, accomplish his purposes, such as they are; but he must be content with vulgar admiration, and lay out of account the respect of those who will reserve that tribute from what is merely powerful, and render it only to what is great. “He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men,” says Lord Bacon, “hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.”
Professor at Notre Dame, Michael Zuckert, wrote in 2020, Lincoln and Democratic Statesmanship:
Our ideas of statesmanship are fraught with seeming contradictions: The democratic statesman is true to the peoples (sic) wishes and views—but also capable of standing against popular opinion when necessary. The statesman rises above conflicts and seeks compromise between parties—but also stands firmly for what is right.
And I quote all that material about statesmen and statesmanship to get to my subject of President Donald Trump. I’m not going to say whether I think he is one or not. As you scan through the annals of the history of government, who was a statesman and did it matter? Was Julius Caesar one? What about William the Conqueror? Was King George III? What kind of statesmen presided over the Roman Coliseum?
If you go to scripture, you can look at all the various leaders of nations in order to surmise the statesman. Old Testament Israel looks like a recent Marine Corps slogan, “A Few Good Men.” Very few. A statue of General George Patton sits outside the library at West Point some say because he didn’t spend much time in there. Even Patton wouldn’t survive the present environment of the United States.
Today some propose settling for nothing short of Burkean conservativism in the trajectory of Russell Kirk. They yearn for William F. Buckley at the National Review. Jonah Goldberg just today, as I write this post, attacked Trump again. These conservatives, including many professing Christians, now take on the chief identification of Anti-Trump. In his piece, Goldberg insulted Trump voters, showing again, as he and others have again and again, got Trump wrong. This is seen all over his post in the LA Times, which doesn’t publish true conservatives, where he wrote:
One of the paradoxes of charismatic leadership is that the leader’s illegitimacy — in legal, rational or traditional terms — can have the effect of strengthening their hold on their followers. This dynamic has been at the heart of Trump’s distortion of the right. If the man cannot measure up to the traditional, moral, rational or legal yardsticks that conservatives once ascribed to leadership, then it is the yardstick’s fault for not measuring up to the man.
That’s right. Through his charisma, Trump has a cult-like, worshipful loyalty on his voters, who are called followers. All of these 74 million voters, which was more than any presidential candidate had ever received in any presidential election, could not see the fraud that Trump was like the enlightened Goldbergian human being. Goldberg said concerning the Founder of Turning Point USA, “Charlie Kirk, a pliant priest in Trump’s personality cult.” On the other hand, the public intellectuals (if that is possible), who voted for and defend Trump, call Goldberg the subject of Trump derangement syndrome. Douglas Wilson wrote last week:
Whatever I might think, the brains behind the progressive left have decided to take a header into the maelstrom of “doing whatever they can to advance the narrative and person and prospects of Donald J. Trump.” This is what a derangement syndrome can do to you. It turns the quivering brains of high-powered political operatives into a soupy kind of jelly, with green mold on the surface.
I see the jelly with the green mold coming out of Goldberg’s ears.
To speak of Trump without apology, consider why you voted for him, support him, and would vote for him again as president, even though you’re a Christian. You don’t have to use the Russia hoax, even the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade with all the conservative justices Trump appointed. Trump believes that something in the United States is of higher value than other nations worth protecting by securing the borders. Borders conserve something on the inside that is better than what is on the outside. That simple, basic conservative idea separated Trump from his competitors like the wall he aspired to build.
A long time ago the United States left the possibility of a Russell Kirk conservative. We are in much more desperate times. We have to look to principles much more basic than those outlined by Edmund Burke and Benjamin Disraeli. The Brexit vote in England recognized this too. What I’m describing, Jonah Goldberg calls “instrumentalism.” He wrote in another essay:
The least objectionable of them justified their decision in the name of instrumentalism—“Trump’s flawed, but we can use him.”
This isn’t using Trump until we can get somebody better. That’s still an argument for 2024. No, Trump is where we’re at. Maybe we will get somebody better, but that’s also the reasoning behind what led to Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump isn’t an instrument. He espouses necessary, rudimentary principles. His don’t go far enough. They don’t do as much as I would do. But they go further than what we would get from anyone else, such as names like Dole, McCain, and Romney. Even throw in George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Gerald Ford. Trump truly raised the bar over these men.
I want to argue just a little. You say, Trump is authoritarian. He’s a fascist. By far. By far, the greatest threat of fascism is the progressive left, like Ronald Reagan said:
America stands on four main values: Faith in God, Freedom of Speech, Family and Economic Freedom. If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.
Trump in his presidency practiced the separation of powers. He picked federalist Supreme Court justices, who did more to decentralize the federal government than in decades. Trump supported that. You’re just swallowing a lie when you say he’s a fascist or an authoritarian. He gave freedom to become energy independent, turning loose the American people.
Maybe you say he’s a want-to-be dictator because of January 6, 2020. Nothing like that came close to happening on January 6, nothing even nearly as bad as what did occur in Seattle, Portland, and the Twin Cities of Minnesota in the previous summer. The Russia hoax disenfranchised Trump voters. Illegal ballot harvesting did too. The perpetrators walk free. Does anyone think that we live under a fair justice system today? Where is the abuse of power? Who has attempted to criminalize parents who speak up in school board meetings?
I don’t apologize for President Donald Trump any more than I do for the minutemen on the Lexington Green.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
I appreciate, as you do, many of the policies Trump was able to accomplish in conjunction with the Republican controlled legislature during his four years in office. I am, for example, very thankful that he consulted with traditional conservative organizations like the Federalist Society and used the opportunity he had as a Republican president with a Republican Senate to appoint judges that overturned Roe.
I am wondering if you could clarify the evidence for your statement:
“None of the other 16 candidates would have defeated Hillary Clinton.”
