Case in point: After meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Trump assured him he “will not give a penny” to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression. If true, that’s not the Trump I want to vote for.
I want to vote for the president who, on taking office, reversed the Obama-Biden policy of denying Ukraine the lethal aid and sent Kyiv Javelin antitank missiles — weapons that later helped turn back Russia’s effort to march on the Ukrainian capital in 2022. “I sent them military equipment and Obama sent them nothing,” he boasted to me during a 2020 interview. I can’t vote for a candidate who would abandon Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.
I want to vote for the Trump who proudly told me in that interview, “Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have” — and then offered a litany of actions he had taken to counteract Russia — from arming Ukraine, to blocking the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline, to taking out hundreds of Russian Wagner mercenaries in Syria, to launching a cyberattack against Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the troll farm that spearheaded Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Or take Trump’s recent flip-flop on forcing the sale of TikTok in the United States. That’s not the Trump I want to vote for. I want to vote for the commander in chief who signed an executive order barring U.S. companies from transactions with TikTok’s Chinese-controlled owner ByteDance, warning that TikTok allows “the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information,” which could allow Beijing to “build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.” I want to vote for the president who took on China’s predatory trade practices, signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and sanctioned Beijing for its suppression of the Uyghurs.
I also want to vote for the Trump who was willing to flex U.S. military might on the world stage — the president took out Iranian terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani and twice launched military strikes against Syria for using chemical weapons against civilians, and whose policy of peace through strength produced three Arab-Israeli peace accords. Now, I worry that he is surrounding himself with neo-isolationists such as Tulsi Gabbard, J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy rather than the Reagan Republicans who helped him achieve so much. He seems more concerned with seeking retribution and weeding out “RINOs” than working with the best, most capable people.
I also want to vote against some things. I want to vote against Joe Biden, the president who gave us the worst border crisis in U.S. history, the worst inflation in four decades, and highest gas prices ever recorded in the United States. I want to vote against a president whose administration weaponized the FBI to intimidate parents who show up at school board meetings, allowed a Chinese spy balloon to violate U.S. airspace, let Iranian proxies attack U.S. forces with impunity, and presided over the most shameful foreign policy calamity in my lifetime: the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. I want to vote against a president who promised to put his “whole soul” into uniting the country but then accused Republicans of standing with racists and traitors like George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis.
And I want to vote against a Democratic Party that has shamefully weaponized our legal system against Trump — seeking to jail and bankrupt him and abusing our Constitution in an effort to keep him off the ballot.
But I can’t do that if I believe that Trump’s second term won’t be a continuation of the best elements of his first, but a radical departure focused on revenge and retreat from the world.
I know that many other voters might have different concerns than I do. Many liked Trump’s policies, but don’t like how he behaved in office — particularly after the 2020 election. Trump needs to make a concerted effort to win their support. He might believe they have no choice but to vote for him. They do. There will be third parties on the ballot, and voters can write in other candidates, split their tickets, or just stay home.
As for me, while Jan. 6, 2021, was a disgrace, the system of strong checks and balances our Founding Fathers established held that day. So, I don’t believe the hyperbolic warnings that Trump will be a dictator. I’m just worried he will let real dictators prevail. I can’t vote for that.
With less than eight months to go, this much is certain: I’ll never vote for Joe Biden He is the worst president in my lifetime. And I want to vote for Trump. But he needs to give me — and millions like me — permission to do so.
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