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3 months ago
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Conservative voters across America are outraged at the abusive, lawless prosecution of Donald Trump.
I am among them.
But – despite many now predicting a Republican landslide in November – as someone who has never voted for Trump before, I still won’t.
This hush-money trial was indeed most indefensible.
The prosecution and the judge shattered precedents and — in my view as a lawyer — violated the law in numerous ways to deceive the jury into a conviction.
This should alarm every American — and I don’t blame anybody who is now feeling more sympathetic to Trump.
But he’s still unfit for office.
Conservative voters across America are outraged at the abusive, lawless prosecution of Donald Trump. I am among them.
But, despite many now predicting a Republican landslide in November, as someone who has never voted for Trump before, I still won’t.
Politicians don’t have to be saints, and few of them are.
But Trump is a man of uniquely bad character. That’s been obvious since long before he began running for office.
He’s been multiply unfaithful to his wives, shafted his investors, and lies as easily as he breathes.
He’s crude and a sore loser who always claims the other guy cheated. He treats promises and the law as if everything is negotiable.
It's not just his private character, either. After all, one can easily forgive a president’s private misgivings if publicly they are a good and honest man. You need look no further than serial-womanizer JFK.
But the Trump we saw in the Oval Office was the same dishonest Donald.
He made his big splash in politics pushing conspiracy theories like the one that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
And, talking of JFK, remember when Trump claimed that Ted Cruz’s dad was in on his assassination?
Trump doesn’t respect the lines between personal interests and public duty.
Maybe all the foreign cash that poured into his hotels and resorts during his presidency wasn’t as naked an influence-peddling scam as the Biden family’s, but it still reeks.
Certainly, one of the worst things about the current crop of Democrats is how they try to delegitimize America’s institutions every time they lose an election, a court case, or a legislative fight.
But Trump hasn’t just imitated them, he’s taken it to extremes.
He goes personally after judges even in simple civil cases about his business affairs. He claimed that elections were rigged against him even in the 2016 primaries.
And then, of course, came January 6.
Being a lifelong sore loser led to Trump’s most unforgivable behavior: His post-election tantrum that nearly tore the country apart, wasted precious public and court time, and ended with a riot at the Capitol.
January 6 went beyond political dishonesty — and the Senate should have convicted him at his second impeachment, so that he couldn’t run again.
Simply, Trump is reckless, careless, and constantly running through subordinates whom he then has to insult in public. Who hired them all?
Democrats didn’t force Trump to pay repeat-fraudster Michael Cohen as his lawyer for over a decade. He didn't have to employ throughly dishonourable people such as Steve Bannon.
Politicians don’t have to be saints, and few of them are. But Trump is a man of uniquely bad character. That’s been obvious since long before he began running for office. He’s been multiply unfaithful to his wives, shafted his investors, and lies as easily as he breathes.
The truth is, many of the bogus criminal charges against Trump — this hush-money prosecution included — were made possible only by his own ineptitude.
In the hush-money trial, he stupidly had his lawyers waste time disputing the Stormy Daniels affair ever happened at all instead of focusing on the obvious weakness in DA Alvin Bragg’s case.
Trump’s uniquely toxic personality drives everyone around him nuts – not just his friends and employees, but also his enemies.
Democrats and the press have broken norm after norm to get at Trump. He keeps giving them the rope, and they’re using it to hang our Constitution. Enough already.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m still a Republican. No way am I voting for Joe Biden. He’s still the same crooked, unprincipled liar he was four decades ago, and he’s decrepit now, to boot.
But while Trump may not be in quite as bad shape, he’d still be 82 by the end of a second term term.
There are doubtless millions of conservative voters like me who just can’t pull the lever for Trump.
Some will now be convinced by the injustices of this past week.
But I’m holding out.
I voted third party in 2016 and wrote in Mike Pence’s name in 2020.
It hardly mattered because I live in deep-blue New York, but I’ll be writing in somebody else again. Because Donald Trump is still bad news, even when his enemies are worse.
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