I believe that David Hackett Fischer in his classic book Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought would view a statement like this as a fallacy, or at least something that requires a great deal of evidence. What is the strongest case you have read both for and against this position? What is your proof that all alternative positions are false, including the one that Hillary was a very weak candidate who also got a criminal indictment a few days before the election would have propelled many alternative candidates to victory against her?
I am wondering if you could also clarify:
“All of these 74 million voters, which was more than any presidential candidate had ever received in any presidential election, could not see the fraud that Trump was.”
Do you think that it is possible that some Trump voters thought he was a fraud, but thought Biden was a worse fraud? I can think some people who voted for Trump but could not stand him.
Also, when you are saying that Trump got 74 million votes, more than candidates in previous presidential elections, are you making a statement about the population of the USA (our population is growing, so more votes are cast in elections), about how mail-in balloting increased turnout, or about Trump’s actual support in the general population? Trump got vastly more votes than George Washington, for example, but that statement is meaningless because of the population size. Could you explain why getting 74 million votes really means Trump was very popular, if that is what you mean, or if you are simply making a statement about population growth and mail in balloting, what its significance is?
You stated, before quoting Douglas Wilson:
“On the other hand, the public intellectuals (if that is possible), who voted for and defend Trump, call Goldberg the subject of Trump derangement syndrome.”
I did not see the part in the article you linked to by Wilson where Wilson said Goldberg was the subject of Trump derangement syndrome. I did notice Wilson say: “I am no Trumpian … I might prefer someone else other than Trump.” Is Douglas Wilson making an apology of the kind this post says one should not make?
You stated: “A long time ago the United States left the possibility of a Russell Kirk conservative.”
Could you clarify why VP Pence and over a dozen Republican state governors, and many US Senators, would not be much closer to a limited government conservative than Trump? If they were able to win in their states—including in swing states—why is it impossible for one of them to become president?
You stated: “Trump in his presidency practiced the separation of powers. … You’re just swallowing a lie when you say he’s a fascist or an authoritarian. … Maybe you say he’s a want-to-be dictator because of January 6, 2020. Nothing like that came close to happening on January 6, nothing even nearly as bad as what did occur in Seattle, Portland, and the Twin Cities of Minnesota in the previous summer.”
Trump said in his January 6 speech: “I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president.” Rejecting the view that Vice President Pence’s position in tabulating electors was ceremonial and that the Constitution does not give the Vice President the power to reject the electors sent by the states, even months later Donald Trump argued: “I was right and everyone knows it … The Dems and RINOs want to take that right [of the Vice President to reject results] away.”
I have never been able to find out who the “top Constitutional lawyers” are that say the Vice President can unilaterally reject election results, with the consequence being that he and the president that lost can retain power. Can you point me to these top Constitutional lawyers? Trump said “everyone knows it,” everyone knows the VP can do this (presumably including me), but I cannot find even one serious legal case for it. I would be very interested in reading how this idea is taught in the Constitution and deeply rooted in our history, and how we got to the point where nobody alive seems to have heard of it until Trump brought it up in his pre-riot speech. Trump continues to believe that the VP can unilaterally reject results, as the second quote I gave above, from many months after his January 6 speech validates. Could you clarify if: 1.) You agree that the Constitution gave Pence the power to reject the results and then Trump would still be in power, or: 2.) If you disagree, whether you think that the VP having the power to reject election results would turn the republic into a dictatorship, and: 3.) If it is possible that conservatives that do not follow Trump do so because they prefer the republic to a dictatorship, and don’t want VP Harris to have the power to reject an election loss in 2024? Douglas Wilson, in the article you linked to, stated:
“You are not going to like the new rules.” The new rules he speaks of are the rules that they themselves hand-crafted out of their own lofty ideals and totalitarian impulses. But a free man, a man informed by the dictates of natural revelation and the principles of liberty that came down on tablets of stone from Sinai, is a man who wants to craft the kind of political order that would not present a severe threat to him or to his people, even if it were to be captured by his adversaries.
How do you think Trump’s repeated claims, for months on end, that the VP has the unilateral power to overturn election results meets the standard of this analysis by Wilson?
Also, could you explain if you think, or do not think, that Congress having to flee the Capitol building and delaying election certification is different from the owner of a car dealership in Portland having to flee his car dealership? If those chanting “Hang Mike Pence” had been successful in accomplishing what they were chanting, would that have been worse than having the owner of a car dealership in Portland hanged? (Of course, it would be very evil to hang any innocent person; that is not the question.) Is ten or even a hundred people being killed by rioters in Portland, or a thousand people being shot in Chicago gang violence, a more grave threat to our Republic than the assassination of one US senator or the Vice President while certifying election results? If “nothing even nearly as bad” happened on January 6 as in Portland, why exactly is what happened in Portland a greater threat to our Constitutional republic? Can we really say that just “not liking Trump” is the reason why, for example, the Republican Vice President before Pence said the following about Trump: “In our nation’s 246 year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election [in 2020] using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election … I know it, he knows it, and, deep down, I think most Republicans know it. … Donald Trump [must] never again [be] near the Oval Office.”? Please note my question is not whether Cheney has exercised some (Trumpian!) hyperbole here–the Emperor of Japan and the leader of the Third Reich in 1940 were greater threats to our Republic than Trump in our history. My question is why a large percentage of Republicans are saying this about January 6, if they were “nothing nearly as bad” as the riots elsewhere.
You stated: “The Russia hoax disenfranchised Trump voters.”
Could you clarify in what states Republican voters were “disenfranchised,” that is, forbidden to exercise their electoral franchise by either being removed from voting rolls or turned away at the polls, because of Hillary Clinton’s Russia hoax? Or are you saying that when media organizations or politicians tell lies this is “disenfranchisement”? If the latter, can you name any election in which there were no lies told by media organizations or politicians?
