still #nevertrump

As most of you are probably aware, I have supported Senator Cruz for the GOP nomination. I have also strongly opposed Donald Trump. I am one of those ‪#‎nevertrump‬ people, and have been for quite a while now. These are my biases, and I’m admitting that up front.

While I realize that there may be some awesome patriots and great Americans who support Trump, my experience with his fans has not been as pleasant. I have been personally attacked for expressing my negative views of him on twitter, and while their criticisms weren’t especially biting, it still speaks to the kind of people he attracts in his fan club. This alone would not steer me away from supporting Trump, although his current calls for GOP Unity fall flat when conservatives are still being disrespected by Trump himself and by what some of us refer to as ‪#‎TrumpCult‬.

In my view, we currently have two bad choices for president – Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. You may be perfectly fine with either candidate, or you pick Trump because you think Hillary is worse – or, if you’re in my position, you can’t vote for either one of them. I don’t know what I’m going to do when November comes. Maybe I’ll vote third-party. Right now the future of the GOP doesn’t concern me because I’m done with them. A party that doesn’t stand for the principles and values I stand for, and one which has surrendered to its internal corruption is no longer a party I can support.

Here’s what I believe. Trump is a man with questionable personal character, as we all are. But we acknowledge our failures, and try to learn from them and not repeat our mistakes in the future. Trump has shown no willingness to admit mistakes. He nicknames other candidates “Little Marco”, “Lyin’ Ted”, etc,etc, and ascribes his own personal flaws to his opposition. He flat out lies and spreads tabloid smears about Cruz, and that’s a serious character flaw in my book.

He also surrounds himself with thugs who have shown limited ability to run a competent campaign, to represent him in a positive light, and to handle the day-to-day operations of a presidential campaign without personally attacking other campaigns. He is a sore loser when he loses and a sore winner when he wins. This should bother you in a general election if you support him.

But maybe you are attracted to Trump because WALL, or some of his other policy proposals. You should be aware that even now, he is moving leftward to attract Democrats and indys to his cause. Either he doesn’t really believe the policies written on his website, or he doesn’t care enough about them to commit to following any of them as the nominee or as President. Either way, Trump is a total wild card when it comes to anything he says he wants to do, and this includes the all-important Supreme Court picks. We know who Hillary is, and what she will do. We can’t predict what Trump will do, and I believe everything for him is negotiable. He’s already proven that.

With all that said, I don’t expect anyone who has already picked a side to join me as #nevertrump or to suddenly change their mind about either candidate. This is more for me to clarify for myself where I stand. I don’t have to settle for the lesser of two evils, or for any evil at all, and NEITHER DO YOU. But it’s up to you. Your vote is yours. You don’t owe it to any political party, and now, neither do I.