The Conservative Case for Trump

There are a few people I admire that are making the case to vote for Trump. I want to want to vote for Trump. I am considering their arguments.

Eric Mextaxas:

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: You write that “we need a culture of virtue, and our leaders have a vital role to play in that regard.” Is it really the role of our political leaders to model virtue?

ERIC METAXAS: Generally speaking, yes. How they behave affects how citizens think of the whole government and the whole nation. When one has a Washington in leadership, or a Lincoln, one knows that one can generally trust one’s government to do the right thing, even when it is very, very difficult to do the right thing. Virtuous leaders inspire virtue in the citizenry. They help us believe that the system is not rigged, but that it’s generally something that works and that needs our attention as citizens, that invites our attention.

KJL: Does that automatically suggest one cannot vote for one Donald J. Trump?

METAXAS: Not only can we vote for Trump, we must vote for Trump, because with all of his foibles, peccadilloes, and metaphorical warts, he is nonetheless the last best hope of keeping America from sliding into oblivion, the tank, the abyss, the dustbin of history, if you will. If you want to know how bad things are in America, and how far we have gone, read the previous sentence aloud over and over. ("Eric Metaxas on Virtue and...Donald Trump",  Jun 17, 2016)

Dennis Prager: Voting For Trump Is Like Dropping The Atomic Bomb On Japan — In A Good Way!

Conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager, who initially wasn't for Trump at all, sees Hillary Clinton as a far worse alternative.
"In life you don't always get a choice between wonderful and awful. You get between awful and more awful and I'll always take the awful over the more awful," Prager explained.
…
Prager believes the moral choice isn't about backing Trump or not - it's much greater.
"We dropped two atom bombs over Japan. Why? Because the context morally demanded it and the moral demand in our time in America is the defeat of the Left," Prager rationalized.
In the end, that may be Trump's saving grace. ("Moral Demand of Our Time Trump's Only Saving Grace?", cbn.com)

Dennis Prager again:

In the 2016 presidential race, I am not interested in moral purity. I am interested in defeating the left and its party, the Democratic Party. The notion (expressed by virtually every #NeverTrump advocate) that we can live with another four years of a Democratic president is, forgive me, mind-boggling. To that end, with at least one, and probably multiple, additional leftists on the Supreme Court, a Republican presidential victory in 2020 would mean little. All the left needs is the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court. Left-wing judges pass so many left-wing laws that they render those who control Congress, and even the White House, almost irrelevant. 

Here, then, are nine reasons (there are more) why a conservative should prefer a Trump presidency to a Democrat presidency: 

• Prevent a left-wing Supreme Court.
• Increase the defense budget.
• Repeal, or at least modify, the Dodd-Frank act.
• Prevent Washington, D.C. from becoming a state and giving the Democrats another two permanent senators.
• Repeal Obamacare.
• Curtail illegal immigration, a goal that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with xenophobia or nativism (just look at Western Europe).
• Reduce job-killing regulations on large and small businesses.
• Lower the corporate income tax and bring back hundreds of billions of offshore dollars to the United States.
• Continue fracking, which the left, in its science-rejecting hysteria, opposes. 

For these reasons, I, unlike my friends, could not live with my conscience if I voted to help the America-destroying left win the presidency in any way. 

I just don't understand how anyone who understands the threat the left and the Democrats pose on America will refuse to vote for the only person who can stop them. ("A Response to My Conservative #NeverTrump Friends", Dennis Prager, May 24, 2016)

Eric Metaxas says we should be willing to vote for Trump for the sakes of “the least of these” ("Should Christians Vote for Trump?", WSJ, 12 Oct 2016).  I disagree.

"I prefer a future in which the conservative movement (e.g., pro life, pro traditional marriage, etc.) is besieged by the left, than a future in which it is corrupted by the right." (Jeffrey Thayne, FB Post, 23 Sep 2016) (My public FB Post referring to Jeffrey)

Update 2016-10-15

Hugh Hewitt has also been one that has been supporting Trump until the 2005 tape came out. I think out of a realistic look at the politics of it he has stopped supporting him.

"For the benefit of the country, the party and his family, and for his own good, @realDonaldTrump should withdraw. More and worse oppo coming" (Hugh Hewitt on twitter, 8 Oct 2016)

Hugh says that the 2005 tape of Trump is "an admission against interest" ("10/11/16 Hugh Hewitt on MSNBC w/Craig Melvin" at 4:23, YouTube) It was a tipping point for Hugh and many, many Republicans.