Finally, is the statement that Trump does not need to be apologized for specify that there is no nuance in evaluating him? What other political figures have no nuance? If I were in Egypt I would vote for Al Sisi, because it is either him or the Muslim brotherhood—I would vote for someone who engages in regular extra-judicial torture and executions of his enemies, because he is better than the Muslim brotherhood. (I would also seek to see churches established so the population could move toward supporting someone who favors the rule of law.) But I would certainly have a great deal to apologize for in Al-Sisi. Does Trump really have nothing in his poor character, in his ridiculous statements, and in his policies (being very weak on sodomy, never trying to balance the budget, etc.) that require an apology, or which need to be balanced with his positives?
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. I may not have time to respond, but will plan to read whatever you have to say in response to the above. Thanks again.
Thomas,
I’m not going to get into the kind of detail that would require a book to answer your comment. You want the kind of evidence sometimes that can’t be given, the idea being that if actual evidence cannot be given, then the point is false. I don’t believe so. Some is self-evident or obvious. I don’t have evidence right now that Kamala Harris will run in 2024 and not win. I believe it is self-evident she can’t win.
You reference a book on fallacies. I would say, So what? That doesn’t mean it’s a fallacy to say that Trump was the only one of the 16 to be able to win. First, Trump crushed the other 16. It wasn’t close. And then Trump barely defeated Hillary, even though losing the popular vote. You say it’s a fallacy to say that despite someone who crushed the other 16 and then barely won in the general election, one of those 16 would have done better.
Second, Trump brought in many new voters no one else would have. I guess that’s a fallacy, because you would say, you don’t know if they wouldn’t have voted anyway. Again, if political science is a science, then evidence shows that people only voted for Trump. No one else. He brought in new voters. Tens of thousands of people who did not ordinarily vote, voted for Trump. You may not understand them, think of them as deplorable, but this did occur.
You thought Trump was a fraud. You said it, and then you gave a very weak, almost non-existent, recantation afterward. You said he was lying to everybody and they would find out, so don’t vote for him. Was that a historical fallacy? Come to find out, everything he said he was going to do, he went about attempting to do. However, no, all 74 million did not think he was a fraud.
I’ll let the 74 million stand on its own for what it is. It was a huge amount of votes and far more than he got in 2016. We can get into all the reasons and I won’t, but that is true.
Regarding Douglas Wilson, he used the terminology for derangement syndrome. He didn’t apply it to Goldberg, but Goldberg has it in the same way that others do, as seen in the article. Both Wilson and I, I’m quite sure, would say Goldberg has it, since his reaction is parallel or even worse than others who have it.
If Trump runs, everyone else will drop out. Ted Cruz recently made that point. Others have. I believe even Karl Rove has made that point, who obviously is not a Trump fan, but he understands these things very well. People are waiting to see if Trump runs, before they announce, because they know if he does run, they don’t have a chance against him. If they don’t have a chance against Trump, then they don’t have a chance. I’m just reporting. I wish people could like Mike Pence, but I can tell you why they wouldn’t vote for Mike Pence. You can keep saying these types of things and keep being wrong, and then be silent after you’re wrong again. You had evidence on your side. You weren’t being fallacious. You were just wrong.
I’ll give two reasons Pence can’t win. One, people think he would wilt under the opposition he would receive, which is as harsh and overwhelming as ever. He doesn’t have what it takes to stand up as necessary. Two, Pence doesn’t inspire people. He can’t hold people’s attention. It’s snoozeville. He’s so measured, so careful, so wanting not to step on the slightest landmine, which are all over, that he doesn’t get hardly a tremor on the inspiration meter.
If Trump doesn’t run, I think maybe one other person could win. Not Mike Pence. DeSantis could run, but part of the reason is because in many ways, he was a Trump creation, a Trump-like figure, who became more and more Trump like as he watched Donald Trump.
Thomas, you can keep harping against January 6 and treating it in an overblown way. It’s another one of those, I’m not going to apologize situations. If someone was trying to take over the government, they did a very bad job of it. It didn’t happen. You play into the hands of the enemy yourself by continuing to bring it up like you do.
I understand why Trump wanted to do what he did. I don’t think he had a legal basis, but apparently he had lawyers who said he did. Finding a lawyer to agree with you is a bit like doctor shopping for getting a prescription you want. The Democrats on a regular basis find things in the Constitution that are not there. That’s their worldview and way of life. You can get into the technical aspect of this, but when you say little to nothing about the rampant ballot harvesting and the whole way that voting was changed against state constitutions and already existent election laws passed by the legislative branches, then it sounds like you are with the wrong side. When you spend ten times more breath talking about January 6 and not the killing and government take-over of federal property in the previous summer. Far more egregious offenders never went to jail and some of these January 6 people are still in jail. Lady justice took off her blind fold.
What evidence do you have that people saying, Hang Mike Pence, weren’t just a few crazies that voted for Trump? You are inflating the importance of those people, a kind of deconstruction of the event, in which you blow that up to a proportion to compare to actual killing and violence and take over of government buildings in the summer, or what happened in the streets of Racine and many other places in the country.
People who voted for Trump did not fully get their president, because the deep state operated in a way that slowed him down and didn’t allow him to function as president. These illegal activities took away a large portion of his presidency, thus disenfranchising his voters. You seem unsympathetic to that huge conspiracy, and rarely to never mention it. I don’t hear you say anything about Hunter’s laptop and many other actual conspiracies. You know they’re conspiracies, but can you show me an expose you have written on them?
A lot of people that like you, Thomas, voted for Trump and support Trump. I’m guessing they don’t get you. I would be surprised if you have persuaded one person to be Anti-Trump like you are. Instead, people who would like to say they voted for Trump will remain silent, because they don’t want to hear the barrage of material from you after they told you that, that in essence forces them to stay silent. The people I know, who didn’t support him, are the same people who tend toward wanting churches to be more “Woke.” There is an overlap here. It’s more anecdotal, so don’t ask for a study. It is self-evident to me.
