Lift Up Your Hearts!

Many people for whom I have a great respect have been supporters of the presidency of Donald Trump from the beginning. When I wrote "What Is a Trump Supporter?" back in December 2016, I thought I knew only two of them. Since then, I have realized that I know very many more: from among those who had previously been shy about revealing their support, and from the many subsequent converts. The population of current Trump supporters I know is now quite diverse, but my overall judgement of their intelligence, generosity, open-mindedness, compassion, and integrity still stands.

The following is a statement from one of the converts I know well.

How I Came to be a Trump Supporter

I have disliked the man for decades. Thought he was an arrogant New Yorker and immoral as well. Hated “The Apprentice.” In 2016 I voted for Ben Carson in the Republican primary. I thought Trump’s brash, abrasive approach was too much and unpresidential. Once he got elected, I hoped he would grow into the job. I wished he would never Tweet—what he said was often embarrassing or worse. However, many of his policies were good. His simplification of the income tax was good. His attempt to control the southern border was the right idea. His choices for Supreme Court justices seem good. His rule to get rid of two Federal rules for every new one created was great. However, this policy ran into the “be” team. The Federal bureaucracy. In a now infamous meeting with State Department officials a Trump appointee outlined some policies that Trump wanted implemented and they bluntly said, “No.” They explained that they were part of the “be” team, the people who would be there long after Trump, and whoever was next, were gone. They didn’t like the policy, so it wasn’t going to happen.

This was one of the first items that led me to believe the swamp really needs draining. We are supposed to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, not of the bureaucrats, by the bureaucrats and for the bureaucrats. Trump's choice of JD Vance for VP will help to increase the chance that the draining of the swamp will continue post Trump. And now that RFK Jr. has joined the team, there is real hope that the CDC will be reformed.

Here is a list of Trump's accomplishments. Compare these to Harris’s rhetoric, much less her “accomplishments.”

Highest real median household income in history—a record that still holds from 2019.

Annual inflation rate of 1.9% throughout term.

Cut 8 regulations for every new one enacted and reduced taxes.

Better trade agreements with Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea and others.

Net gain of 7 million new jobs. 1.2 million in manufacturing and construction.

Net gain of 12,000 factories.

Created Opportunity Zones which has brought in hundreds of billions in investments to lower income neighborhoods.

Lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. Lowest unemployment for women in nearly 70 years.

Lowest unemployment in history for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans.

Lowest poverty rate in history for Black and Hispanic Americans.

Passed Right to Try drug law which has made life-saving treatments available to previously terminally ill patients.

Lowered drug prices for the first time in 51 years.

VA Choice reimbursed veterans who needed faster medical care outside of a VA clinic.

VA Accountability which allowed for the removal of abusive employees.

First president in 40 years to not start a war.

Deescalated nuclear war tensions with North Korea.

Middle East peace deals

Got fellow NATO members to meet their obligations.

Defeated ISIS. Net drawdown of overseas troops.

Massive upgrade of our military equipment. Launched Space Force.

Russia did not take any land under his watch, unlike during Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations.

Built/renovated over 500 miles of border wall.

Remain in Mexico policy.

15,000 Mexican troops guarding our southern border plus 10,000 on Mexico's southern border.

Achieved the lowest number of illegal border crossings in recorded history. (I don’t think they kept statistics in the days of Pancho Villa – 1916.)

Deported thousands of foreign gang members.

Passed Criminal Justice Reform.

Became a net exporter of energy for the first time in nearly 70 years.

I’d like to see more of this. So, despite his sometimes-grinding personality (which is the only side the mainstream media shows) I support him for his last term.

The fact they changed the law to go after him (statue of limitation changes) and gave a whole new meaning to “Trumped up charges” also made me realize that they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with lawfare or it will become the norm.

Because I'm always saying it's better to judge politicians by their works than by their words, I was recently asked privately to compare President Biden's and President Trump's actions while in office. As a true Conservationist, I'm happy to reuse/recyle what I write when I can, so with minor modifications I post it here.

Oh, how hard it is to be brief! I started a more detailed and complete answer, but soon realized it would be too long.  I then intended this to be a much smaller Good Enough Is Better Than Perfect version. It's still lacking in major points—and it's still too long—but I can only do what I can do. Time is short.

