Friday, March 29, 2024

How Should Social Conservatives Handle a Trump Victory?

Donald Trump (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
Donald Trump (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

As you know, I have endorsed Senator Ted Cruz. As much as I understand Donald Trump’s appeal, I have significant concerns about him. They include his suggestion that he would remain neutral between Israel and the Palestinians, his continued defense of Planned Parenthood and whether he will appoint reliably conservative judges.

Having said all of that, I am more disturbed by the increasing number of folks who are saying, “If Candidate X (usually Trump) gets the nomination, I’ll vote for Clinton or stay home.”

Let me say this as clearly as I can: Hillary Clinton MUST NOT become the next president of the United States.

She is undeniably a liar who jeopardized national security. Hillary and Obama abandoned our men in Benghazi. Her war in Libya has empowered ISIS. She began the outreach to Iran.

She has never seen an abortion she was willing to stop. She is all in on the demands of the gay rights movement, and will sacrifice religious liberty to satisfy that movement.

She will grow the government, raise your taxes and appoint left-wing judges to every federal court in the country. She has refused to condemn the growing extremism in the Black Lives Matter movement. The list goes on and on.

When critics of Trump, Cruz or Rubio say they would rather elect Hillary Clinton than the Republican they don’t like, that makes absolutely no sense to me. If we have Hillary cementing the policies of Barack Obama for four more years, the demise of the Republican Party will be the least of our worries. We will be worrying about the demise of America as a constitutional republic.

Should Donald Trump win the nomination, the more logical approach would be for his critics to challenge him to do what he says he does better than anyone else — make a deal. And here’s the deal: We stick together in exchange for ironclad commitments on judicial appointments, the preservation of religious liberty, border security, rebuilding our military, fill in the blank.

Gary L. Bauer served in President Ronald Reagan’s administration for eight years, as Under Secretary of Education and as President Reagan’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor.

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