On Donald Trump

I didn't vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.  (I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton either, but I'll address the reasons for that in another post.)

I knew going into this election that there was no way I would ever vote for Hillary Clinton, and Bernie's positions are so diametrically opposed to everything I believe that I couldn't have voted for him, either.

I liked several of the primary candidates on the GOP ticket.  Rubio looked good to me, until Chris Christie completely dismantled him in one of the debates.  I thought Carly Fiorina's grasp of the issues and ideas for solutions were excellent, and if she'd emerged victorious in the primaries, I'd have voted for her.  (I guess that dispels the myth that everyone who didn't vote for Hillary is a sexist pig.)

Ted Cruz came across like a smarmy televangelist to me, and Kasich was just a male Hillary with an R behind his name.  The last thing I wanted was more of the same.  And I really loved Christie's response to a debate question regarding how we restore the public's confidence in and support for the military: by having a Commander-in-Chief who supports the military, something that's been lacking these last eight years.

And then there was Trump.  Childish, misogynistic, and woefully lacking in details regarding what he'd do ("We're gonna have a plan, it's gonna be a great plan, you're gonna love our plan ...").  His personal, juvenile attacks on anyone who disagreed with him.  His arguing with Rubio about penis size in a presidential debate, for crying out loud.

Don't get me wrong, I agreed with a number of his positions, more so than I did with Hillary.  We desperately need comprehensive tax reform in America, and we need competitive corporate tax rates if we're going to stem the tide of off-shoring jobs and capital.  Obamacare is a miserable failure that needs to be dismantled and replaced with something sane, something that works.  Our military needs to be strengthened, and we need to reverse the fecklessness of our foreign policy.  And I don't know how effective "The Wall" would be, but we definitely need to address our decades-old illegal immigration problem.

On occasion, Trump would articulate one of his positions in a manner that got me thinking, "Yeah, I could get behind this guy."  Then he'd devolve back into playground mode with a childish barb at someone who dared disagree with him.  His rally speeches were meandering exercises in vagueness and self-aggrandizement.  He seemed to measure his success by the number of people who attended his rallies.

And so, once more, I'd revert to my original position: "I just can't."

However, come Friday, he will be my President.  (He'll be yours, too, so long as you retain American citizenship, and no amount of denial on your part can change that.)  I'm rooting for him, just as I rooted for Obama after his inauguration.  I hope things turn out better this time.

And I believe they will.  Trump has assembled the strongest bench I've seen in Washington in my lifetime.  I believe that's his ultimate strength: using his connections and his persuasiveness to build strong leadership teams, like any successful businessman has to be able to do.  It's okay if his grasp of the issues and the minutiae of the solutions we need aren't down-in-the-weeds detailed, so long as the people that surround him know the issues cold, and can develop the right solutions.  As CEO of a brokerage firm, I didn't have a strong grasp of the regulatory issues - I didn't want to.  But I had a damn good compliance officer who did, so I was able to sleep at night.

I expect Trump to be more hands-off, serving as the face and the voice of the Presidency (which ensures that the next four or eight years will be damned entertaining, to say the least).  I don't see him driving us headlong into nuclear war, as some partisan sensationalists do.  His personal wealth is tied up in real estate assets in major markets that would be prime targets in a retaliatory action.  Would he really jeopardize his money, which seems to be the most important thing in the world to him, besides his family?

And I expect the team around him will do an excellent job of executing the initiatives set forth in the campaign.  Those on the left don't want to see that happen, but that's life in a republic.

So in the end, no, I didn't vote for The Donald.  But I'm looking forward to watching his administration restore the America that I love to its proper position on the world stage.  It won't be easy, but few things that are necessary and worthwhile ever are.