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

• It is clear that I believe Trump's record is far superior to Biden's, but I will be the first to admit that he made mistakes. However, most of Trump's mistakes seem to be attributable to trusting the wrong people, which happens when you step into a new situation—you have to trust the existing people until you know otherwise. He has learned a lot that should stand him in good stead for a second term.
• When I say "President Biden" I'm talking about his administration, because it has been obvious for years that he, himself, has not been competent to do the job, although this has only recently been generally acknowledged. Nonetheless, whoever has actually been making policy—Cabinet heads? Vice President Harris? Jill Biden?—a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for more of the same (or worse), as she did then and still insists that Biden was/is fully capable and has done a fantastic job. 

SPECIFIC EXAMPLES

• Supreme Court nominations The power of the president to nominate justices to the Supreme Court is of paramount importance. Conservative presidents tend to nominate judges who respect the Constitution rather then "legislate from the bench," which I consider extremely important. It is the job of the Legislature to pass laws, and the job of the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they are Constitutional.
• Border security
  • Trump prioritized immigration control and sealing our dangerously leaky borders. 
  • Biden threw open the borders, to the point where millions of people have been pouring in, not just from Mexico, but from all over the world, including Africa and China. This is not normal immigration, with all the vetting and investigation and waiting and work—as it is if a non-citizen wants to come from Switzerland, for example. This is uncontrolled, undocumented, dangerous, and a huge drain on American resources. Bus- and plane-loads of migrants are being transported by the current government into the interior of the country, without the consent of the destination towns, which they severely disrupt. This is not the same thing as settling the Southeast Asian "boat people" after the Vietnam War, which we lived through and participated in. That was much smaller in scale, and voluntary, as churches and individuals sponsored and cared for refugee families, helping them adjust and adapt to American culture. This is vastly different. Plus, because of their illegal status, refugees are being treated as slaves—there is no better word for it—for labor and for sex. This we know directly; it is not some Republican conspiracy theory. And with no control, there is no doubt at all that many people are getting into the United States who are dangerous criminals, terrorists, and spies. Border security is possibly the most critical of all the issues; I can say more, but this is already too long.
• American independence. Trump had been working on building up American energy and manufacturing and trade to encourage foreign trade while making incentives to encourage production in the U.S. and limit our dependence on other countries whose interests are not necessarily aligned with ours. I don't have time to deliniate more, but for one big example: Trump restarted the process necessary to build the Keystone Pipeline from Canada, and Biden immediately stopped it again.
• War and peace
  • Trump brokered the Abraham Accords in the Middle East.
  • Trump succeeded in convincing EU countries to take more financial responsibility for NATO and their own defense.
  • Trump did not get us into any new wars, and was drawing down our overseas military involvement. 
  • Biden presided over a disastrous exit from Afghanistan that left civilians, servicemen, and top secret technology behind. (Our own U.S. Representative, Cory Mills, personally stepped in to rescue stranded citizens when the federal government was slow to do so.
  • Biden has gotten us disastrously entangled in a war with Russia, and brought us closer to WWIII than since Russian submarine officer Vasily Arkhipov saved our bacon in 1962. The impulse to support the Ukraine was understandable, but ill-advised and inconsistent with our previous responses to Russian military action. Personally, much as I dislike Putin, I think he has been remarkably patient with our unbelievably aggressive and devastating actions against a country with nuclear weapons pointed at us. This is not self-defense; this is "poking the bear."
  • More close to home, the generators that had been allocated to help Americans during disasters like what hurricane Helene did to Appalachia were instead sent to the Ukraine. FEMA was supposedly paid for them—but they weren't there when we needed them, and you can't generate electricity with dollars.
• COVID response
  • Trump made major mistakes in his response to COVID, for which I'm still awaiting an apology, though at least he now knows that he trusted the wrong people on this.
  • However, while Biden set out immediately to reverse all the good things Trump had done, he doubled down on the COVID restrictions, mandates, and inflation-fueling massive handouts of non-existent money. The negative impact of this is incalculable—on the economy, mental and physical health, education, small businesses, family self-sufficiency, and public trust in our major institutions, not to mention our very basic Constitutional rights and responsibilities—especially for minorities and the most vulnerable.

This is just a quick comparison of a few aspects of what the two presidents have done; their policies are another, and perhaps more frightening, issue. But enough is enough for now.

Back in February 2020, just before the Florida's Democratic presidential primary, I wrote the following:

I have plenty of opinions on just about any subject, and if you're reading my blog, you know I don't hesitate to make them known. However, I rarely like to discuss politics directly. I also believe strongly in the institution of the secret ballot. Sometimes I don't even tell myself whom I'm voting for until I actually put pen to ballot.

