Why Did I Vote For Trump in 2016? Why Am I Voting For Him Again?
As you contemplate your 2024 presidential vote, I'm reminded of October 2016, when my absentee ballot sat on my desk for two weeks. What motivated me to finally vote for him?
Like many of you, I was shaken by the actions of a podunk Manhattan jury directed by a malevolent, partisan, and corrupt “Justice” in New York’s convoluted and failed legal system to convict a former President of the United States.
Convicted for what, you may ask? Good question. We don’t know. And neither do you. It was a show trial worthy of Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union when tens of millions died from their “legal system.”
I really don’t want to go into the egregious errors in this case because they are outlined so well elsewhere, but remember that Manhattan’s elected District Attorney directed his staff to dig to find a way to indict Trump - I have the man, find the crime, as Stalin’s evil police chief, Lavrentiy Beria once said. But as I have thought through this tragic diminution of our legal system - a bedrock of our democratic republic - I am led to several days in October 2016 as I stared at and contemplated my ballot for President in that year’s election.
I hated Donald Trump. I found him unfit for the presidency, an ignoramus, and an affront to everything I wanted in a president. I never thought he would win.
That year, one of Trump’s competitors was my friend, former US Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). Four years earlier, he won 11 primaries in his previous race but eventually lost to now-retiring US Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT). I was willing to crawl over broken glass to help my friend, Rick. I maxed out to his campaign (I contributed the maximum allowed, which I’ve never done and haven’t since). My wife and one son volunteered to help in his campaign.
Here are some quick stories about Rick Santorum, the man who really should be President.
First, when he ran for President in 2012 - when I fully embraced his candidacy - he eventually won the Iowa caucuses. it took three weeks to count the votes, a major indictment on Iowa’s Republican Party that day. “Game on,” he said. He gave the establishment-supported Romney a run for his money. A grassroots movement emerged that included this organic song from a family in Tulsa, Oklahoma (Santorum won over 70 percent of Oklahoma’s GOP primary vote in 2012).
It turned out he was, to borrow a phrase, a political “John the Baptist” of his day, a forerunner for the eventual messenger of his message. Santorum, not Trump, is, more than anyone else, the architect of the Republican party’s shift to a party of working-class Americans.
Don’t believe me? Pick up a copy of Santorum’s 2015 book, “Blue Collar Conservative.” This leads us to our second story, told by Rick Santorum himself.
In 2015, before Trump announced his decision to run, he invited Santorum to Trump Tower. Rick, accompanied by his daughter Sarah Maria, accepted the invitation. This is what Rick told me personally.
Trump, seeing Rick and his daughter, waved them into his office. “I read your book,” Trump said, which he had on his desk. “This the message we need.”
“You didn’t read the book,” Santorum claims. Oh, yes, Trump said, he did. Santorum asked questions of Trump about the book. Sure enough, he’d read it.
They briefly discussed whether each was running for President in 2016. Both were cagey. The rest is history. I’ll say it: Trump stole Santorum’s message for his 2016 campaign.
Santorum had the message but wasn’t the messenger. Trump, an established brand, was.
That brings us to 2016. Trump is the GOP nominee. I’m still pissed over the GOP primary. I even briefly changed my party registration from Republican to Independent in Pennsylvania, that’s how upset I was over Trump’s conquest of the GOP. My absentee ballot sat on my desk in Camden, New Jersey, for two weeks as I contemplated my options.
Voting for Hillary? Hell, no. Not an option. Third-party or independent candidates? Why throw my vote away?
Then I realized something: the composition of the US Supreme Court was at stake.
Justice Antonin Scalia had died, and then-President Barack Obama was trying to force Judge Merrick Garland down the Senate’s throats. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and their Republican colleagues stood firm and said NO.
Right then and there, I realized that a fair and impartial judicial system was the bedrock of our democratic republic. I took one last look at my ballot, marked it for Donald Trump and every GOP candidate, and mailed it.
As I’ve said, the rest is history. Given what we know now, can you imagine Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court today? Dear God.
We’re here again. While our judiciary is arguably the least important of our three branches, it is the bulwark against tyranny. The preservation of the Rule of Law and the impartiality and fairness of our judicial system is at stake.
The examples of outrage against our justice system are too numerous to count here, but fortunately, my friend Hugh Hewitt has outlined them expertly.
1. Hillary’s private server, the rules it violated and the threat to national security it posed, and no prosecution for it.
2. Hillary’s lawyers’ deletion of half of her emails and no prosecution for that.
3. Hillary’s use of Bleach Bit and hammers and again no prosecution.
4. Former FBI Director James Comey’s "nothing to see here" conclusion on the Clinton emails on REP. Anthony Weiner’s laptop.
5. The Steele Dossier.
6. Marc Elias and his then law firm Perkins Coie and their roles in the 2016 campaign, which included retaining Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to "conduct the research" and create the Steele dossier.
