THOSE who have read my articles in these pages know I support Donald Trump, voted for him, donated to his campaign, endorsed his vice-presidential pick, share many of his hatreds, lost friends over my support for him, and reduced my cachet considerably in the large Anglo-Irish family to which I belong. For me, America is so far down the road towards civilisational Armageddon that only a man like Trump – and let’s face it, there is no other like him – is capable of saving it.
Having said this, I don’t consider him above criticism. Far from it. MAGA, yes, but not to the point of worshipping the ground he walks on or not calling him out when circumstances call for it.
I remember literally praying that he would drop out of the presidential race in 2016 when a recording of him making lewd comments about women resurfaced. Still, if I am honest, my prayers were prompted not so much by his crude comments about the fair sex, ungentlemanly though they were, but by calculating that he would lose, mistakenly, as it turned out, to the dreaded Hillary Clinton, a woman to which the term ‘evil’ can be affixed like a tattoo. Therefore, believing that he would have a better chance of beating her, in the primaries my wife and I supported Marco Rubio, who is now making his mark as US Secretary of State.
Rubio won Minnesota but not the nomination. And it was only later that I came to appreciate Trump and what he wanted to do for America, literally dancing with joy when I learned that he had won the presidency in November 2016.
Despite several attempts to impeach him, Trump achieved much in his first administration. And I will hesitate not one whit to give him my full support this time round. I also consider myself duty-bound to call him out when I think he is saying or doing something that harms his mission to save America. A wise person once said that science is too important to be left to scientists; let me add that Trumpism is too important to be left to Trump, if you follow my meaning. Indeed, he owes it to the American people and those millions who voted for him and continue to support him to get it right this time around. At present, there is no one else who can reverse the seemingly unstoppable decline of the United States, the indispensable nation. If he fails, and the America- and civilisation-hating Democrats win the presidency in 2028, there will be little chance of going back and all will be lost. Excuse the expression, but this great nation will become China’s prison bitch, sucking up to the Middle Kingdom while playing lickspittle to the liberty-loathing authoritarians in Brussels.
Despite my misgivings about Zelensky – and I have many, I assure you – I was disturbed by the clumsy and inhospitable way he was treated by Trump and Vice President Vance at the infamous press conference in the Oval Office earlier this year. Again, I’m no fan of Zelensky and would very much like to see the war in Ukraine – ‘Verdun with drones’, as I call it – a war that is taking the lives of countless young men near to where titanic battles of World War II were fought around places like Kursk and Karkov, but I believe it would have been more productive had Zelensky not been called out for not wearing a suit (Churchill famously wore specially tailored boilersuits at the height of the Blitz and even on a visit to the White House) and not doing more to stop the war, which Trump and Vance could have said in private.
Then there was the fallout over including a Trump-hating journalist in a group email concerning the bombing of Houthis in Yemen. The establishment are still making hay from that one, although they have now turned their prime attention to Trump’s implementation of tariffs and the reactions of markets, suddenly discovering the virtues of Adam Smith and laissez-faire after decades of championing Keynesianism or even socialist economics.
Yes, I understand that a lot of people are nervous about the plummeting stock market, my wife and I, both retirees, among them. I am not qualified to assess the current crisis but have to say that Trump has a point when he claims that America is being shortchanged regarding international trade. All America wants is a level playing field. Trump’s tariffs are merely a way to make America’s trading partners pay us what we are paying them, symmetrical tariffs or lack thereof as opposed to the asymmetrical tariffs that have enriched so many nations but done possibly irreparable harm to American manufacturing and deadened America’s entrepreneurial and inventive spirit.
It’s easy to find fault with Trump, too easy. For many holier-than-thou European elites, the sort of people who use ‘summer’ as a verb, he represents a kind of smorgasbord of all they detest about the vulgarity to which they believe Americans to be prone, the apotheosis of the ‘ugly American’ of the 1950s.
For what it’s worth, I’m sticking with him because there is no one else to stick with. Notwithstanding his Wagnerian vanity, his tendency to boast and exaggerate, his constant use of the superlative, his occasional boorishness and propensity to mock others, and what many perceive to be his appalling dietary requirements, he is alone among American politicians at present who is able to save America from those who hate it and will take pleasure in its demise, both here and abroad.
