Plenty of Bullets to Bite

You’ve heard it before, “I support Donald Trump because he is a straight-shooter who always tells it like it is. He’s a businessman, not a politician.”

Now we’re hearing a slightly different tune, “Donald Trump is such a genious! He totally knows how to talk like a politician, saying one thing but really meaning another. Isn’t he the greatest?”

I am, of course, referring to Trump’s most recent flip-flop (I say “most recent” to differentiate it from the voluminous other flip flops from the recent past), namely the “softening” of his position on deportation of illegal immigrants. This article is not meant to delineate on the pros or cons of Trump’s position or to argue immigration policy. We’ve done that here and here. Neither is this a school-yard "I told you so".

Rather this article is merely an attempt to politely point out that we are losing our foundational principles and this will have far more devastating results than the potential loss of an election. This will in fact lose our country and our freedom as we know it.

When a politician (and yes that is what Trump has become and arguable always has been) says what is most advantageous at the time, even when that may go against his beliefs or previous statements, Americans are outraged. As well they should be. Truth is a precious and rare commodity today, and everyone is desperate to know they can trust what they are being told.

With Trump, this is not the case.

However, we’ve come to expect that kind of linguistic gymnastics (aka lying)...from the left. Conservatives and Republicans have been the loudest critics of liberals every single time we saw an inconsistency. Every time they said one thing and did another, we vigorously pointed it out and decried the media’s obvious bias and unwillingness to cover it.

Now, it is many of us who are doing the exact same thing that we hated. We are saying we want truth and honesty, yet we are embracing with arms wide open and eyes tight shut the lies of a power hungry, narcissistic egomaniac. Now, it is many Republicans who said they hated the immigration policies of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio who are defending nearly the exact same policies from Trump.

Perhaps it is because many on the right see their “leader” doing the exact same thing that we somehow feel justified in doing it ourselves.

The distinction that must be drawn in supporting Trump and voting for Trump. I have not been able to find, nor have I heard, a legitimate, principled defense for wholeheartedly supporting Trump. I have heard convincing arguments for biting the bullet and voting for Trump.

But those are two very different thing.

I understand and sympathize with those who feel they have no choice but to vote for Trump. I’ve written about that same struggle in my own heart. It is not an exaggeration to say Americans are faced with the hardest choice we’ve ever had to face. But our hardest challenges will reveal either our greatest strengths or our deepest flaws.

I challenge you, Trump supporter, Clinton advocate, or undecided, to search your own heart. Are you making your choices based on principle? Is there something underlying the decisions you are making? Or are you merely defending the indefensible because you think your only other choice is Hillary Clinton?

That is not your only other choice. As I see it, supporting and defending either Clinton or Trump is an absolutely untenable position. Voting for Hillary Clinton is an absolutely untenable position. Voting for Donald Trump....well, all I can say is you better stock up on ammo. Because you’re going to need a lot of bullets to bite.

Standing on principles, and doing what you know is right based on timeless truth. That is the only position that we can take. It is the position that founded this country. It is the only position that will preserve this country.

Jonathan Paine

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