7. The leak of the Steele dossier to Mother Jones and other media outlets
8. The meeting (ambush?) of President-elect Trump by then-CIA Director Brennan, then-FBI Director Comey and then-DNI Director Clapper at Trump Tower in January 2017, at the conclusion of which Comey briefed the president-elect on the most salacious parts of the dossier. (The news that Comey had done so almost immediately leaked.)
9. The recusal by Attorney General Jeff Sessions from any matter involving the Trump 2016 campaign.
10. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein naming Robert S. Mueller III to serve as Special Counsel to oversee the investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters.
11. The team of hyper-partisan prosecutors assembled by Mueller
12. The revelations from the Peter Strzok-Lisa Page messages about the corruption atop the FBI
13. The 22 months Mueller and his attack pack took to find…nothing.
14. The two thick volumes of "Mueller report" intended to cover the dry holes Team Mueller had drilled.
15. The refusal by Team Mueller to send to then-Attorney General William Barr a version of the report that Barr requested, a version redacted of classified information so that it could immediately be published, which the Mueller team did not do.
16. The smear of Barr that he was hiding the report and then the smear of Barr that his conclusion that there was no obstruction was somehow flawed.
17. The leak of the Trump phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky.
18. The manufacture of Impeachment One based on that call.
19. The lies of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., throughout the Mueller investigation and then throughout the impeachment.
20. The changes in voting rules because of COVID.
21. The "Zuckerbucks" and "Zuckerboxes."
22. The Commission on Presidential Debates 2020 selection of moderators and its unilateral decision to cancel one of the debates.
23. The Hunter Biden laptop and the censoring of most stories about it when the New York Post got the scoop.
24. The letter from "51 former senior intelligence officials" concluding that the emails on Biden’s laptop "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
25. The lawlessness of the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd (and the refusal to call out that protestors were violating COVID guidelines even as churches, beaches and playgrounds were closed.)
26. The second impeachment after the 1/6 riot at the Capitol, an effort undertaken even as the transition to President Biden in two weeks would obviously prevent a timely proceeding with even minimal attention to the process due any official much less the outgoing president.
27. The set-up by the FBI of the meeting with Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (USA, ret.) and his subsequent prosecution.
28. The conduct not just of Comey, Page and Strzok but also of the Bureau’s Andrew McCabe and James Baker.
29. The manipulation of the membership of House Select Committee on 1/6 by then-Speaker Pelosi who vetoed future Indiana Senator Jim Banks from becoming the ranking minority member and proceeded to name two anti-Trump Republicans to the show trial "committee." The entire charade reflected this original breach of trust with voters, rigging the proceedings to run as they did.
30. The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
31. The appointment of Jack Smith as Special Counsel (despite the Supreme Court having tossed his prosecution and conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell).
32. The appointment of a different Special Counsel, Robert Hur, to President Biden’s classified documents case and the obviously different standard for prosecution applied to Biden than was applied to Trump.
33. The conduct of and civil case against Trump brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
34. The conduct of New York judge Arthur Engoron during that civil proceeding, and his outrageous setting of the bond.
35. The E. Jean Carroll proceedings and verdicts.
36. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg campaigning for office on the promise of getting Trump.
37. Bragg filing an indictment against Trump resurrecting time-barred misdemeanors but without specifying in the indictment the "second crime" that turned those time-barred misdemeanors into felonies ripe for prosecution.
38. Trial court judge Juan Merchan’s symbolic contributions to the 2020 Joe Biden campaign and two hard left causes —in contravention of black letter New York law governing judicial conduct— and Merchan’s refusal to recuse himself from the Trump trial.
39. Merchan’s anti-Trump rulings on many, many issues ranging from admitting plea bargains with Michael Cohen and David Pecker that the defense objected to, to refusing to allow former Federal Elections Commission Chair Professor Brad Smith testify to the extent of his knowledge, rulings which telegraphed the judge’s push for a conviction.
40. The blistering by Merchan of defense witness Robert Costello and the judge’s interference with Costello’s testimony.
41. The failure of the judge to clearly instruct on the state of mind "the second crime" would require.
42. The jury not declaring what the "second crime" was on the verdict paper.
43. The conduct of Judge Tanya Chutkan in attempting to rush a trial in federal district court in D.C.
44. The gag order on Trump issued by trial judge Engoron in the case brought by James.
45. The gag order on Trump issued by trial Judge Chutkin in the case brought by Smith in D.C.
46. The gag order on Trump issued by Merchan.
47. The four-days-a-week of trial in the spring of the election year, a schedule requiring Trump to be in a Manhattan court room for six weeks, thus interfering with the presidential campaign
48. The conduct of both Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fanni Willis and her lover and co-counsel Nathan Wade.
49. The refusal of all of these prosecutors and judges to wait on the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity from criminal proceedings based on acts taken while president.
50. Arizona’s Democratic State Attorney General Kris Mayes’ and her grand jury’s indictment of 18 people in an election interference case filed in late April.
I voted for Trump in 2016 to save our system of justice. It is even more at stake in 2024, no matter what you think of him.