Vox Day of #Gamergate: Why I Support Donald Trump

I am often asked why I, a Christian libertarian and intellectual, would publicly support Donald Trump, a man of no fixed ideology, no apparent religious beliefs, multiple marriages, visible ties to the Clintons, and whose taste and sophistication tends to resemble that of a nouveau riche rhinoceros. It is a reasonable question. After all, how can anyone support a candidate whose public statements are, to put it mildly, inconsistent—when they are not completely self-contradictory.

The answer is as simple as it is conclusive and convincing. Donald Trump is the only candidate in either major party whose personal interests are aligned with those of the American public rather than with the interests of the anti-nationalist elite who see America as nothing more than lines on a map and Americans as nothing more than 300 million economic units in the global economy.

The reason I trust Donald Trump, despite all his rhetorical meanderings, is that he is a traitor to his class. Unlike Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz, both ordinary people who sold their souls in order to be granted a seat at the table of the Great Game, Donald Trump was born a member of the elite and he has always been welcome in the inner circles of both political parties. When I met him in 1988, it was at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, where he was the personal guest of George Bush in his private suite there. Like the Bushes, like the Clintons, Trump is truly neither Republican nor Democrat. He is a lifetime member of America’s bi-factional ruling party.

So Donald Trump was already a man of great wealth, influence, connections and power. He did not need to run for president in order to make a name for himself or to launch a public speaking career at $200,000 a pop. Nor does it make sense to claim that he is running for president in order to assuage his formidable ego. Quite to the contrary, he has been under furious attack and criticism from the media as well as from the wealthy elites his rivals are most desperate to please, and it is only his tremendous ego that permits him to survive it. He is enduring this relentless, bipartisan assault because the ruling party knows he has chosen the American people over them.

Ask yourself this: why did Donald Trump run for president in the first place? I believe that the real reason is that he, like you, is deeply concerned about the current state of the United States of America, and he, like you, fears for its future.

Donald Trump may live in wealthy neighborhoods, but that doesn’t mean he is indifferent to the fact that America has endured the largest invasion in human history, 60 million immigrants since 1965. Donald Trump may have filed for corporate bankruptcy four times, but that doesn’t mean he is an enthusiastic servant to Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, and the International Monetary Fund. Donald Trump may not be academically inclined or ideologically consistent, but that doesn’t mean he fails to understand that it makes no sense for Americans to go to war for democracy abroad while their democratically expressed will is repeatedly thwarted at home.

I support Donald Trump because he loves the America that once was, and he is willing to put both his body and his reputation on the line in order to restore America to that unique state that was the envy of the entire world. That is what he means by Make America Great Again.

If you cannot bring yourself to trust in Trump’s words, then you can safely trust in his vanity. It is true, of course, that every recent president has betrayed his supporters: George H.W. Bush raised taxes, Bill Clinton had sex with that woman, George W. Bush embraced an arrogant foreign policy, and Barack Obama has waged war from Syria to Ukraine. Will not Donald Trump do the same?

It is possible, but unlikely. Donald Trump loves to be loved by the American people. And it defies everything we know about human nature to believe that he will throw away that intoxicating populist love in favor of the approval of an anti-nationalist elite whose affections he has already rejected.

Donald Trump not only wants to make America great again, he wants America to be American. That is what distinguishes him from Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And that is why I support him.