I don’t think we need to apologize for Trump. That’s the situation we’re in. People don’t want an apology, really want one. Again, it’s where we’re at in the country. I could explain this more, and I guarantee you most people get what I’m saying. You don’t seem to get it, which I think is a mystery to many.
I read here all the time, & greatly appreciate the material. I rarely get to respond due to work.
I agree completely. IMO, most of the rancor I hear from Christians about supporting Trump finds its source in the vulgar comments made concerning women. Again, only my opinion, but once that audio tape came out, I saw a marked difference. People seemed to freak out over it – Especially Christians. I would encourage them to get over it.
Bro. Brandenburg – “Trump is where we’re at.” I also agree with this very much. Our nation is teetering on the brink of a civil war. I greatly like Ted Cruz, but I don’t think he would bulldoze the opposition. I like DeSantis, & he might be able to push back at the Leftist take over. But Trump is where we are at.
Again, only my opinion, but this nation is at the edge of civil war. I wish I knew what to do in such times, or how to guide my people in between the rights of an American citizen and the commands of Romans 13. It is confusing & very concerning.
And because I think this will grow worse, I really don’t see putting a G. W. Bush, Romney, or some other soft “Republican” in office will help. The old adage of “having leaders we aspire to be” really doesn’t apply to 2022.
“Trump is where we are at.”
Thanks Jim.
Just to clarify, the possible historical fallacy mentioned by Fischer is speculation on hypothetical “what if” worlds; at least according to him, it is quite difficult to judge what would have happened in scenarios that never took place, and thus it would be difficult to say that 16 different individuals potentially viable enough to win a national Republican nomination all would have lost to Hillary Clinton.
Pastor Brandenburg, thank you for writing. I agree. President Trump is a leader of men, much to the envy of his critics. I was once against President Trump, leading up to the 2016 election. I voted for Ted Cruz both in the primary and as a write in for the general election. I use to think President Trump’s supporters were cult-like. Then I did something I did not do while holding critical views of President Trump, I started to listen to his speeches for myself. To date, I have probably now listened to about 40 of them in their entirety. I am ashamed to say that I had been critical of President Trump before I took the time to listen to him. I realized much of my negative opinions of him were formed thanks to other critical opinions of him, largely from right leaning sources. To be fair, President Trump’s eccentric past and pragmatic business dealings also informed my opinion of him. Popular perception (and I believe the truth of his past is largely a perception), was fertile ground for “rightwing” critics to cast doubt on him as a champion of conservatism.
Once I started listening to President Trump’s own words (…consulting the primary source…) I was shocked at how wrong I was. Furthermore, as you point out, now with history behind us as hindsight, we know that his words were more than just words. He largely did what he said. He made all the right people uncomfortable. President Trump destroyed the credibility of the legacy media, he started no new wars, he closed accounts with ISIS, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Taliban, he brought peace with North Korea and a proposed formal end to the yet still “ongoing” Korean War (Peace Treaty on Korean Peninsula), as you mentioned he unlocked American energy, he punished unfair and undermining trade practices with countries like China, he delivered us from the Pairs Climate Accord, he revitalized Military equipment spending and NATO, he installed hundreds of mostly conservative federal judges, as you mentioned three Supreme Court Justices (directly leading to an overturn of Roe v Wade, the EPA ruling, and more!), he exposed alternate healings for COVID19 (to the great displeasure of the genocidal global elite), he won the 2020 election and still had the humility to accept the popular notion that he lost (by the deed of stepping down, he still maintains that he won of course), for the sake of the Republic, seeking rather to battle it out legally (as we’re now observing), and much, much more.
Post the 2020 election he has unceasingly continued to work for the American people, touring the nation, endorsing local candidates, his track record is incredible, greater than any one political leader that I know of in American history (188 wins, 19 losses as of 17 August 2022). President Trump’s work, his enthusiastic popular support, is a reflection of the Silent Majority’s rejection of the Global Rules Based Order. His work is laying the ground work for an ever increasingly conservative America well into the future. I personally believe President Trump was an act of mercy by God on America. I remember personally praying many times during the President Obama years, repenting of my sins, and seeking God for our nation’s deliverance. I know many other Christians did the same. Personal experience, yes, but it does line up with the historical view of President Trump’s actions. I believe it was intended, and there is evidence of this if you know where to look, if Hillary Clinton were elected the United States would have been destroyed. Thank God, He allowed President Trump to intervene. I also believe President Trump is not done. I believe he will be back in office. I am now unashamed to support President Trump. He is a great statesmen. I believe he will be remembered as a Father of his Country, the man who gave a dying nation a second chance. I also believe there is now hope that wasn’t present before, and there is great opportunity to evangelize a nation that has had a wakeup call. For perspective and as of yesterday’s Wyoming Primary, there are no longer any Clinton’s, Bush’s, McCain’s, or Cheney’s in elected office, thanks in large part, to President Trump’s unifying movement and endorsements.
This is speculative and my opinion. I believe President Trump’s critics on the right fall into two major camps currently. The first are false conservatives or controlled opposition, the second are the envious. You’re Sir Henry Taylor quote captures the latter (additionally, thank you for recommending his book – I intend to read it). They hate President Trump because they’re not President Trump. President Trump achieved what they could only write about. President Trump is the one God allowed to lead America out of the Globalist trap designed to destroy us. “Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?” –Proverbs 27:4.
Benjamin,
I agree with you.
Don’t feel like you need to read the book on Statesmanship. I quoted from it, and I’m sure people could learn from it, but my only point was to say that people would criticize Trump for not being a statesman, because statesmen would not do this or that, which Trump does. There are other books by far to read first that I would recommend before that book. Thanks again for the comment. You said many other things that are worth noting about Trump.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’ll leave the vast majority of it as it is. Just a brief follow-up. I would like to know:
1.) Since Trump still thinks the VP can unilaterally reject election results, if he gets enough people to adopt that system and go with it, has he brought the republic to an end and established a dictatorship? There are many Republicans I know now who vociferously defend–in the manner described by Jonah Goldberg–the idea that the VP can overturn election results.
2.) Trump said, concerning the VP’s alleged ability to reject election results, months after January 6, with plenty of time to reconsider: “I was right and everyone knows it … The Dems and RINOs want to take that right [of the Vice President to reject results] away.”
According to Trump, are you a RINO or a Dem because you don’t think the Vice President can unilaterally overturn election results? If you were an elected Republican, and you said that Trump was wrong on this and a system like that would be a dictatorship, would Trump attempt to eliminate you through a primary challenger who agreed with him that the VP can reject election results?
3.) What will you do if the progressive left loses in 2024 but Biden/Harris decide Trump was correct, and the VP can unilaterally reject election results?
Thanks.
Thomas,
I’m sitting here doing bank work for my mom, getting her up to speed after the death of my father. I’ll answer with your text in this comment:
Thomas wrote: “1.) Since Trump still thinks the VP can unilaterally reject election results, if he gets enough people to adopt that system and go with it, has he brought the republic to an end and established a dictatorship? There are many Republicans I know now who vociferously defend–in the manner described by Jonah Goldberg–the idea that the VP can overturn election results.”
Answer: I think you know Trump doesn’t believe in a dictatorship, neither does he want one. He also couldn’t have one with our three branches of government. I haven’t heard a hint of this. I don’t believe your conclusion follows because there is something wrong with your premises. Something like this. Major Premise: A person who uses power to undo election results for himself is a dictator. Minor Promise: Trump wanted that. Conclusion: Trump is a dictator. One, Trump may have tried to persuade Pence to do that and failed. If he did, he was probably legally wrong, depending on a loose construction of the Constitution. He wasn’t much of a dictator and he didn’t organize much of a force for a coup, if that’s what that was. A guy with horns on his head. A bum with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. An unarmed woman entering the building, instantly shot and killed. The only government official I know a part of it was Ray Epps, who encouraged protestors by means of entrapment. Is that a conspiracy, by the way? He’s on film doing it. What you are asserting, Thomas, is a stretch. Trump believed the election had been Rigged, the title of a book by Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist. I agree with him as do many others. He was desperate and not acting in the best way then, but understandable.
Thomas wrote: “2.) Trump said, concerning the VP’s alleged ability to reject election results, months after January 6, with plenty of time to reconsider: “I was right and everyone knows it … The Dems and RINOs want to take that right [of the Vice President to reject results] away.””
Answer: I answered this on number one. This disqualifies him for you. To me, I get his emotion and off the cuff statements in light of what happened. He put no filter on the comment.
Thomas wrote: “According to Trump, are you a RINO or a Dem because you don’t think the Vice President can unilaterally overturn election results? If you were an elected Republican, and you said that Trump was wrong on this and a system like that would be a dictatorship, would Trump attempt to eliminate you through a primary challenger who agreed with him that the VP can reject election results?”
Answer: We’ll have to see if that’s in Trump’s platform. I’m not that concerned about his degree of passion on this subject, even his making inaccurate comments. I believe your jump to his being a dictator is just as extreme or more extreme.
Thomas wrote: “3.) What will you do if the progressive left loses in 2024 but Biden/Harris decide Trump was correct, and the VP can unilaterally reject election results?”
Answer: I expect them to do worse. There is no precedent for it, because it didn’t happen. We could discuss all that really happened. It shows a kind of extremism that we’re discussing something that didn’t happen. It was talked about. Trump wanted it, but not enough to follow through to the extent that it happened. The Democrats actually followed through on the Russian hoax and taking over federal buildings. How about some equal time from you?
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
Thanks again for taking the time to comment. If you have the time, I would be interested in your response to this as well.
Just to clarify, is your view that the VP of the party in power having unilateral ability to overturn elections and reject state certified electors is only “probably” wrong, rather than being an egregious abuse of power, an overturning of the Constitution in a most fundamental way, and the end of the republic?
I don’t like using videos instead of written sources with careful documentation. I am wondering if you can comment on this very short one (5 min) that is part of the official congressional record. If you have evidence that the video is fake, made by paid people who are just acting, or something like that, I would be interested, as I am not aware of any evidence against its clear authenticity:
https://youtu.be/DXnHIJkZZAs
And let me know how the video footage comports with the view that January 6 could be accurately summarized as:
“A guy with horns on his head. A bum with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. An unarmed woman entering the building, instantly shot and killed.”
Thank you.
Thomas,
You seem to have a fondness for the January 6 committee as if it was a legitimate committee. You think that? The video is a highly edited video, produced for the greatest possible effect. Sure each of those things caught on video likely happened, but they aren’t put in context. Why? Consider the following article by Victor Davis Hanson: https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14212
Here is another from him: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/hanson-who-are-the-real-insurrectionists
I do think it’s interesting and curious that you are using a youtube video to make your point after what you’ve said about conspiracy theorists getting their material from watching youtube videos.
A big difference between that committee and this comment section is that there was no cross examination on the committee, something I’ve never heard from you. Here I am open to your cross examination. Nancy Pelosi’s committee was not. Isn’t that like, therefore, a show trial? Something in a totalitarian state?
When I said, “probably,” wrong, that you cherry picked like the Democrat produced video, in the context, I meant probably, as in I don’t know how much President Trump tried to persuade Vice President Pence. I don’t know what happened, so I said probably, because I don’t know if he offered a legal argument to Pence. I explained myself well enough, that is, Trump took a loose view of the constitution for this argument, the normal operating means of the Democrat Party and its justices and other appointed judges.
