I'll be glad to explain to you why conservatives are supporting Trump

I keep reading that Donald Trump is not a serious candidate. I keep reading that he’s not even really a conservative, and that Tea Party activists who are supporting him have lost their minds. I keep reading that his tendency to be a “loose cannon” will surely spell disaster for his candidacy, and would surely doom his presidency were he to have one. That’s what I keep reading. And, yet, when I introduced him at a recent Georgia rally, I saw more than 7,000 enthusiastic Trump fans – only to read that he got an even bigger crowd the following week in Michigan, when he talked about solutions for the country’s problems but all the media heard was the word “schlonged.”

So, for those who can’t imagine how a conservative could support Trump and can’t believe that anyone takes a man so indifferent toward proper political norms seriously as a candidate, allow me to explain. I think my conservative credentials are pretty solid, although you can check with those who listen to my radio show and read my web site if you don’t want to take my word for it. I consider Trump to be one of several candidates who would make an excellent president. Yes, I know he voted for Democrats in the past. Yes, I know he contributed money to Hillary in the past. Yes, I know he’s flirted with the idea of single-payer health care and other big-government type policies. And, yes, I know he says things that make people shriek and howl. I also know that he sometimes calls people losers and is not the type to shrink from a fight – verbal or otherwise, regardless of who wants to fight with him. Many people don’t consider a lot of this presidential, and as far as they’re concerned the voters should have considered him disqualified long ago because of some or all of this. But here’s what a lot of conservatives see when they look at the big picture: The proper and appropriate people who pass judgment on Trump’s comportment have given us $19 trillion in debt, and offer “solutions” like 10-year plans that might (but probably won’t) reduce the amount added to the debt by $1 trillion or so over 10 years.

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These same people have given us 12 million illegal immigrants living among us because they have refused to enforce current laws, and refuse to either start enforcing those laws or take new border security steps to ensure the problem will not get even worse. These same people have given us a leviathan of a tax code so complicated that we Americans spend billions of dollars each year just trying to understand it – and that’s before we pay the taxes. These same people think they’ve accomplished something grand when they manage to pass a spending bill that doesn’t shut down the government. That’s a pretty low bar, wouldn’t you say? The fact that Trump shows no respect for any of this is not a negative in the minds of people who want to see these problems solved. They correctly perceive Washington’s political culture long ago stopped being serious about really solving these problems, and they’re tired of being lectured about how politics is the “art of the possible.” If the things that would actually work are impossible in the current political culture, the solution is not to conform to that culture. It’s to blow it up. So, no, the disdain and disrespect Donald Trump demonstrates for those of this culture is not a negative at all to normal people who are concerned about where the country is headed. We’re tired of candidates who are expected to kiss the ring of the establishment before they can be admitted into the club. We’re ready for one who doesn’t care if he’s liked or not, and isn’t afraid of negative press if that’s the price you have to pay for implementing solutions that actually work. Now, I realize Trump could do all this and still not be an effective president. He does not come from a long tradition of conservative political activism, so it’s possible as some have warned that if he got into office conservatives would be disappointed by what he actually does. But let me tell you why I’m not worried about that: First, while Trump may not have a lifelong history of advocating conservative policies, he wrote a book in 2011 that offered very specific (and very conservative) policy proposals. I wrote about it some months back, and it’s worth re-examining. A lot of people don’t spend their entire lives obsessing over political ideology, but they nevertheless demonstrate their high intelligence – and when they really sit down to think about how to solve the nation’s problems, they realize that conservative ideas are the right answers. I am convinced this is what’s happened with Donald Trump, and I really don’t care if it took him until late in life to get there. I also know – not only because I know him personally but because I’ve seen what he’s accomplished in his career – that Trump knows how to lead and knows how to get things done. He is not afraid to make a decision, nor is he afraid to be criticized. He does not have a deep need to be liked by everyone – which makes him a highly unusual politician and puts him in a strong position to make the difficult calls that leaders of both parties have either been afraid or simply unwilling to make. So while the media focus on the bombast, people who are interested in solutions see a man who is not only capable but unafraid of getting the job done. We know he breaks all the rules, upsets people and doesn’t care if you like it or not. And to that we say: Why is any of that a problem?