When he voted in the Republican Primary, Donald Trump was the Colonel's 17th choice.
That's right -- the Colonel would have voted for Gilmore over Trump. To be brutally honest, the Colonel has never liked Trump. Never have been a big fan of ostentatious narcissistic bullies.
And, the Colonel will freely admit that he way underestimated Donald Trump's ability to mount a winning presidential campaign -- even against the most flawed Democrat Party candidate in history. The Colonel, as many of you who frequently waste precious rod and cone time perusing posts hereon will remember, early on endorsed a Rubio/Kasich ticket that he believed had the best chance of both defeating Hillary Clinton (in the Electoral College count) and effectively governing over the next four years. And, after watching Trump's performance in the "debates" (a term defined, in the current American lexicon, with less firmament than a newborn's diaper deposit), and his inability to resist spending political capital on defending himself against attacks designed to do just that, the Colonel was convinced the polls were all wrong. The Colonel didn't believe that the race was going to be any closer than about 15 points.
The Colonel was wr...
The Colonel was wwrr...
The Colonel was wroooo...
The Colonel misunderestimated. (It's a word -- just ask W)
Look, the Colonel gets it. The Donald tapped into a seething reservoir of discontent. He said what 60+ million American citizens wanted to hear. But, that doesn't make the Colonel trust him any more than he trusts a threatened copperhead not to strike.
And, while the Colonel is decidedly not a practitioner of the unmanly art of political correctness, he is uncomfortable with Trump's rhetoric. Just as uncomfortable as he is with the divisive rhetoric, and tenuous grasp on the truth, of the current temp help in the Oval Office.
For the Colonel's many friends who are currently toasting with tankards of Trumpade: he hopes you are right. He hopes President Trump will restore Constitutional governance to our great Republic.
But, the Colonel has learned from painful experience that "hope" is not an effective strategy, nor even a satisfactory operational or tactical course of action. The Colonel fervently believes that the future greatness of our Republic lies not in the hands of an extra-Constitutional strongman, but in a chief executive whose every action is bound by a strict interpretation of the Constitution to which he or she solemnly swears his allegiance and defense. The Colonel is not ready to place complete trust in Trump's willingness to abide strictly by the Constitution while he endeavors to deliver on his promise to "make America great again;" whatever that means. The Colonel fears that Trump's narcissism and the counsel of sycophants will win out over strict Constitutional governance just as surely as it has in Obama's case.
But, we could have been in far more worse hands come January. A Hillary Clinton presidency, with certain attendant corruption the likes of which have not been seen since the Grant administration, was a prospect too horrible to entertain, even for a plurality of the voters in several states that went for Obama two elections in a row.
For that reason, he will admit, the Colonel was a sniff short of giddy as the elections results trickled in last Tuesday. He may not have been on the Trump Train, but the Colonel was for dang sure not looking forward to the certain full-scale assault on the Constitution that would have continued under a Clinton administration.
Bottom line: The Colonel's actual declaration of the Tallahatchie Republic is on hold. But, Trump had better watch his... actions.
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