When I started LGBTrump — the largest Gays for Trump page on Facebook — in July 2015, many thought I was on a fool’s errand. Gays and Trump mix like Grindr and alcohol.
I was called a closet case, a self-loather, and a shrill. Some even claimed I was a plant who was straight. The idea that the LGBT community should give Republican Donald Trump a first look, let alone a second look, was a heresy worthy of a stake and a flame.
{mosads}But in a post-culture war America where marriage equality is the law of the land, why was the LGBT community viewing this election as if Jerry Falwell was still the puppet master? Why were LGBT Americans subscribing to a political dynamic that had seen its expiration date come and go?
LGBTrump was telling LGBT Americans — and all Americans — that this election is much bigger than any one single issue. Yes, marriage equality was a civil rights milestone, but it was one that was achieved. Any talk about marriage equality being “overturned” by the Supreme Court was as believable as separate becoming equal again.
In a post-culture war America the defining issue was not whether Adam should marry Steve. Instead, the defining issues were whether the nation Adam and Steve call home has a right to defend its borders, decide the cultural makeup of its people, reclaim its lost manufacturing base, make the tough choices to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and place the well-being of American citizens before that of global bureaucrats.
And while this election is bigger than any one single issue, it is also bigger than any one candidate. Yes, Trump is a flawed candidate but unlike his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, he is a flawed candidate with the right message.
What 2016 has shown the LGBT community and the nation as a whole is that this election is not about partisan politics. On November 8th Americans are not going to the polls to elect a Republican or a Democrat president; they are going to the polls to either renew American independence or genuflect to the golden calf of globalism.
The issues that are the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign are issues of sovereignty. Trump, bucking his own party, is telling Americans that he is going to put Americans first, second, and third; LGBT Americans included. He is telling Americans that he will build a wall to protect the southern border, halt the fleecing of America through faulty trade deals, put an end to unnecessary wars of intervention, and do whatever it takes to defeat radical Islam.
On the flip side, Hillary has stated that her dream is “open trade” and “open borders.” Her running mate, Tim Kane, is starting to lay the groundwork that a Hillary White House will embrace the Trans Pacific Partnership; a trade deal that makes the North American Free Trade Agreement seem like child’s play.
When it comes to illegal immigration, Hillary is wanting to turn a trickle into a flood. Her amnesty plan would create over 11 million Hispanic voters; a number of whom were seen this election cycle burning the American flag while raising its Mexican counterpart. Hillary would not just grant amnesty; should would authorize a hostile cultural takeover.
As for foreign policy, Hillary has flapped her hawkish wings. She is eager to start a conflict with Moscow. From a no fly zone in Syria to potentially putting troops on the ground, Hillary is showing a soft-spot from the neo-conservatism that gave us Iraq and Libya.
The European turmoil caused by unfettered Muslim migration is not a deterrent to Hillary, as she wants to increase the number of such migrants entering the United States. The fact that some of these individuals adhere to a belief that seeks to harm gays and women is of no consequence.
This is the choice Americans face in less than three weeks. It is not a choice between a brash personality with a penchant for locker room talk or a pathological liar who holds private and public positions; it is a choice between continuing as a constitutional republic or finalizing the transition to a global cog.
If America rejects Trump, they are rejecting their own sovereignty and the movement Trump has come to embody. Does anyone really think that a Trump defeat will allow for another individual to ever raise issues of sovereignty again? Writing in Bloomberg, Harvard professor Noah Feldman had the answer. If Trump loses, Feldman had this piece of advice for both political parties – “engage in selective memory, and to treat Trump voters as though the whole sorry episode of his candidacy never occurred.”
“The alternative is to treat Trump voters as though they were ordinary, rational voters choosing among policy options available to them,” Feldman wrote. “That will require pretending retrospectively that this election wasn’t somehow special or distinctive, and that Trump wasn’t a uniquely dangerous candidate.”
If Trump loses not only will he be repudiated by the ruling class that favors globalism, his issues and supporters will also go down with the ship. To the establishment of both parties 2016 is not about winning an election; it is about killing a movement.
This is not a new trick, as it was done before in the 1990s. When I was working with Pat Buchanan in 1999, I saw how the foes of the America First movement would demonize the candidate, link the movement to all sorts of impermissible “isms,” and finally use the candidate’s defeat as a repudiation of the entire movement.
But this is not 1999 and Donald Trump is much bigger than Pat Buchanan. This is our last chance to abandon the globalist path before us. This is our last chance to decide whether our republic will endure or whether Hillary’s hemispheric dream will be realized.
If Trump loses, globalism wins and these issues – Trump’s issues – will never again surface in American politics. It may be a Sophie’s choice but, at least for the time being, it remains our choice.
Joseph R. Murray II is administrator for LGBTrump, former campaign official for Pat Buchanan, and author of “Odd Man Out.” He can be reached at jrm@joemurrayenterprises.com.
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