Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
In the wake of the United States seizure of cartel gangster and illegitimate Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the worldwide Left from Hollywood to China predictably erupted in outrage and began blustering about “international law” and calling for the impeachment of President Trump. And not just the Left – an X account called Republicans Against Trump, which has nearly a million followers (most of them probably Russian bots), posed this smug question: “Hey MAGA, still happy with your vote?”
I don’t presume to speak for the entire MAGA movement (although based on the flood of similar responses to that post on X, apparently I do), but my answer is an unreserved “Yes. I voted for this.”
I voted for a President and administration that successfully conducts laser-focused law enforcement strikes instead of losing forever wars and then abandoning billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment and weaponry for our enemies to appropriate.
I voted for a President and administration that takes swift, effective, decisive action to make the Western hemisphere, our neighborhood, safer and free of the insidious influence of our enemies.
I voted for a President and administration that renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War – not because I want us to go to war, but because I want our enemies on alert that we don’t start fights but we finish them.
I voted for a President and administration that is not buying into the failed liberal global order of “international law” and America-hating transnational institutions like the United Nations. “International law” has never been anything but a strategy of our enemies to reign in American sovereignty and the exercise of American power for American interests. If that sounds illiberal or imperialistic, I don’t care, Margaret.
I voted for a President and administration that is unashamedly reclaiming our previously unchallenged status as the reigning world superpower. (Remember when Barack Obama made sure he was photographed carrying around Fareed Zakaria’s book The Post-American World? Yeah, screw that.) If not us, who – Russia? China? The Arab Middle East? Pretending that our enemies don’t each want to be the preeminent world power is stupidly naïve. The world is not a better place when America settles for being just another player on the world stage.
I voted for a President and administration that secured our border and is conducting a campaign to remove illegal immigrants, especially repeat felons and gang members.
I voted for a President and administration that obliterates drug traffickers with targeted strikes, and then posts videos of those strikes online.
I voted for a President and administration that kills jihadists with targeted strikes who were waging genocide against African Christians.
I voted for a President and administration that champions the frontier spirit of freedom and individualism and that rejects the totalitarian “warmth of collectivism.”
I voted for a President and administration that called out the racism and anti-meritocracy of DEI initiatives and took action to root them out, everywhere from Ivy League universities to corporate Human Resources Departments.
I voted for a President and administration that stopped flying the multitude of variegated LGBTQ flags alongside the Stars and Stripes, and that pushes back against the transgender activism destroying women’s sports.
There is more, but I think my point is clear.
To be clear on another point: there are some things this President and administration have done that I did not vote for. To name a recent example: I absolutely did not vote for the pressuring of Israel to ease up on Hamas, a sadistically evil organization that Israel should have been encouraged to wipe out to the last man. On a related note, I did not vote for the U.S. to take over the rebuilding of Gaza. But in all fairness, one can’t expect to support a President’s every single action.
There are also things this President and administration have not yet done that I voted for and don’t understand what they’re waiting for, such as labeling the Muslim Brotherhood and all its affiliates terrorist organizations, or indicting and imprisoning everyone involved in the J6 prosecutions.
I have my issues with Donald Trump, but in the main, I am happy to stand with a President who is despised by all the right people: the Democrat Party, RINOs, the Iranian mullahs, the Chinese Communist regime, Communist Muslim Zohran Mamdani, corrupt Congressional cowards like Chuck Schumer, privileged Hollywood blowhards, Left-wing activists worldwide who are rallying in support of Maduro, and more. Any President who earns their ire must be doing something very, very right. Any President who earns their approval is at best an American failure and at worst a traitor.
I identify, as Progressives love to say, with the MAGA movement because after the catastrophic White House tenures of subversives Barack Obama and Joe Biden (not to mention the stumbling Dubya years), I want America to be great again. I want it to be the greatest country on earth. Whatever his flaws, Donald Trump and his team want the same thing and are taking decisive actions to bring that about, and they are indifferent to the jealous, self-righteous carping of anti-American critics at home and abroad. That’s what I voted for.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
