Where’s the late Anne Richards when we need her? “Poor Donald Trump, he can’t help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” The tenacious Texan’s assault didn’t really work well when first used on George H.W. Bush Jr., a man of enormous stature. It would sure fit well on Mr. Trump. When a billionaire playboy and trust-fund baby rises to the highest office in the land to become the most powerful man on earth, listening to him whine about his unfair treatment rings hollow. No American President gets to play the victim card. It’s a terrible look for a president … and our country.
Mr. Trump … there is a stark difference between getting elected President and being a President. You live to remind Americans of that difference each day. The first you pulled off unexpectedly and maybe even inexplicably. The second, you have yet to pull off.
The American President isn’t a victim.
President Reagan once won over 500 electoral votes, and he won the two largest landslides ever. More than 40% of the country voted against him, and the media despised him, thinking him dangerous and a dullard. Reagan led cheerfully, forcefully, and credibly, on principle. You have yet to show a single Reaganesque quality, not one.
Has any President in modern history faced the organized, purposefully, destabilizing attacks you have? No. That’s right; your bellyaching is actually based on truth. It’s still bellyaching that is unnecessary, unhelpful, and un-Presidential. There is a War on Trump, but you Mr. Trump are a recruiting poster for your enemies.
Indeed, your full message to the Coast Guard cadets was, essentially, “no matter how bad things are, one should put one’s head down and keep working.” That sir is a fine message. You ruined it by complaining. Your message is best published and received by doing it and not talking about it. You allowed the media to twist your message because, as has always been the case, you made it about you.
Mr. President, Americans want leadership that is about them … not about you.
Americans don’t want a whiner or complainer in chief. In President Obama they had the ultimate victim. Everything bad that happened to him was racist, according to him and his surrogates. Poor Barack Obama, he couldn’t help it, he was raised with an ideology of anger and victimology based on race.
Mr. Clinton too loved playing the victim card, and as we know, Mr. Clinton was the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy.
Perhaps the biggest victim of all was Mrs. Clinton. She was a victim of a right wing conspiracy as well as misogyny. In a battle between two extremely unlikeable people, you won because Mrs. Clinton was a horrible candidate who played the victim card worse than you. In fact, you won by playing two primary non-victim cards. First, you appealed to making America great, and second you swore your success was a record of winning and competence.
Show us how to win and be competent.
As President, we have heard too much from you about your upset win and the mean people who don’t like you. We have seen very little leadership. Your words are meaningless, as are the words of most politicians.
Lead. Lead with class. Keep your head down, and focus on the promises you made to put America and Americans first.
I have reluctantly defended you when you deserved it. You were not my choice, mostly for the very critique in this column. I think you are under-informed. I think you are a horrible speaker. I think you are rash, exercise poor judgment, and mostly, you don’t have a core principle that is in line with a Constitutional conservativism. You are a wheeler-dealer. You are both the carnival barker, and the carnival owner. Still, it’s a circus. And, to be clear, I had it figured out way before most.
I have called you task, and indeed I have pushed you to take actions any competent President under such assaults would do. You run a government dominated and controlled by the deep state, and that is because you neither understand the threat nor are you prepared to replace these agencies warriors. Most of your agencies are dominated by left-leaning career civil servants about whom you can do little.
However, the agencies are run by Obama and Clinton foot-soldiers, most of whom you have yet to replace. Why? The reason you haven’t replaced them is because you have no earthly idea that taking back the federal leviathan and curbing the administrative state was priority two, after naming judges. Instead of tweeting out tomfoolery in the middle of the night, pick up a stack of resumes and fill some jobs.
I cringe when people suggest I am a Trumper or that I carry your water. I am not, and I don’t. I am a Conservative American. Sometimes I defend you because you are wrongly attacked, vilified, and falsely charged. I want you to be successful, and I would love for you to be Conservative, inspirational, and transformational in a positive fashion. When you lead correctly, my support will be there. That’s the American and Conservative thing to do.
When you continue down this path of flip-flopping, big-government, pseudo-free-market, empty-suit economic nationalism … wrapped in a clown suit and stuffed in a clown car … I will continue to say so. That is the American and Conservative thing to do.
No President in this country will ever win and keep the respect of the majority of her people by playing a whiny victim. You are a billionaire and you control the world’s greatest military. Your position commands the high moral ground. Your people have fed and freed more people than all other countries combined.
We are the greatest country on earth because we are not victims.
Make no mistake; the shine has come off our reputation. The petals of liberty are wilted. Our country is sick with a disease of moral and ethical decay. Our people are increasingly divided, less free, and more dependent each day. We increasingly see ourselves as victims. We are cultivating generations of entitled, dependent, whining, blame-gamers, who see their lot in life as the fault of others.
Now, more than ever, we need a President to show them that’s not true. America doesn’t need a victim, it needs a hero.
America has you Mr. Trump … and it is a time of choosing. Are you an American hero or just another victim?
Author: Richard Kelsey
Richard Kelsey is the Editor-in-Chief of Committed Conservative.
He is a trial Attorney and author of a #11 best-selling book on Amazon written on higher education, “Of Serfs and Lords: Why College Tuition is Creating a Debtor Class”
Rich is also the author of the new Murder-Mystery series, “The ABC’s of Murder,” book one is titled, “Adultery.”
Rich is a former Assistant Law School Dean and Law Professor. At Mason Law Kelsey conceived of, planned, and brought to fruition Mason’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, known as CPIP, drawing on his expertise as a former CEO of a technology company specializing in combating cyber-fraud.
In 2014 he was elected by the graduating class as the faculty speaker at their graduation.
He is a regular commentator on legal and political issues in print, radio and on TV. Rich has appeared on hundreds of stations as a legal expert or political commentator. He provided the legal analysis for all stages of the Bob McDonnell trial and appeal for numerous outlets including NPR and WMAL.
Rich also writes on occasion for the American Spectator and CNSNews.com.
In his free time, Rich is part of the baseball mafia of Northern Virginia, serving on numerous boards and as a little league and travel baseball coach.
His Twitter handle is @richkelsey.
