The Elusive Mr. Trump

Well, it’s done.

The reality I wrote of in my first piece for Catholic365 is upon us and Donald Trump is one of two viable candidates for the presidency.

As Catholics this puts us in a bit of a pickle. We cannot in any good conscience support Mrs. Clinton given her stance on issues most of us agree upon.

However, Mr. Trump sometimes gives signals that on questions such as abortion, he is less than reliable and he is very much a social moderate if not quite liberal. And character? Well, we know.

But on other issues he speaks to us as no candidate since Reagan has. He wears the scorn of the self-appointed DC/NYC elite with pride. He does not buy into the false premises of the Left on a host of issues and thus is not always on the defensive as have been so many Republicans past and present.

So he seems almost as two candidates, elusive to definition. One a man we are suspicious of on some policy issues and who we would probably not hold up as an example of virtue to our children.

On the other hand, he’s a fighter, seemingly loved by his children, who is the only thing that stands between us and eight more years of leftist rule, that reign with possibly more authoritarian tendencies than we’ve seen already. And as Catholics? The intentional damage to the traditional family and classic virtues will not only proceed unhindered but with increased ferocity under a Clinton administration. Not that Trump will suddenly turn into Fulton Sheen. But Mrs. Clinton is already Saul Alinsky.

On immigration Trump realizes there is an American culture born over 200 years of experience and that not controlling our borders and not stressing assimilation, risks trading our free market representative democracy for something sadly familiar to other regions of the world and extant in Europe today, given the unlimited flow of refugees that the EU has accepted.

On law and order the contrast between the candidates cannot be more stark.

As evidenced by their convention, I was in Philadelphia at that time and also saw the evidence firsthand all around me, the party Mrs. Clinton leads embraces hatred for police officers, sympathy for thugs, and a Supreme Court that would embrace those sentiments. This is because the Democrats start from a premise that America is a racist, sexist, and exploitative capitalist society whose roots must be sundered and replaced with all the norms of an aggressively multicultural welfare state.

Mr. Trump is solid on law and order and would even likely reverse some of the assaults both on civil liberty and public safety perpetrated by the Obama administration.

On national security the difference between the candidates are like night and day. From the failed "reset" with Russia to the tragic missteps concerning Al Qaeda/ISIS, from the disdain of Israel to the Iran deal, as Secretary of State during the first four years of the administration Mrs. Clinton bears much of the responsibility for the debacle that is Obama defense and foreign policy then and now.

Trump, to say the least, is a realist in these matters and will act accordingly.

And on the sticky point of character? Well, Trump is lucky to run against perhaps the only candidate whose character makes him look like Mother Teresa.

So, like a game of Russian roulette where Clinton’s gun has all the chambers loaded and Trump sports about half ready to fire, we have a Hobson’s Choice in front of us.

If only by default, my vote goes to Trump.