The Stalinists' arguments against Donald J. Trump come down, I believe, to two elements: MAGA is the worst thing since the Black Death, and Trump himself is a blankety blank-blank.

These impure principles of political polemics are not that difficult to dismiss, if one has the good conscience to do so, rather than fall victim to what I have called "paulryanism," which I will here redefine as "the refusal to defend Donald J. Trump against specious accusations."

First, in refuting the insinuation that the MAGA program is harmful to the economic, political, and social health of the country, one need go no farther than Roger Kimball's insightful summary of MAGAness in his American Greatness article, "Biden Puts the 'Total' in Totalitarianism."  A better description of the MAGA program, and concomitant refutation of the "elite globalist" argument against it, cannot be found.

As to the speciousness of the slurs regularly catapulted at Mr. Trump, I herewith submit just two New York Times columns, dated September 5, from the RINO Ross Douthat and the rabid Trumpophobe Charles M. Blow.

First, Douthat's column, "Does Biden Truly Think Democracy Is in Crisis?"  Douthat posits, as I read his column, that Biden knows that Trump, for all his authoritarian tendencies, "is actually too weak to credibly threaten the democratic order and that it's therefore safe to accept a small risk" of Trumpism, whatever that is, to achieve victory at the polls.  Bear in mind that Douthat loathes Mr. Trump in the manner of a devout NeverTrump and, therefore, resorts to alarmist talk against the former president to make good anti-Trump propaganda.  Ergo his continued post as "conservative" columnist at The New York Times.

Mr. Blow's column, September 5, "Republicans Don't Deserve an Apology," is what the political hate speech directed at Mr. Trump is all about — to borrow from Macbeth, sound and fury signifying nothing more than political hate speech, devoid of substance, particulars, not to mention minutiae.

For example, in mid-column, this statement from the Blow screed is highlighted: "Biden said that Trumpism resembles 'semi-fascism.'  He's right."  But "semi-fascism" (whatever that is) is just a political expletive.  Biden could just as well have said that Trumpists are a bunch of so-and-sos.  I wonder that Biden used the expletive, without more, confident that he could easily turn the Republicans suffering from paulryanism against Donald J. Trump this election season, even convincing them with specious talk to support his indictment to coincide with the High Holy Days, at the end of this month, and the beginning of October.  After all, the specious talk that Mr. Trump as a Putin agent led to the bizarre Mueller investigation and softened the country to accepting two mean-spirited impeachments, including one Senate trial after President Trump, peacefully, left office.

It is significant, I believe, that before Mr. Blow concluded his latest rabidly anti-Trump column, he found it useful to quote, yes, Hillary Clinton's observation — that could just have gotten Donald J. Trump elected our 45th president.  Four paragraphs from the end of the column, Mr. Blow quoted the former secretary of state, New York senator, first lady, and defiler of email secrecy: "You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.  Right?  The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it..."

"You name it."  The Stalinists' complaint against Mr. Trump and MAGA is tantamount to name-calling, using epithets as expletives.

If Citizen Trump is indicted and put on trial in the District of Columbia, it will be, I submit, because the Republican Party lacks the guts to stand up to the true enemies of the spirit of American liberty.  If Citizen Trump is indicted and put on trial, it will be only because Biden and his handlers have the power to obtain an indictment from a compliant, partisan Justice Department and grand jury — without the legal justification.

If, say, Citizen Trump is charged with obstruction (of whatever), it will be because the Deep State continues to fear him, rightly so, as an existential threat to its commitment to government of the elites, by the elites, and for the elites.  That is not the system of governance that was developed, in 1787, in the building that Mr. Biden traduced the evening of September 1, 2022.

On September 17, the country will mark the 235th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution at Independence Hall.  The Republican Party should mark this solemn, glorious occasion by burying "paulryanism" and standing proudly with the president who gave the country the MAGA program — and true hope for the future.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.