Three Deeply Pro-American Candidates
We are beginning to understand the GOP field, and to me the most interesting thing is three front-runners who seem to be genuinely pro-American.
I don’t mean that the others are not pro-American; I just don't understand them yet.
The three I feel pretty sure about are Trump, Cruz, and Carson, each one for a different reason.
(As for the American left, it has reverted to its old and failed internationalism, with the secret ambition of being part of the new international ruling class.
Adm. James Lyons has spoken the final word on Obama. He is “anti-American, anti-Western, pro-Islamic, pro-Iranian, and pro-Muslim Brotherhood.”
It's not a secret anymore, and as David Horowitz has said, the Democratic Party is just the old CPUSA – never having learned the lessons of the Soviet breakdown.
John Kerry recently complained to Vladimir Putin that he was too pro-Russian when he snatched part of the Ukraine, the whole Crimea, and previously, a chunk of Georgia. Putin just laughed. He's seen Soviet Communism crumble; he's not a useful idiot like the Democrats. Kerry, Hillary, and Obama are all "post-American" pols, and they've done huge damage.
But back to the GOP field.)
Ted Cruz is deeply pro-American, because he was raised in a Cuban refugee family, where his dad hated tyranny and loved freedom based on his own personal experience. Freedom and persecution were not abstract slogans in the Cruz family. Ted's later career shows it over and over again.
Cruz also has an impressive academic, government, and political track record – if you still care about that after this administration.
As for Trump, I think he is an intuitive personality – he does what he does because he has strong intuitions, which have mostly worked out for him. A lot of successful business people are intuitive. Trump likes to parade his healthy ego, but he has suffered real defeats in his business career, and he's bounced back. Trump is not an intellectual, but he communicates better with everyday people than any other candidate.
Trump has to sit down with pencil and paper to articulate why he believes what he does. He is becoming more articulate in this campaign, but he has to learn better self-control. He has to, or he will certainly lose.
Most Americans are intuitive, which is why Trump is so popular. They don't pay a lot of attention to Trump’s exact words, having seen him on TV for many years. They know him, and they know his bloopers don't mean much.
Thank heaven, Trump is not a PC witch-hunter, like the petty commissars of the mob media. Still, he has to learn to be more presidential.
So far, Trump is the only really known quantity to the majority of Americans, through his popular TV shows. That's why he can defy the pundits and live to tell the tale. But he has to move from showman to statesman.
Ben Carson is deeply pro-American because he has lived the great American success story. His life experience is blessedly free of the bitterness and rage of Obama and Jerry Wright. Carson is highly intelligent but also self-disciplined and hardworking. He did the long hours of academic work, went through pre-med, med school, residency, then neurosurgical specialization, an obstacle course that's like Marine Corps training. It's a matter of constantly being tested, every day and night. Then he launched a distinguished career as a neurosurgeon, no mean feat, being chosen by his peers to take on some of the toughest cases, where failure was a real possibility, like separating twins joined at the head. That's the Olympics for brain surgery.
With a combination of smarts, motivation, surgical talent, and faith, he managed that, too. Carson is the real thing. He is also religious, modest, and genuine. He doesn't need to compensate for hidden feelings of inferiority. Carson comes from a healing place, in his family, his faith, and his career. He's almost too good to be true. But I don't see a smidgen of fakery. The race isn't over yet, and we'll see. Any horse can show hidden weaknesses in the stretch.
Carson has personally seen the damage inflicted on African-Americans by decades of liberal exploitation. You can't be a medical resident in an American hospital without seeing the walking wounded come in every night, many of them black and Hispanic. Ever since his residency, Carson has seen people die from drugs and violence. It's not theoretical to him.
Jeb Bush comes from a solidly pro-American family, but he keeps giving out "internationalist" signals.
As a pro-American, you can love Mexico, Ireland, Israel, or India. But in my opinion, you can't love open borders, because that’s destructive to this country. Good fences make good neighbors, and it's been a long time since Mexico acted like a good neighbor to us. There's a big difference between loving Hispanics and turning our national security over to the corruptocrats of Mexico City.
Jeb's problem is his policies, not his wife. Speaking a little Spanish is just pandering, and voters know it.
So this is a first take on the strongest GOP field in decades. The political class is seeing the biggest voter revolt in years, and I hope it doesn't stop with this election. The establishment looks tired, cynical, and easily corruptible. They are woefully out of touch. That’s partly our fault, and partly theirs.
Voters must go back to taking responsibility for the pols, because we see the temptations of untrammeled power. If we don't watch them carefully, they will keep drifting in bad directions.
Millions of Americans are learning to use the web to keep tabs on the power-mongers.
It's still true that power corrupts, and we can see it every single day. Ultimately, it’s still up to us.