[WideRight05]

I'll admit, starting out I didn't expect Trump would keep 1/10th of what he promised. The only candidates I may have taken him over in that primary are Kasich, Christie, and definitely open social liberal George Pataki. Had that been held today, he wouldn't be my first choice but he would be moved up quite a few notches. For me, it’s all plain and simple – no matter who it is, if they come in and represent Christian, conservative principles they will have my support. If they don't, I will be critical of them.

As for the wall, look at some of the nice things Trump has done during his term especially economically. I’m surprised that he hasn’t been able to get the wall through. He knew coming in he would have a battle with Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell, I feel has been very much on Trump’s side with the wall but the problem with the Senate is you need 60 votes to get just about anything through there and neither party has had 60+ since the 1970’s. Unless Trump declares a state of national emergency I don’t see how he would be able to get the wall built unless the Republicans hang onto the Senate in 2020 and get the House back but that’s not looking to be a good election year for the Republicans at least at the Senate level because the Republicans have a lot more seats to defend. Unless either the Republicans get a big push in the House and retain the Senate in 2020 assuming Trump wins or they get a big push in 2022, it will be extremely difficult for Trump to get that through. His best shot was in his first term and I honestly think he either took some bad advice or was too confident that the Republicans would get several big gains in the House.

Overall, Trump has made more good moves than bad but we have to keep our eye on him. An important position that has influence over businesses is the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Trump just re-nominated an Obama-era radical who believes even stated herself that sexual liberty would take priority over religious liberty. Had it not been for a gutsy effort by Mike Lee, that would have slid through. Some of Trump’s judge picks have been nice, others I question. So far it seems like Gorsuch has been a home run and seems to follow a mold similar to Scalia as Trump indicated he would. Kavanaugh is not off to that same start though and I hold deep concern that he will not be the judge people think he is. Trump had Amy Comey Barrett and Don Willett to pick from and they would have been way more consistent with judges like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Also important is watching the lower level courts. Don Willett being promoted to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals under Trump has been an excellent move (I hope for a future SCOTUS run!) but by the same token as badly as Trump has wanted to re-shape the Ninth Circuit courts, Patrick Bumatay is someone that I’m sure Barack Obama would like. Follow that up with Mary Rowland of Illinois being nominated to a different court that drew like from Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth – not a good thing.

What has happened with Donald Trump represents a problem with society in general and how we elevate political candidates to the status of God. You saw the same thing with Barack Obama - he had a group of supporters that stood by him regardless of what he did and as good as some of Trump's moves have been a lot of people are not calling him out on the bad. I feel like Trump would do better with a party that would hold him accountable on everything he does. He’s done some good things and this is better than having somebody like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. But very few people will hold him accountable when he sends in a questionable judge nomination or pushes for a questionable piece of legislation. He promised recently that he would veto any legislation promoting abortion – but yet him, the Republican controlled House with simple majority rule and the Senate passed bill after bill that continued to fund planned parenthood.

Conservatism is gone and I hate to echo many of the writers I see that say we are living in a post-Christian era but the truth is the truth. The Republican Party is supposed to be the one that represents Christian, conservative principles and they have not been that party. Every president they have sent to the oval office since Ronald Reagan has been very much just right of center. Trump made some noise due to his talk on immigration and building the wall but when you get outside of the immigration issue you could say that Trump is much more moderate on issues than many Republicans and that even includes some of the fiscal issues.

We talked about Vermont in the abortion thread briefly. Vermont is heavily Democrat and other than a Republican Governor that may be the most liberal Republican in the country, Vermont is heavily Democrat. They also have a decent sized third party, the Progressive Party that is everything the name indicates. They're extremely liberal, moreso than the Democratic Party. The Progressive Party doesn't have nearly as many seats as the Republican Party does in that state but probably aren't too far behind in the level of influence they have given the state they're in. Point being, I see society eventually drifting to what Vermont is - the Democratic Party being like the Progressive Party and the Republican Party being like the Democratic Party is there. Every single election cycle the Republican Party drifts a little further to the left and despite the platform that represents conservatism, the people they send to office at the national, regional, and local levels tell different stories.

I hope I'm wrong and we see a move back to the Christian, conservative principles that were outlined in the party platform. With a couple more retirements on the SCOTUS likely, especially one I believe will retire is Stephen Breyer, there is a major opportunity to reshape this court and overturn Roe v. Wade, United States v. Windsor, Obergefell v. Hodges and many other poorly made decisions. But right now we're seeing the Republican Party and country as a whole continue to drift to the left as it has under prior Republican administrations.