My first Republican

I’ve never voted for a Republican candidate for president before. I’ve never been a registered Republican. I’m fairly liberal on most social issues and have some serious questions about the viability of supply-side economics.

With all that in mind, I will be voting for Donald Trump this fall.

Those that fail to understand his appeal to independents, moderates and even Democrats are just as out of touch as the pundit-lobbyist-donor complex, who have been wrong about Donald Trump every step of the way, and just as out of touch as the Beltway insiders, who have sold our country down the river for the last 25 years. I hope to be able to provide some insight to those who think Trump’s supporters consist of white supremacists, the toothless extras from “Deliverance” and others whose IQ just can’t seem to crack triple digits. In the process of explaining my decision, perhaps I can win a few converts over to Team Trump.

Let’s begin with an issue on which both Trump and the Bush/Clinton crowd have been remarkably consistent (that is, until Hillary’s current campaign) – trade. Since the 1990s, as the United States has embraced NAFTA and a myriad of other reckless NAFTA-style free trade agreements, the results of each have been abundantly clear:

· Massive American job losses, as “American” companies rush to cheap labor countries, where they can pay workers pennies per hour and pollute like crazy.

· These same companies reap billions in increased profits without the fear of kicking anything over to Uncle Sam.

· These companies then spend millions on lobbyists and campaign donations to the politicians, who helped sell out the American worker, as insurance that they’ll do so again and again.

Trump has warned us about this repeatedly in speeches, TV appearances and editorials dating back to the 1980s; so many of his warnings on this subject have proven prophetic. While I’m sure Paul Ryan, Thomas Friedman, The Wall Street Journaland National Review can produce all sorts of wonky-looking academic charts that show Americans benefitting from the outsourcing of their jobs, they’re about as bogus as Marco Rubio’s attendance record. The folks who have lost their jobs know the truth. So do their families and so does the average American, all of whom have seen their country gradually degraded and slowly replaced by a continental marketplace for cheap goods made in China, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Republican, Democrat or independent – if you care about American prosperity, this has to end. Under a Trump presidency, it will end. Under a Hillary Clinton presidency, the race to the bottom will continue.

There’s probably no more frequent punchline to a joke about Donald Trump than the wall he proposes to build along the Mexican border. Should that be the case? If you don’t care about good paying American jobs being replaced by cheap labor overseas, perhaps you care about the fact that cheap illegal alien labor has so degraded both the wages and quality of jobs for people living here legally, particularly in the construction, food service and agricultural fields. Is it any wonder that working-class black or Latino families, who used to be able to afford a home and are now relegated to a series of part-time or freelance positions in order to pay their rent, would be receptive Trump voters? Do you still think the “wall people” are all delusional racists? If so, I doubt you’ve met one of the increasing number of families whose lives have been devastated by a heroin overdose.

Heroin is now far cheaper to acquire than marijuana or alcohol and far more deadly. The overwhelming majority of this poison is coming in through the southern border. Mexico is now America’s leading heroin supplier, according to the DEA. Do you think a wall would help or hurt in this regard? The choice is clear. We either continue to see our heroin crisis exacerbated with a porous border under a Hillary Clinton presidency or we do something about it with a wall and a Trump presidency. Either we have a border or we don’t. I vote that we do, which is why I’m voting for Trump.

Perhaps the greatest reason to vote for Donald Trump is that irrespective of ideology, our government is badly in need of competence. So many of the failings of the Obama presidency have nothing to do with his political philosophy, but complete governmental ineptitude. Trump has a history running many successful businesses, completing projects on time and under budget, and getting things done.

Who is more likely to bring competence back to government? Hillary Clinton, who, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars struggled to lock up her own party’s nomination? Or Donald Trump who waged a primary campaign so efficiently that he was able to vanquish all of his more experienced primary foes, while spending far less money? I know my answer.