Below is an edited response to a question my daughter asked (via email) on April 28th. The conversation took place before Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the race, leaving Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party as of May 4th.
Q: I’m curious about your thoughts on
this whole election debacle? I honestly don't even know what to think right
now. Bernie Sanders appeals to me for obvious reasons but I doubt he'll get the
Democratic nomination and I don't really know how I feel about Hillary and I am
so horrified at the thought that TRUMP could be the Republican nominee but,
even if he wasn't, I wouldn't pick Cruz. So, where do you go?
A. This morning I wrote a Letter to the
Editor to the Los Angeles Times in response to an above-the-fold front page
article called "GOP Gender Problem Just Got Worse." The article
focused on Trump's anti-woman derisive comments about Hillary. Here's what I
wrote:
Donald Trump may have a gender problem, but the GOP does not. Donald Trump is not a Republican. He is an impostor who has hijacked the party and is taking it and the country on a nauseating joyride for his own amusement. The legitimate Republican candidate just announced as his running mate Carly Fiorina (female gender). That should have been the front page story.
That's what I think
about Trump. If he becomes the nominee, I don't vote for him. But I don't vote
for Clinton either. Cruz was not my favorite
(Marco Rubio was), but he's who I'll vote for. If Trump beats him to 1237,
either before or during the Cleveland Convention, and becomes the GOP nominee,
I hope Cruz/Fiorina run as a third party Independent ticket. Even if there are
some things about him that I don't like, he is still, at his core, a principled conservative.
Donald Trump is not
a conservative. He's as big government as Clinton. Worse, he's a "strong
man," a bully. Deep down, he's a liberal Democrat, no different from
Clinton. So people who want a left-leaning, big government, 2016 is their year, it
doesn't matter if it's Trump or Clinton. I don't think I could bear 4 or 8
years of either. My skin crawls every time I hear one of them speak.
Sanders' appeal to
you and to the younger generation and some in my generation, I find puzzling.
Socialism has proven to be a failed system at best, and, at worst, a cruel and
dehumanizing system. The fact that the Millennials are excited by him is not
surprising since schools don't teach history anymore. But the Boomers and older
should know better. A free market economy, with limited government regulation
(limited, not eliminated), where innovation and entrepreneurial spirit is
fostered, is what leads to a stronger economy, and yes, more opportunities for
people to be employed and enter the middle class, to achieve the American
dream. Government is there to protect, to provide a bona fide safety net but
not cradle-to-grave security.
I’m particularly puzzled about why young women
are attracted to "big government." Women who pride themselves on
independence, even to the point where they declare they don’t need a man. This new generation of feminists are so proud of their
independence, but they embrace the idea of big government. What's "big government" if not, ultimately, a
"daddy" or "husband" to take care of you, a la The Life of Julia? The beauty of
conservatism is in its sense of self-dependence.
Socialism takes all that away ("the government will take care of me and of
him, no need for charity, etc.).
The other day, I
watched a fascinating interview from an old William F. Buckley, Jr. Firing Line
segment. He was interviewing Margaret Thatcher before she had become Prime
Minister. Most leftists despise her, but her comments and insights about
socialism were very astute. She makes the case quite strongly about the harm a
socialist government inflicts on individual freedoms, how people lose a sense
of purpose, despite the fact that all their needs are supposedly being met by
the government.
These are my core
beliefs as a conservative. My thinking these days is
this: conservatism is the "wine" that's stored in the
"bottle" of the Republican party, which is why I'm no longer a
Democrat. Once the Democratic party embraced abortion with no restrictions I
changed my affiliation. But I'm not a party loyalist. If the Republican party
skews left, which it will with Donald Trump at the helm, conservatism will
have to find another wine bottle. You've heard the saying, "I didn't leave
the Democratic party, the party left me." That will be true of me, as well
as many conservatives, even if it means losing the election.
Below are two short videos
from Prager U that are relevant to the discussion
about socialism. The first talks about something called The Laffer Curve, which
maybe you studied in college economics (I didn't--I'm still catching up). The
Laffer Curve has to do with the point at which the government actually loses
money when tax rates reach a certain point. The other explains why
conservatives believe government should not get too big, and addresses the
problems in the European Union.
Government: Isit Ever Big Enough? (William Voegeli, Senior Editor, Claremont
Review of Books)
Lower Taxes,Higher Revenue (Tim Groseclose, Professor of Economics, George
Mason University)
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