Making peace with oneself in deciding to vote for Trump in November was the easy part; anyone-but-a-socialist (closeted or brazen) is the rational choice for any citizen who got his first smartphone after puberty.  The hard part was, how to appease one’s conscience and disclose one’s decision to others.  Here is how to do it.

So far, the visible part of the upside on Trump is three possibilities:  (1) he would blow up Washington; (2) he would take counsel on economics from a responsible grown-up; and (3) he would fill the Scalia vacancy with a Scalia Conservative rather than a Roberts Conservative or worse.  The first seems like a great idea and pretty much a sure thing, so let’s consider (2) and (3).

Trump has come forward with an indication that he is taking advice on economics from Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore, each of whom grasps the fundamental conservative principles that economic growth is our most important issue other than national security, and that the key to economic growth is the restoration of free-market incentives via tax reform rather than mere tax cuts.  Unlike many self-styled conservatives, Kudlow and Moore know that cutting tax rates is not enough, that you also have to cut or eliminate the vast array of deductions and credits that have turned our tax system into a crony-capitalism system. True tax reform means that the changes are no worse than revenue-neutral but that they create massive new incentives to entrepreneurial activity and business growth.  In other words, resurrect the 1986 Tax Reform Act.  Businesses would no longer have to focus upon ways to manage and exploit their relations with the regulatory state and would be freed to focus instead upon providing better products and services to compete more effectively in the market – especially if the existing regulatory burdens on the market had been removed or at least made less political and more rational.

Trump has not tipped his hand on his selection of judges, but it would seem an easy choice for him to announce an intention to nominate Ted Cruz to fill the Scalia vacancy.  Not only would this go a long way toward winning over the hardcore Cruz-wing of the Republican Party, it would also assure all Republicans that they would be getting a justice who, unlike the Chief Justice, is willing to pay at least some attention to the outcomes of cases.  Roberts, in his unbending nonpartisanship, provides a very valuable service, but for so long as the Court includes four lefties who ALWAYS vote for the litigant they favor rather than the one with the better legal case, judicial balance requires that we nominate a conservative version of Ginsburg or Sotomayor, and Cruz appears ideally suited for that role.  And besides, everyone knows he was the smartest constitutional lawyer to come out of Harvard Law since Louis Brandeis, or at least since Felix Frankfurter.  Try Borking HIM.

If Trump indeed follows and sticks to this path, we could be watching the early stages of a Reaganesque political career.  Look at the similarities:  when Reagan began his political career, and especially when he ran for President, the conventional wisdom was that he should have stuck to something he knew and was good at.  The  Anyone-But-Trump crowd should recall that Reagan was initially considered an entertainer, a former Democrat, not a serious politician, and not very bright, and that many thought his policy views were inappropriate, radical, and dangerous.  He was the original anti-establishment candidate.

Peggy Noonan (see the Wall Street Journal of 3/19/16),  in giving us a soft warning that she might provide a soft endorsement of Donald Trump, is disappointing those of us who had thought she was strongly influenced by her former boss and mentor, Ronald Reagan.

Noonan is on the mark when she observes that a big chunk of America is so frustrated by the pols of both parties that it is willing to gamble on a vulgar, ignorant blowhard in the hope that he will liberate us from a hopelessly dysfunctional “establishment” – which it blames for the sorry state of our nation.  Mr. Trump has sold his claque on the fantasy that, despite his smorgasbord of shortcomings, he has the strength and determination to fix things, and that is enough for them – and they couldn’t care less whether he is a conservative, or even a Republican.  We are dealing with emotion here, not reason.

Say this for Mr. Trump.  He has done the nearly-impossible: he has gotten the Republican Party (and a lot of Democrats) to treat his last plausible Republican opponent still standing, Sen. Ted Cruz, as a part of the hated Establishment, even though Sen. Cruz made his bones by thumbing his nose at the entire U.S. Senate and positioning himself as the leader of the anti-Establishment revolt.  This is not necessarily a bad thing for Sen. Cruz, as Mr. Trump might have made the senator seem a bit more tolerable (if not cuddly) to the actual Establishment and to the less-gullible segment of the Republican voters.

Where Ms. Noonan loses her way is in implying that country might be no worse off if the Republicans  placated the Trump faction by nominating their man and sending him off to certain defeat at the hands of Ms. Clinton, rather than offending the Trumpsters by nominating someone who might actually have a chance of beating her.  The devil you know vs. the possible wrath of the frustrated Trumpsters.  That seems to be the Noonan bet.

Well, let’s think about the devil we know.  What we know about her is that when the chips are down, her venal, inner-socialist emerges, along with her inner Neville Chamberlain, and what we know about our situation is that the chips are already down.  It is conceivable that Ms. Clinton would not irreparably damage the nation in four years, that the opposing party should be able to un-do the harm we know she would cause.  Thus the suggestion that it is better to buy domestic peace through passivity, to nominate Trump and let Ms. Clinton have her way with a Trump candidacy, than it is to risk upsetting the sensibilities of the pro-Trump cult.

But the hard reality is that in 4 years Ms. Clinton could re-make the Supreme Court into a permanently-leftist proxy legislature, a mere agency of the White House.   (What, you don’t think any more Republican justices could die in those 4 years?) In those 4 years, she could make Pres. Obama look like a tough guy by comparison.  She could treat the Axis of Evil like she treated Benghazi – don’t ask, don’t tell.  She could allow Iran to develop full nuclear capabilities, to dominate the entire Middle East, and to impose a second Holocaust upon Israel.  She could allow Russia to continue to do what it is doing, likewise North Korea – not to mention Venezuela, Cuba, etc. – and she could watch benignly while NATO fiddles, the Chinese permanently take over Hong Kong and the South China Sea and the rest of the west Pacific rim, and Europe and the rest of the free democracies of the world crumble or surrender.

You really want to go for that, rather than messing with the fragile psyches of the Trumpsters by giving the Republicans a chance to win the election ?  Gimme a break.

Yes, it was a fabulous speech.  Echoes of Churchill, spine-tingling, inspiring.  Courteous and respectful not just to his hosts but to those who fought to silence him.  Direct, clear, concise.  What a leader, what a communicator, what a mensch!   But what about President Obama’s bored comment:  nothing new here, no “viable alternatives” – ?

In case you missed it, the alternative, though Mr. Netanyahu prudently declined to talk trash, was implicit in every word he uttered:  WAR!  Either you guys fix this immediately, or Israel shall attack  –  soon, and with or without your assistance.   The Prime Minister did in fact articulate the one viable alternative: negotiate with the Iranian leadership by building leverage, not squandering it.   Hit them with massive  economic sanctions and pressure, enlist allies if you can.  Make no deals until you know they have reversed their nuclear course.  Recognize that Iran, under its present leadership, will never be your friend.  But understand that if America fails to take care of this promptly, Israel will initiate military action, regardless of the whether the odds are in its favor.

Worth noting:  the PM confirmed this site’s analysis from last week:  Israel understands the US is prepared to dump on Israel as the price of buying Iran’s help in fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda and maybe getting Iran as its new best friend.  As Netanyahu put it, the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy.