Spoiling for a Fight

People need to learn to separate constructive from destructive criticism as we head in to primary season.

I recently posted what I considered to be a mild criticism about Trump's constant harping about the 2020 election, and many were so unprepared to hear it, they took pleasure in eviscerating me, a person who voted for Trump in 2016, enthusiastically supported him in 2020, believes the 2020 election was corrupted by the actions of a few states, and has already said if Trump is the GOP nominee, I’ll vote for him again.

They were so ready to fight, they couldn't comprehend the meaning of the post, so let me clear some things up:

• At this point, there is literally nothing that can be done about 2020 that would put Trump back in the White House. There can be investigations, law changes, etc. - but there is no provision for a redo of the election. None.

• While his rabid focus on 2020 is ethically right and he has every right to be mad as hell about what was done to him, from a legal sense, he is impotent and his sometimes unhinged commentary on the subject is risking turning away voters he needs to win the nomination and the 2024 election.

• Trump is a currently private citizen who, like the rest of us, has no power to issue any executive orders to do anything at this point. The focus should not be about 2020, but about winning in 2024 so things can be done.

Let’s be clear. President Trump has seen attacks on a political, professional, and personal level far beyond anything seen in the history of the Republic. He, his family, and his companies have been under legal assault from the AG of New York State as well as several local DA’s. These are people who ran on a platform of “getting Trump”. He has been subjected to banning from social media, has suffered betrayals by people close to him, seen his supporters go to jail, and even been investigated and attacked by the current regime and its politicized Security State and DOJ.

I get that he is driven by a love of this country, but to ignore that revenge is a motivator as well is simply ignorant. Any of us would want that. I would.

But a righteous cause doesn’t exempt him from criticism.

No elected official or political figure is above criticism.

That is something I hated about Obama's sycophants in the media and the Democrat Party. They were constantly reframing his policies into things they were not, "explaining" that he didn't say what he said and if he did say it, he meant something entirely different - or you are just too stupid to understand it.

If you criticized Obama, you were automatically a racist - even though Obama was half white. In his supporter's minds, the ONLY reason to call him out was because you hated having a black family in the White House.

To this day, his worshipers still do not see the damage (or will not admit) he did to this nation. Just as Woodrow Wilson set the stage for FDR, Obama set the stage for Biden.

There are two types of criticism: constructive and destructive. Obviously, the former is intended to be helpful, the latter to destroy.

Sometimes people have trouble separating the two, especially if the constructive is necessarily pointed and sometimes harsh, and sometimes reluctantly offered due to the bluntness of it all.

And it seems, like the Obamabots, die-hard Trumpers have adopted the same idea that any criticism makes you a traitor.

The thing is, I can’t tell if they think I am a traitor to America or just to Trump.

I thought about this last night after a commenter to an old post told me that I was “wrong and my peers were telling me how wrong I was”. I went back and reviewed over 300 of the comments that expressed an opinion one way or another, and to make that statement, this person ignored that about 60% of the comments were from people who thought I was on to something to 40% of those who didn’t.

For goodness’s sake, people began attacking DeSantis the day after the mid-term elections as if he is a usurper to the throne.

I don’t know if Trump should be the nominee or not. That’s not my call. I’m reserving my judgment to see who is going to join the party. That’s why we have primaries.

I’m pretty sure the usual suspects will take this all to mean I hate Trump.

I don’t, I think he is unique among American presidents and is most likely the best man to vest the retribution that is so richly deserved and justified.

But he must get elected first.

I have my own views and opinions – that clearly do not align with some - I’m not going to sit down and shut up when President Trump (or anybody else) does things worthy of calling out.

If you hated the way the left worshiped Obama, don’t fall into that cult of personality trap. Let reason and objectivity guide your choice, not blind loyalty or a thirst for revenge.

Win the election first and then we can proceed to pull the weeds.