Tuesday, May 2, 2017

MR. PRESIDENT, I’M EXPERIENCING AN INCREASING LEVEL OF ANXIETY…


When Donald Trump first announced he was running for president I must admit that I never really thought he stood much chance of actually winning.  But I do remember thinking that at least he would make things interesting.  And then as the campaign progressed and candidates dropped by the wayside, while I started to pay him a bit more attention, I still thought that he would likely flameout before ever getting to the finish line.  And finally when it came down to just Trump and Cruz, I tended to side with Cruz, because my main issue with Trump was the question of ‘trust.’  But when Cruz finally dropped out, and Trump became, essentially, the last man standing, I was left with a decision to make.  I knew I was going to vote, staying home on Election Day simply wasn’t an option for me.  And there was no way I was going to be voting for Hitlery or that boob Gary Johnson.  And left me with just one option.  So it was then that I became somewhat of a reluctant passenger on the “Trump Train.”  But still, even then, I had that little voice in the back of my head asking me, “But can you trust him?” 

And so, even while listening to that little voice, and praying to God I was doing the right thing, I went off to the polls and I voted for Trump.  And I will admit, that when looking at the alternative, I genuinely hoped he would win.  Because I felt, as I have said before, that Trump on his worst day as president would still be a better president than Hitlery on her best day.  I watched Trump’s inauguration speech and I while thought it was good speech I was more interested in seeing what he would do to follow up on it.  So I watched as things progressed through his first 100 days, and while there were plenty of peaks, there were also some valleys that appeared, and even though I saw them as being fewer in number, cumulatively they were more concerning to me.  I had hoped that on his first day in office he would have summoned the congressional leadership teams from both parties to the White House to ‘discuss’ his expectations going forward.  And I thought he could have been a bit more aggressive regarding the ‘discussions’ on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  He wasn’t and real progress has yet to be made.      

Which brings me to the latest issue causing me some level of angst, which is the spending bill.  To say that I am disappointed would be quite the understatement.  And while I applauded Trump’s skipping of the White House correspondents dinner, he’s going to need to do much more than to make speeches during which he talks about doing great things, chief among them the building of “The Wall.”  President Trump has already indicated that he intends to sign this new budget agreement, despite growing dissent from his base that Congressional Republicans once again caved on important conservative priorities.  After an agreement was reached, Democrats crowed that they were able to save funding for Planned Parenthood and block funding for the wall, despite Trump’s campaign promises.  Trump admitted there were not any dramatic cuts, and that it still funded Planned Parenthood in the agreement, but seemed optimistic that he could fight those battles in the future.  And it was again that I heard that little voice.  And all I could do was to shake my head.

Trump blamed Democrats for being “obstructionists” in the process, indicating he was not looking for a showdown over government shutdown in the first months of his presidency.  He said, “Look, the Democrats are obstructionists; that’s all they can do is obstruct. They have no leadership. And we have to agree, and I think both — both sides agree, we have to keep government going, we don’t want to shut government.”  Now he can complain about the Democrats until the cows come home, but that will do nothing to instill any level of confidence in those who continue to support him, which I still do.  Because all I could think of was how it was that he got rolled and our RINO Republicans simply folded, again.  They ended up with nothing, really.  And I also had to admit that it was all kind of embarrassing. And not just for Trump or the congressional Republicans, but for everyone who voted for them.  This ‘budget’, if you can call it that, was nothing short of a total loss for those of us seeking nothing less than successfully getting our country back on track and headed in the right direction.  

I used to pay a bit more attention to Charles Krauthammer than I do these days, before he became such an obvious ‘Never Trumper’.  But I kind of had to agree with his assessment of this recent budget disaster.  Because it was when discussing it that he said, “I understand the strategic idea, we’re halfway through the year, only a few months left, this has all been negotiated in the past. You save your fire for September when you do next year. That’s what they say every time. They save their fire, and they don’t use it the next time. Now, Trump has been wonderful, I think, in sort of throwing out a lot of ideas, starting with the gas tax. The Kim idea wasn’t a great idea, but there’s no denying the fact that this was not a win. He was not the winner he said he was or negotiator. This is a total loss.”  And I had to admit that he was right.  There is absolutely no way you can look at this, if you are a conservative, and make the claim that it is in ANY way a victory.  No way at all.  So the little voice that I’ve been forced to contend with got just a little bit louder over the course of the last week.

I did not vote for Trump only to have him compromise with the RINOS and the Democrats.  I voted for him to come in and kick some ass.  Instead, once again Republicans gave the Democrats everything they wanted and I’m sure they had quite the party afterward.  Planned Parenthood, funded.  Sanctuary cities, funded.  All government agencies, funded.  And, wait for it...NO MONEY to begin the wall!   It even has language that prohibits money from being used for a permanent wall or any part of its planning.  The closest thing the money can be used for is for fixing that border fencing.  We gave Republicans everything and still they continue to cave to the left like good little lapdogs. Democrats could not have gotten a better budget with Hitlery as president.  This spending bill should be vetoed.  Period!  This monstrosity is simply a giant FU to those who voted for Trump.  The Republicans in Congress have continually stabbed us in the back going all the way back to 2010 election.  We should have expected nothing less after the 2016 election!  And if Trump signs this bill, he’s telling all of us that he’s willing to go along with them. 

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