Situations change, and we change in response.

I published my first post to the Politics category in October 2004. Number 100 occurred in March of 2009 (4.5 years later), the count reached 200 in February 2016 (7 years), then 300 in November 2022 (6.5 years), and 400 in September 2024 (less than 2 years). It now stands at 414. Suddenly, I find that I have more political opinions, and more that I'm willing to share. And a lot more to say than I have time to write.

Back in 2018, my friend Eric Schultz wrote an article (unfortunately no longer available) that prompted me to think about a new kind of despair I'd been observing in the Western world. I wrestled with it and put off writing about it because it was a difficult topic and I didn't know how to begin. When I finally stumbled to a start at the beginning of November 2020, I didn't get far. (My Last Battle series currently has only 9 posts, and has somewhat been taken over by Here I Stand.) But the essay I was trying to write was quite different from the one I had planned to write two years earlier. This is part of what I said:

I have been increasingly concerned by the number of people who look around and are overcome by despair. Despair deep enough that they have determined to have no children, because "How could we bring a child into such a terrible world?" If suicide is the extreme expression of individual hopelessness, surely the rejection of reproduction is the same attitude on a cosmic scale.

Although they have this despondency in common, I find that people are coming to this point from many different places, and with many different fears. Climate change, the election of President Trump, an asteroid hitting the earth, terrorism, pandemic, widespread civil unrest, and the takeover of our world by Artificial Intelligence are only a few of the disasters that people believe are on the brink of ending the world as we know it—and any world worth living in. How should we live in such times? How dare we bring children into such a world?

I’ve long wanted to write an answer to these questions, to these fears. In 2018, however, it was composing my response from a position of strength. I saw these concerns as understandable, but not really rational; I certainly didn’t feel them myself to any great extent.

Situations change.

Sometime between the end of 2018 and the end of 2020 (n.b. before the presidential election), I became much less optimistic. Not because of any one particular event or fear, but from stepping back and taking a good look at what has been happening in our country (along with much of the West). I decided it was time to stop sticking my head in the sand about our social and political situation. In truth, I guess it was more a matter of being forced to pay attention, because in the past five or six years, America has gone very rapidly down an insane path, not just in one area, but many. Not that the seeds of the decline weren't sewn long ago; it's the rate of change in recent years that woke up this stewing frog.

It's much easier not to pay attention. And some of us are living such difficult lives that it's virtually impossible to spend the time necessary to seek out the truth about anything. That's one reason I like to pretend that I have decades of life left, that my Must Do list isn't already impossibly long, and that I can afford the time to investigate, and to write what I find. Because it's critically important.

Without going further here into the reasons why I have reached this conclusion—I have already written much, and will continue to write—all of my newfound awareness has led me to this:

• The 2024 presidential race is the most important election in which I have voted since I became eligible at the age of 19.
• For the first time ever, I am voting enthusiastically for my candidate (and maybe more surprisingly, sharing my intentions with the world). I have left behind "He's the lesser of two evils" and truly believe that only one presidential candidate, despite his obvious flaws, has a clue as to the imminent danger we are in, and a direction for swimming out of the rip current in which we are caught.
• I am truly impressed by the diverse selection of highly intelligent advisors and supporters who have realized the same thing and despite their differences have joined together to work with President Trump for causes that I value greatly. This is the first time ever that I have felt understood and represented by any politician. That is no small thing.
• Therefore, it is with a set jaw and a light in my eyes that on Monday I will cast my vote for Donald Trump and J. D. Vance.
• As you know, I much prefer to vote on the real Election Day at my local, physical polling place. But having experienced two hurricanes in less than two weeks, I realize that this election is too important to risk a possible disaster that would make voting on November 5 impossible. Taking advantage of Early Voting seems the prudent thing to do.

It is my deep desire that all who read this will also vote for Donald Trump. But I know better than to hope for that! More importantly, I want you to know that I am not trying to persuade you, and have no desire to argue. My job is to provide information, and tell the truth that investigation, experience, and the wisdom of age have revealed to me. Convincing you is beyond my pay grade.

I may be wrong, but "Here I stand; I can do no other."

Situations may change, but one thing has not. The answer to the questions I was struggling with in 2018 and 2020 (How should we live in such times? How dare we bring children into such a world?) remains the same: We dare to have children because they are the best resource we have for survival, as individuals and as the human race. Whatever the outcome of this election, whatever troubles come, whatever problems we face—it is our children who will meet the future. Who knows what great and unexpected inventions, discoveries, solutions, and ideas will come from their youthful optimism, energy, and strength? But they have to be born first. Our most important mission is to bring them into the world, bring them up right, and prepare them well.

