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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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One of the things I have always loved about being on the Right is my ability to debate with friends about different subjects and not have it end in name calling, or anyone suggesting someone is a racist. That is what happens when you have a common goal, but differing opinions on how to get there, it is the definition of compromise. One of my best friends Drew gave me the idea to start my podcast from him and I drinking beer in my garage and debating politics, he’s a libertarian, and the only true libertarian I have ever met, he was also my platoon sergeant in Afghanistan and developed me as a young Non-Commissioned Officer in the United States Army, so you can imagine how influential his opinion is to me, but this story isn’t about Drew, I am using him as an example that I don’t get upset, or angry over political disagreement, for the right reasons.

Heading into the 2016 election I was excited to see so many voices who were identifying issues that I had wished for decades to hear addressed by the GOP. Whether it was immigration, America’s lack of national identity, the Left’s assault on Christianity, and honestly, the hollowing out of the middle class by large liberal tech firms. I know the America I want for my children, I know the America I fought for in Kandahar, I know the America my father built for me, and our government did not see the America I saw, and that truly horrified me. I was excited to see national pride, and honestly, excited to see Conservatives get far better at debating liberals and shaming them for the lack of logic in their arguments and the lack of actual critical thinking into the slogans the Democrat party sold them.

There was another group of Conservatives though. There were faces, publications, and names whom I grew to trust over the years as Conservative thought leaders and publications, but these people were calling me the same names as the liberal media. I was called a “Trump cultist” instead of any meaningful debate into why I believed in the message, I was called literally a Nazi by Conservatives, and even worse, I’ve been told that Trump shouldn’t attack the press, the very same press these people told me were lying Democrat propagandists. Imagine my confusion at what seemed to be a complete 180 from the message I heard for so many years through the Bush and Obama administrations.

Heading into the election I saw something that made me question everything I thought I knew about the Republican party, and the Conservative movement, I saw Conservatives mounting an opposition candidate to Trump in an election that looked near impossible to win already. I remember asking my friends why Conservatives would do something that would ensure Hillary Clinton would be elected President, and that’s when Drew in his typical libertarian fashion brought up all the votes that occurred while Clinton was a Senator, and his simple words were “to them party doesn’t matter, they don’t represent you, the establishment only represents itself.” It was a transitional moment in my life as someone who veraciously consumed political news and at that time would share my thoughts into a cheap microphone and a slow laptop.

The words establishment has continued to ring through my head while I read the news. Seeing Conservatives wanting to hand the country over to those who they told me would destroy it. Listening to sanctimonious sermons about a mean tweet written by the President, and being told that I’m nothing but a simple rude who “just doesn’t get it”. I saw Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard start being fuel for liberals on social media, and saw him guffawing with liberals on MSNBC and sneering at anyone who voted for Trump. I saw David French, the man Kristol wanted to mount a challenge against Trump literally call my Christianity into question because I voted for Trump.

I don’t watch Fox news, but I read Tucker Carlson’s book “Ship of fools” and was impressed at how he encapsulated the frustration that myself and many of friends felt. Not long ago he made some extremely salient points about the focus of the American government on foreign trade over domestic protection, a conversation that needs to be had by Conservatives because it is a gaping hole in Conservatism to every day Americans who lost their jobs during the Obama administration and were told “just learn to code” by Democrats, and when they looked to Conservatives asking why they lost their jobs to Chinese factories they were told “free market”. Carlson was identifying a legitimate problem and asking Conservatives to finally address it, you know, find a solution, but instead he ignited what has now become how others on the right define establishment Conservatives, a group of people who just spew quotes from Buckley, Burke, Locke, and Sowell but have no solutions.

Don’t get me wrong, free market principles are fantastic, but that doesn’t mean we can just ignore real problems that Americans face. A great example of this is social media, yes it is a product of the free market and has a right to do whatever it wants, but they also silence Conservatives, sell your data, push leftist propaganda, and can have a dramatic effect on how Americans receive information and therefore could use misinformation to achieve a political result. That doesn’t mean that the government needs to get involved or regulate, but Conservatives don’t even support the free market solution of boycotting businesses, protests, or awareness campaigns, their “free market” response to this and every other issue is, silence. When they aren’t silent, they are attacking Trump and his supporters with far more venom than they appear to ever attack the Left, whom they say are evil and ruining our country.

This is of course a long post that is very personal, and allow me to explain my real concern for the future so you can understand why I wrote it. We are heading into 2020, and we know that Bill Kristol is planning to put another challenger up against Trump for 2020, or for those of you who live in realville, assuring a Democrat victory in 2020 because something-something orange man bad. I’m told by these NeverTrumpers that Trump destroyed the Republican party, which is shocking because last I checked Trump wasn’t lying about Supreme Court nominees and encouraging violence against children because of the hat they wore. I would love if someone could explain to me how a Democrat like Kamala Harris is better for America than Trump winning a second term.

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