What I see in the video is a riot, not an insurrection, not a coup. There was violence from some, not even close to all. I don’t see an organized, military or police style raid into the capitol building. It was one taste of what happened all summer long and up to the election by Democrats on federal property. Many died in the Democrat supported BLM, Antifa operations. To me, your arguing for the Democrat side of this is like a useful tool for them, a Liz Cheney like usefulness. Again though, I don’t see it being persuasive, perhaps in your mind because they are just conspiracy theorists.
I have noticed the talking point, “the republic,” or “the end of the republic,” like the biggest threat to a Republican form of government came from Trump. I’ve given you several push backs and you have answered none of them. You isolate this one thing, January 6, as if it was a major threat to our way of government. It wasn’t. And if it was, why was there not a legitimate representation on the committee?
Here is a “death of the republic” article: https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/08/criminalizing-opposition-to-the-regime-is-how-the-republic-ends/
I’m sticking with a guy with a horn hat on his head, bum with his feet on a desk, and an unarmed woman shot. There was not a take-over of the capitol. There was a riot. You are lacking in an amazing amount of context and reality to your statements and presentation. This is not a justification of law breaking, but I’m providing a greater presentation of overall what happened. You are not.
Thomas,
With all due respect, there seems to be a lack of nuance in your description of what Pence’s role in this really was. There’s no doubt of the ministerial role that the VP plays in recognizing the electors, and the possibility of his decision to refuse to read them in. Of course, this course of action would cause a Constitutional crisis, and there would need to be significant actions taken to follow up on such an action, to determine if the VP acted lawfully under the circumstances and so on. However, you are missing the whole context of this: which is that we are already in a Constitutional crisis long before this point, as multiple states in November 2020 have violated equal protections clause by using unelected officials bypassing their state legislatures to enact new “covid-based” election rules, rules that egregiously violate equal protections, introduced at the eleventh hour without the knowledge or approval of legislatures who have authority over the matter, and statistical evidence clearly indicates that ballot harvesting has taken place in key swing states to the degree that it has invalidated the results in those states, which are determinitive of the entire election. This is what the Texas lawsuit was about, Texas v Pennsylvania, which was signed by the AG of Texas and 17 other states. Don’t believe me? It’s called Texas v Pennsylvania (2020). However, it was thrown out in December 2020 on a debatable technicality and not even heard, thus directly leading to the situation of January 6. So the situation with Pence is that we are already in, and continue to be in, a Constitutional crisis at this point. That’s already happened. Due to the actions surrounding the latest general election, and, according to many people’s sincere beliefs, he now has to act in the best interests of the Republic. So, whether we now become a third-world banana republic because of how this situation was historically handled remains yet to be seen, and whether or not people seem to have just swallowed the Associated Press forced narrative that there was “nothing wrong” with the 2020 general election, and it was the “more secure election that was ever held” with no ballot harvesting or other bizarre irregularities whatsoever. Will people take the clearly fallacious propaganda line?
I say this because if they acquiesce, they will get more of the same coming up. Voting windows that take weeks, maybe even months, where people can vote both before and after the single day in which the election is supposed to take place; and even more targeted spikes of unsolicited mail in ballots showing up in the places needed to tip the final result in favor of one party, now that they know they can get away with it, which happens to be the same party that does not want to investigate how the election was held after the results are in, and wants to ban people from social media for even talking about it, all of which is what happened the last time.
Surely, Thomas, you must realize that there have been sham elections in other part of the world at other times. I think Trump did the right thing to object, that what happened on November 3 does constitute a Constitutional crisis, but also did the right thing in the greater interest of the Republic, to go along with the results after the electors – even if they were electors that didn’t in fact represent their states – were recognized. The only unlawful action in this situation is on the part of various Democrats. That’s where something has to be done to save the country, because that unlawful action has to be addressed. In order to cover for themselves, they continue to hurl false accusations, just as a thief would loudly accuse others of stealing to conveniently remove suspicion of their own actions. It’s a desperate last stand on their part. Their last and final resort. The only thing left for them, Right before they fall – Because the reckoning is coming. But who more convenient for the Democrats to accuse, than the very people who caught them? They’re beaten, you just apparently don’t see it yet, Thomas.
We’ll see whether bad actors continue to be able to send out millions of unsolicited mail ballots which they then harvest, sign (while the signatures on the envelopes are unchecked and not verified), and dump into unmonitored dropboxes through mules coordinated through certain nonprofit organizations, and the machine politicians and their appointees in these mainly urban areas do nothing to stop them because it politically helps them and they have no values. This is like Tammany Hall times a million, if you get that reference. We’ll see whether God stops them, as that’s where the responsibility to end this ultimately lies.
You hit the nail on the head, anonymous.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
Thanks again for your reply. I appreciate your clarification that you do not think it is just probable, but absolutely certain, that the Constitution does not allow the VP to unilaterally reject state electors in order to get himself reelected. I suspect you would be very disappointed if those students you taught history to for many years started to believe such an anti-Constitutional, anti-freedom idea, just as someone I know who has taught history for years is unhappily amazed at having many of this person’s students adopt this idea as true because Trump said it.
Do you think that if I were the DA in Portland, OR, I would harshly prosecute those who violated the law by rioting? Do you think I would prosecute those who broke laws to favor the Clinton campaign, were I in the position to do so?
If so, what is the point of the statement that I have not spent a lot of time condemning Hunter Biden’s corruption, etc., when both of us have written zero blog posts on that, since, I suspect, we both recognize that the large majority of blog readers already know and agree on this matter?
