This is what I do NOT understand in the “age of Trump”…

Yesterday I wrote a post that featured Shep Smith and John Roberts, as well as the Daily Caller, debunking what Trump is saying about Amazon. Because at the core of it all, Trump has no business using his presidential bully pulpit to target and attack a private company.

Then I get an email like this last night:

I’ve omitted the name, of course, because that’s not the point. What is the point is this: how in the heck is it acceptable to a conservative for Trump to bully and smear a private company? From all accounts they haven’t done anything wrong, yet they are on the front end of a near-daily attack by the president, who is threatening to use his power to harm them – all because he has a beef with their owner.

If Trump is the “most conservative president” ever, then he would never ever be doing this. It’s not just inappropriate, it’s authoritarian. It’s the same kind of thing we’ve seen with Erdogan in Turkey for the last half-decade or more. Yet the person who wrote this tip attacks me for standing by my conservative principles and pointing out why Trump is wrong, all because he’s “the most conservative president to date”.

For those of you coming here, you know what we’ve praised the actions of Trump when they were good (and conservative). But we also criticize Trump when he’s wrong, and he’s been wrong a lot lately, especially when it comes to trade and bullying private companies.

And just to be clear, this isn’t the first time he’s done this. Earlier in his administration he was threatening car companies with heavy tariffs if they opened plants in Mexico. NOT CONSERVATIVE!

To this person I’d love to ask: Was it ok for Obama to bully companies with the EPA because of his phony climate change agenda? Some of them went out of business because of his heavy regulation. If it wasn’t ok for Obama to do it, it’s also not ok for Trump to threaten and bully companies.

I’m not saying Trump has done the same amount of damage that Obama did, but the principle is still the same. Trump has an agenda and he’s using that agenda to attack and bully private companies, and that is simply wrong.

Trump has obviously given rise to a new cult-based group of people who call themselves conservative, but if this email is any indication, they are far from it. Rather, their only principles seem to coincide with whatever Trump does as they make excuse after excuse for him.

Just go be clear, I’m not a ‘never-trumper’. Nor am I an ‘always-trumper’. I am just a conservative trying to survive the ‘age of Trump’.


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