We just returned from a great visit to New England. (Yes, all through Hurricane Milton, which was a bit of an adventure, but I'll get to that later.) In addition to attending my nephew's wedding, we had a lot of fun with grandchildren.

Grace was amazing! Except for the NG tube, and the bag she carries around all day, wherever she goes, and her central line, and the fact that she asks "Milk in it?" of any new food, you'd never guess she was sick. Just shy of her third birthday, she's as active and energetic and competent as you could wish. And very much in the "Me do it!" stage. Cute as all get out, too.

You knew there was going to be a "But...."

Suddenly, she is sick. Two of her siblings recently developed regular colds, but this doesn't look like a cold: so far, at least, the only symptom has been throwing up, which she did several times last night. At last word, she has no fever—and this is a big part of the prayer request, because in her case a fever sends her immediately to the hospital.

Many thanks for your continuing long-distance love for our little girl.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. —Pericles

Despite the truth of this wisdom of Pericles, aren't we all tired of politics? I can't overstate how critical I believe our political situation to be, but sometimes we just need a little break—from both politics and hurricanes.

For me, I find it surprisingly calming to watch the Black Spruce YouTube channel, which I've written about before. In this video, he's building an outdoor kitchen for his off-grid cabin.

This excerpt is from a conversation between Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson. The whole show is more than two hours long, and I haven't watched it. This, however, is less than 20 minutes and is absolutely worth listening to. I just love hearing smart people converse, especially when they make sense.

If you want to know why Musk, who supported Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, now hopes for a Trump victory, this is a good place to start. And that's not all they cover.

I'm delighted to have made the switch to Rumble from YouTube, with which I have many quarrels, not the least of which is that it's owned by Google. Yes, I still use it, as I still use other Google products, much more than I'd like to. (I hope to switch away from Chrome to Brave soon as well.) But I much prefer to support a free speech platform when I can.

However, I have recently learned that some firewalls are blocking access Rumble. That's another sore point, but I can't deal with it now, and will instead try to provide YouTube links as well as embedding the Rumble video. I can't guarantee they're complete and uncensored, but I'm hoping they will be better than nothing.

A YouTube link for this video is here.

Today, as I repeatedly refresh the map of Milton's predicted path, I've been thinking a lot about Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

My standard hurricane prayer is this: Please diminish, disorganize, and disperse this storm, and divert it to where it will do the least harm.

That's what I pray, and in my better moments that's what I mean.

In my not-so-good moments, however, I find my heart cheering whever the predicted path moves away from our home—which means it's moving toward someone else's.

All I can think of is, "Do it to Julia!"

Author S. D. Smith explains that his children's books are good but not safe—and why that's important. Authors like Smith prepare the ground for children to grow into the heroes we will desperately need.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

Rescue the Republic—Join the Resistance

My heart is full.

I still wish I could have been at the event in person. I was not even able to be glued to the livestream, as we were for most of Viva Frei's live coverage of Canada's Freedom Convoy; life was just too busy here on Sunday. Nonetheless, I managed to listen to quite a bit of it as I went about my business, once we got home from church. And I've been slowly catching up on what I missed, now that DarkHorse has most of it available in convenient, bite-sized pieces. In a subsequent post, I intend to publish some of my favorites, so you can easily watch them for yourselves, but if you want to see any or all of them now, you can find them at the DarkHorse link, in more-or-less reverse chronological order.  You could even see the whole event, from the pre-beginning to the closing song, all seven hours of it, here.

Rescue the Republic was a good mix of serious speakers, comedians, and musical groups; I even enjoyed the music, which may surprise some of you, given that it is not what I'd call "my kind of music." And whoever could have dreamed up the idea of putting Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand on stage together? It was magic.

The whole admixture was magic. It wasn't a Trump rally, although there were plenty of Trump supporters among both the presenters and the crowd. There was a large contingent of Kennedy supporters, and those who cheered loudly at any mention of Tulsi Gabbard, and plenty of folks who came not to support a particular candidate but because they are deeply concerned about the situation our country finds itself in. It wasn't a rally about individuals, but about issues.

Nor was it only Americans, because what happens in America affects the whole world. When Brand opened with "My fellow Americans," the line didn't get as much of a laugh as it deserved; not everyone realized at first that Brand is from the United Kingdom. And Peterson of course is Canadian.

