"2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
"Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances."
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Michael Anton's essay was the seminal essay leading up to the election explaining why a true conservative HAD to vote for Trump, and why the Washington "conservative" intelligentsia had morphed into NeverTrumpers and hated him. It's good to look back at Anton's essay and see if he was right in supporting Trump. Of course, he was. In looking at the Syrian withdrawal, Obamacare evisceration, regulation rollback, renewed energy production (even exporting nat gas), Trump's Federal court appointees and the new Supreme Court make-up, Anton was right in spades.
Trump still has two hurdles to go--which will be his hardest--a trade deal with China that makes sense, and border security/a wall. But if he gets both, then he will be regarded as the most effective President in a generation regardless of the number of years served.
Those of you like CC72, Frank, Chris, and Jim (etc.) who mock Trump's intelligence, including emotional, should take a step back and ask if he could have gotten this far if he was the person who you believe him to be:
"Yes, Trump is worse than imperfect. So what? We can lament until we choke the lack of a great statesman to address the fundamental issues of our time—or, more importantly, to connect them. Since Pat Buchanan’s three failures, occasionally a candidate arose who saw one piece: Dick Gephardt on trade, Ron Paul on war, Tom Tancredo on immigration. Yet, among recent political figures—great statesmen, dangerous demagogues, and mewling gnats alike—only Trump-the-alleged-buffoon not merely saw all three and their essential connectivity, but was able to win on them. The alleged buffoon is thus more prudent—more practically wise—than all of our wise-and-good who so bitterly oppose him. This should embarrass them. That their failures instead embolden them is only further proof of their foolishness and hubris."
Link: https://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/