If the video I posted accurately describes real events, would you be willing to describe the January 6 riot in person to the 140 injured police officers, or to the members of VP Pence’s security detail that almost needed to use deadly force to preserve the life of the Vice President of our country, as “a guy with horns, a bum with his feet on Pelosi’s desk,” etc.?
If an Iranian assassin, egged on by the Iranian president, got within 40 feet of the Vice President, intending to assassinate him, do you think I would favor a harsh response on Iran? Would everything be OK if the Iranians, after the attempt failed, said that they “loved” the assassin but it was “time to go home to Iran now”? Or might it still be the right time to blow up the government offices in Tehran with a few well-placed rockets, at a minimum?
Is it much different if a pro-Trump mob, egged on by Trump, violates many laws to break into the Capitol and gets within 40 feet of the VP, intending to hang him, while Trump watches it all on TV for hours, rejecting urgent calls from just about everyone to hurry up and condemn the violence, and only after a long, long time putting out a statement saying that he “loves” the people who were present in the Capitol, but (after they failed to disrupt the results) “it is time to go home now”?
In response to someone presenting facts, is it a logical fallacy to attack the character or motives of the person who presents them? If so, if Pelosi has partisan or nefarious motives for what she does, but she presents actual facts, are those facts invalidated? Did Richard Nixon not really break the law because Democrats had partisan motives to favor impeachment? In terms of cross-examination, has anyone explained how what it depicts either did not happen or does not accurately present what happened? I am happy to hear the best cross-examination that anyone can supply.
I am not disputing that the January 6 gathering was “mostly peaceful,” just like in Oregon most of the people who protested were peaceful, resulting, in both cases, in “mostly peaceful” protests, although in Oregon nothing happened that came anywhere close to threatening the life of the Vice President of the United States, or members of the Senate, at the immediate instigation of lies told by the President.
If Biden said, even one time, in a public speech, that, upon running for reelection in 2024, if the election were called for his Republican opponent, and after filing and losing 63 out of 64 lawsuits disputing election results, the states sent electors that said that Biden lost his reelection bid, but Biden said he would have VP Harris reject the electors so that they could stay in power, would that be deeply troubling?
If, instead, Biden repeated this idea for month after month after month, hammering away on the VP being able to overturn elections, stating that “everyone knows” this is the “right thing” to do, convincing a big percentage of his party that the VP can unilaterally overturn election losses, while working to oust party members who disagreed in primary elections, would Biden be declaring that he would execute a coup de etat if he lost in 2024? Would it be wise to believe that he was not making his typical foolish gaffes, or employing his typical bombast and exaggeration, but that he actually meant what he said?
Unless I missed it, the links you provided did not dispute any of the facts in the video I posted. They pointed out things like violence by BLM people should be investigated and prosecuted, immigration law should be enforced, the Supreme Court should not be packed, people who attack pregnancy centers should be prosecuted, etc., all of which I agree with, and none of which changes what I have said above.
Why not support a Republican who has conservative policy positions but is not, like Trump, either so delusional or egotistical that he is willing to overturn the Constitution to favor the VP having the power to reject state-certified election results if it helps him personally save face or retain power?
I am done commenting on this post, but I plan to read any further response you wish to kindly offer. Thank you.
Anonymous, could you please direct me to a careful, scholarly, well-documented written response to:
https://lostnotstolen.org/
“The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election”?
Allusions to the 2000 Mules video that does not stand up to critical analysis is not going to be sufficient (if you have watched the video, have you also read at least one careful critique of it?) and inaccurate statements about rogue unelected officials is not sufficient. As David Cloud (who is hardly tending towards churches going woke) has pointed out:
In order to believe the lie that President Trump actually won a landslide victory on November 3rd, but malevolent and fraudulent forces somehow changed the result, you must also accept a succession of ridiculous falsehoods. You must first believe that vote counters in at least three states, many of them lifelong Republicans, deliberately, inexplicably erased millions of votes for Trump or else manufactured millions of invalid votes for Biden. You must believe that Republican controlled state legislatures in all the major swing states – Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona – inexplicably went along with the steal. More than 60 prominent judges also acquiesced, including all nine members of the Supreme Court, three of whom Trump himself recently appointed. Moreover, to accept the foundational lie of the ‘Stop the Steal!’ campaign you must also believe that cunning conspirators simultaneously rigged the election for Joe Biden and for some of the most conservative Congressmen out there. The November ballots challenged as illegal frauds by the likes of Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs, are the very same ballots that re-elected said Brooks, Gosar, Gaetz and Biggs. How do you invalidate Joe Biden’s victory without tearing up or casting aside the simultaneous victories of GOP Congressmen in the states whose count you now seek to discard?
I am not going to respond to whatever you post as a response, but please feel free to give me the written, carefully documented sources. I would be interested in reading, not crazy ideas from the guy that wants to sell My Pillows, but a careful explanation, lawsuit by lawsuit, for why Trump lost 63 of the 64 lawsuits he filed disputing the election results, while the only lawsuit he won would not have come close to overturning election results.
I’ll try to keep this limited.
1. I appreciate many things that John MacArthur has written and said. I will not state that without also stating some of my concerns about other things. I don’t consider that “apologizing.”
2. I also don’t consider it apologizing to say that, while I believe Donald Trump in his policies was a very good President, there are things I simply cannot endorse. That includes both political (deficit spending, LGBT agenda, Covid response, some other stuff) and moral matters.
3. I don’t care whether it does me any good to mention those things, to “apologize,” or not. I mention those things because I believe it is in general keeping with Isaiah 5:20.
4. I don’t put my trust in princes, whether it be Trump or those who are out to get him. I have no confidence in the honesty of either side.