Kennedy's slogan, "Make America Healthy Again" was more prominent than "Make America Great Again," though MAGA was well represented. I suspect that most of those at the rally will indeed be voting for Donald Trump (and the foreigners wish they could), because they see him as our best chance in what is probably the most critical election in my lifetime—but that was not what the event was about.

The rally, to the best of my ability to tell from this distance, was a huge success. It was nothing of what I feared, and everything I had hoped for—and more. It was just the right sized crowd, too.

As I watched the livestream, I was at first disappointed that I didn't see the Mall overflowing with a huge, supportive mass of people. But it didn't take me long to realize that this was a human-scale crowd, and it was perfect. A place for encounters with people one might otherwise never have rubbed shoulders with, a crowd as diverse at the speakers themselves, united because they all care so deeply and know they have very important work ahead of them.

Do you know what else I saw?

Joy.

Real, deep joy, in both the crowd and the speakers. I refuse to let the Democrats take over that word, or that concept. I'm sorry, but when I see them talking about "joy," they don't look joyful; they don't sound joyful. It appears forced, as if they're trying to generate a feeling they know is important but with which they are actually unfamiliar. Similar to the difference between the scripted "Joe Biden, we love you" and the love I see demonstrated at Trump rallies.

For all that the Rescue the Republic Rally was about a profound, life-and-death emergency, there was no feeling of doom-and-gloom. It makes me think of Henry V and Agincourt:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

I fear that those unfamiliar with Shakespeare may misconstrue some of the language, but he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother perfectly describes the unity-in-diversity, joy-in-adversity feeling of the rally. These are my kind of people.

My heart is full.

I've been remiss in updating Grace's Journey; my only excuse is that no news is good news! She has been doing well. For a more complete update from Jon, see their new Daley Pondering blog post, from which I will quote extensively. Jon is writing.

It has been great to have less medical stuff going on these days, and we get more comments about her being "so cute" in the grocery stores and the soccer games, etc.

Her hair is growing in, and I don't think I've heard her referred to as a boy in a while (for a while she just looked like she had a really short haircut, but it is growing out more). She discovered the 18 month clothes bin in the attic the other day and has been wearing some onesies, since she mostly still fits into them. She'll turn three next month.

Life, however, is still far from normal.

We continue to do weekly dressing changes - we had a full day yesterday and so she fell asleep during the change - it is hard to imagine kids screaming through it, but we are certainly blessed to not have that problem. She happily puts on her mask and then holds her hands above her head until it is done.

She has been gaining weight, and we've started up the steroid tapering off again and doctor visits are every other week, once a month to Dartmouth and once a month to Boston, so that schedule is nicer too. It is possible that the steroid taper will be increased and be done soon, which then triggers the start of the cyclosporine (immunosuppressant) taper, which will be the end of the meds entirely!

Her nasogastric tube fell out while she was sleeping last week.... She woke up in the morning and brought the tube down already pushed out of her throat. So, we proceeded to the semi-unapproved installation of a new tube, and it went successfully.... We'll see what Boston says about that on Wednesday. Last time, Dartmouth recorded the procedure as "without contacting medical providers", and did an x-ray to confirm proper placement, but didn't explicitly forbid it in the future.... I think that because we know the exact length of the insertion, there is fairly little risk involved—a nurse at Children's told me that she will really start coughing if it is in her lungs rather than her stomach, and we verify the pH after insertion as well. (The supply house apparently thinks it is reasonable for us to do the procedure, because they send all the equipment to do so, though maybe they are thinking a visiting nurse—they are sometimes surprised to hear that we do dressing changes ourselves.)

Faith, big sister and bone marrow donor, has been doing well also. This donation recovery period, which was supposed to last no more than a couple of weeks, has been a long, slow process involving physical therapy and chiropractic care. (The transplant doctors pretty much washed their hands of the problem.) But she estimates that she is now "98% back," and has been able to enjoy playing on the high school girls' soccer team, which means a lot to her. Her coach and her teammates have been great, encouraging her to play when she can and rest when she needs to. They even celebrated Leukemia Awareness Month—the "color" of which is orange—by dedicating a game and a fundraiser to Grace, Faith, and their whole family.

(click to enlarge)

The high school principal said there was a "sea of orange" in the school that day, and there were a lot of people wearing orange at the game.

The team raised about $1600! The opposing team gave the family flowers, though they did not go so far as to refrain from winning the game.