“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
–Winnie The Pooh.
Good morning Holland Koontz! You still owe me a corn dog report. And I want to know all about the fried lemonade.
“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”–Ronald Reagan.
There are so many in today’s center right electorate that have forgotten this advice. Specifically, I am referring to those whom I call the Bush Republicans. You know the Bush Republicans. They are the Republicans who demand that the more conservative members of the party support their nominees in the general election, but conveniently forget any notion of party loyalty when a more conservative candidate is on the ballot. Think John Cornyn in Texas, or Thom Tillis in North Carolina. In Virginia, older folks will remember the disloyal John Warner and Marshall Coleman.
There was a reason for Mr. Reagan’s 11th commandment. The time for intraparty competition and debate is during the primary season. The 11th commandment was not intended to stifle debate. But it was intended to keep debate focused on policies, not personalities.
The 11th commandment was also intended to promote party unity in the general elections. A party that fails to unite behind its chosen candidates is a party doomed to lose.
In days gone past, Republicans such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower, Robert Taft, and Bob Dole campaigned vigorously for Republican candidates of all ideological stripes. They sought victory, not division.
Today, however, we have too many who are uninterested in victory if it means that their personal preferences are not rewarded. Elected officials such as Thomas Massie, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis are doing what they can to sabotage other Republicans. So many supposedly Republican voters are doing the same, smug in their self-satisfaction that they are more virtuous and will not be sullied by voting for candidates of whom they disapprove.
You do not win by losing. Refusing to vote for a Senate candidate is tantamount to electing his opponent, who is worse. And you can claim that you are just setting the table for electing better candidates in the future. But you are not. You are kidding yourselves. Elections are a binary choice in this country. That is our system. So if you do not vote for Mike Collins, you are electing Jon Ossoff. If you do not vote for Ken Paxton, you are electing James Talarico.
Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment may be a dead letter. If so, it is due to the weaknesses, egos, and lack of principles by those who came after him. You know who you are.
What many of these so-called Republicans are doing is whining about how awful President Trump is, even though they voted for him. Even though the President is only doing exactly what he promised to do.
This president basically solved our border crisis overnight — and did it so quickly that many Americans have already forgotten how bad things were.
He’s eliminated $1 billion in spending on DEI and illegal-immigrant programs — and new evidence shows Elon Musk’s DOGE cut 12% of the wasteful federal workforce without the country missing a beat.
A Trump executive order began reining in biological boys’ encroachment in girls’ sports.
He cleaned up Washington, DC, making its monuments sparkle and its fountains flow again, while achieving a 28% drop in homicides.
Some wins get almost no attention: Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has won a record $528 million for victims of DEI-driven employment discrimination.
On the world stage, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defends western civilization, and America’s role in maintaining it, as well as anyone ever has.
With Pete Hegseth at the helm, Trump has redirected our military, making it a lean, merit-based warfighting machine.
Our troops captured Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and were home in time for supper, a success like we hadn’t seen in decades.
The war in Iran, despite the naysayers, is largely won: We’ve taken out Tehran’s top military brass and shown the regime to be a regional paper tiger, while exposing China and Russia as weak allies.
And yes, Trump on the campaign trail was absolutely open about his intentions toward Iran; those saying they were lied to about foreign entanglements weren’t paying attention.
President Trump has done what no other President has done, and that is to confront, and defeat, Iran. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon under his watch, while Obama and Biden ensured that one day Iran would have a nuclear weapon. The President’s policies, strangling Iran economically, beheading its government’s leadership, and coalescing the Arab nations in opposition to Iran is genius, and will most likely lead to the fall of the Iranian government. Mr. Trump promised again and again that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon, and under his administration it won’t.
Gas prices are extra high in blue states, thanks to their absurd taxes and regulations.
Twelve of the 15 states with the cheapest gas are run by Republicans.
But even though gas prices are relatively high, due to the Iran conflict, they are still lower than under China Joe. Prices will lower sharply after the conflict ends. And has everyone forgotten that Democrats do not want you to be able to purchase gasoline at any price?
But, but, but . . . President Trump is a Putin puppet! Oh, please. Have you forgotten how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sucked up to Russia for 8 years? Have you forgotten how Obama stood by and watched Putin absorb the Crimea region of Ukraine? Just like George W. Bush stood by and watched the Russians conquer Georgia. And China Joe invited Russia to make “a small incursion” into Ukraine.
President Trump has given Ukraine more support than did Biden or Obama. But Ukraine is not America’s fight. We do not need to reflexively oppose Russia, because communist expansion is no longer a threat, thanks to Ronald Reagan. We are not at war with Russia; indeed, Russia is not threatening the U.S. or its allies. Ukraine is not our ally, and we owe it nothing. Nonetheless we have been quite generous and Ukraine has been quite ungrateful.
President Trump is not a “conservative”. But he has delivered more wins for conservative policies than any President since Ronald Wilson Reagan. He loves America, and fights every day for our country, not someone else’s country.
You do not have to like his style, mannerisms, or speech. Some things he does make me cringe, while others make me laugh out loud. But in the end, President Trump has America’s best interests at heart. He deserves our support. And he deserves a Republican Congress to finish out his 2nd term.
Quit whining and bitching (if indeed you are). Look at all the positives. And go make this happen on Election Day. It is important.
May God Bless America.
GFK
Amen!
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