5. I don’t claim to know whether there was sufficient fraud to turn the election, but I’ll say this. If a church had the same openness / transparency / integrity in handling money that Democrat-controlled jurisdictions displayed in handling votes and election integrity, I’d leave that church immediately. If the Democrats weren’t cheating, they intentionally did things that gave the impression they wanted to have the option to cheat. There are too many cases to think it’s an accident. Whether it was enough to overturn the election, I don’t know. But those responsible for a fair count of ballots are in a similar position of trust to those responsible for proper use of money. “Provide things honest in the sight of all men” didn’t happen, and they are still fighting to keep it from happening in future.
6. It’s certain that there was a left-wing media conspiracy to cheat by suppressing the laptop story. Anyone who denies that wasn’t paying attention or is dishonest. And that was probably sufficient to turn the election.
7. All that said, when I look at the corruption of American society, it seems clear we have the government we deserve. This society does not deserve a good, upright, honest government.
Finally, people across the entire political spectrum need the Lord, and I wonder how much Christians allow our political views to hinder us from reaching those with different views.
Jon,
I’m not going to apologize. I liked your comment. 😀
I’m fine with apologizing. It’s just that I think it does no good and the other side is insincere in their desire to make Trump a very moral man. I apologize too, but I’ve found it is talking to someone that doesn’t really care. It’s rinse and repeat. Thanks though. You’re a good writer.
I agree with most of your points very much, and I see where you’re coming from. The main thing I would very considerately disagree with, is the idea that God’s people should be placed under a bad, dishonest government, to the extent that people are forced to be exposed to a person or group of people that merely acts like they are following the laws, and even when everyone knows they aren’t – because they are breaking all of the constitutional law that has governed this nation – but to further deepen the wound, they continue acting and lying about it anyway, acting like there’s nothing wrong, trying to gaslight us to believe or at least accept a lie that there was nothing wrong with what they did. There are people in the Democrat party who have performed malfeasance, who deserve to be tried – yet, have not yet been. They think they’ve won, because that’s how they always lie to themselves, but they’re on the road to a loss if they don’t have a change of heart. In the short term, we’re inundated nonstop with their sorry attempts – through lying and gaslighting (where they keep lying and lying boldly until you begin to question yourself) – to justify what they’ve done and what they’ve exposed the rest of us to. Even going so far as to force people to take fetal cell injections to justify abortion. And I know people who have been negatively affected. So, I am sorry to see that some people seem to be affected in some way by these lies, but apparently, some want to come to a misguided compromise between lies told by murderers (abortion), and the simple truth. The truth is that these people are illegitimate criminals who have broken their oaths of office, liars who have clearly and flagrantly violated the trust they have received even while others still uphold it – but the penalties in some cases — for those that are still around as of this writing — are still pending. Not a single thing or compromise should be given to them or their side or their point of view, neither to that of a traitor, for this is only a disgrace — as said individuals are traitors indeed.
The good answer is, that in the US, we are not actually given such a corrupt government, because the higher power of God, is recognized first and foremost in the founding documents by the writers thereof. The Lord holds the highest official position in the Constitutional system, and alone is formally “above” it, having been the one who originally consented to giving it before it existed. Many misguided folks seem to have forgotten that; They apparently think that heaven is empty, and think that their behaving against the appointed laws and procedures, such as what the Democrats did recently, comes without consequence. It’s up to us to continue acting responsibly. It’s in God’s hands what to do.
Anyways, usually, bad views tend to go together, so people with misguided ideas about political facts will have misguided views elsewhere. I’m not so much concerned about reaching out to people who hold objectively wrong ideas by espousing a compromised position, but rather I think we should recognize that political concerns (like many things) are secondary to values, which ought to come from the Bible. Like it says in Luke, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
OTOH, if truth in one sphere is going to scare someone away, why do we think they won’t be equally repulsed by truth in others areas such as how we live our personal lives? That’s just bound to happen with some proportion of people, and we shouldn’t blame it on our not being willing to compromise on matters of right and wrong. Some people just choose to be enemies of the truth. And if they’re scared of politics they’re just going to be scared of other truths as well. So, don’t let the enemies of the truth guilt trip you. Because this is part of their playbook. Guilttripping about politics is their bread and butter, and pretending like that was their “stumbling stone” about what you say, when in reality they have much, much bigger, underlying issues than that. The enemies of the truth just lie and pretend otherwise; They like to pretend that if you JUST hadn’t gone into “politics,” everything would somehow be A-OK with them. (Come on now.) And this lie by various enemies of the truth seems, unfortunately, to have affected some of us. They seem to think that they weren’t nice enough, when in reality they were extremely nice and the problem just wasn’t with them.
Hopefully that makes sense. I agreed with most of your points but had a couple thoughts.
Dr Brandenburg,
Thanks for the article. You probably know well about the psychology of making another person apologize for doing nothing wrong, as how some are so affected they do it without prompting now. I think I can see part of the reason why you would make this article.
Thomas,
You need to listen to Ben Shapiro’s podcast from August 19. Episode 1559. The first segment he explains what the Democrats are willing to do to keep Trump out of office. He explains the motive of the left. The openly state what they want to do. Take a listen.
Thomas, who are your influences? You sound like you are getting your talking points from CNN or MSNBC.
It’s really sad that you go to great lengths to ultimately destroy Trump. The fact that you don’t understand nuance when it comes to politicians is sad. You can’t see the big picture.
Thanks for writing this.
Ryan
More and more, you are drifting away from your past writing to obsess about politics. It is a sickness. Turn off cable “news,” stop reading “news” websites, and find something useful to do with your life.
It would be one thing if you actually had something credible to say. But, you spout conspiracy theories with the best of them and help prop up perhaps the trashiest, most dishonest politician in US history (certainly the worst during our lifetimes).
You are a liar, Fred Kelly. I write one or two of these every year and over a hundred of something else. You’re also terrible at assessing what’s happening in the culture from a scriptural point of view. That’s obvious.