Trump's Virtues

I regularly ask Republican politicians what they think of Donald Trump. The most frequent response is some version of, “I like his policies but don’t like the rest of him.” But this formulation gets it almost backwards. Although Trump advanced many important policies, it is the “rest of him” that contains the virtues that inspired a movement.

Trump was born for the current American crisis: the life and death struggle against the totalitarian enemy I call “woke communism.” The “woke comms” have seized every political, cultural, and economic center of power in the country from where they ruthlessly push their agenda. That agenda rests on the conviction that America is thoroughly bad (systemically racist) and must be destroyed.

If there is one thing that patriotic Americans know about Trump it is that he, like them, is unequivocally pro-American and willing to fight to defend the American way of life....

As Trump and his supporters know, political correctness cripples our ability to think clearly and act decisively....

Trump treated the woke media with the same contempt he treated political correctness, provoking their outrage and revealing their utter corruption...

Trump revealed—not “caused”—the divide in this country. He awakened the public to the dangers of woke communism and, as good leaders do, gave his supporters the breathing room to voice their discontents. This may have been his most important achievement, made possible by qualities independent of policy. You cannot win a war unless you know you are in one....