I look at the Trump phenomena, and I have to wonder just how long it will last.  I completely understand the emotions behind his rapid rise in the polls.  The Conservative base of the Republican Party is pissed off.  Pissed off at what this President and his administration have done to this nation in just 7 short years, pissed off at the media for continuing to further the lies of the Progressives (largely because those who run the media, as well as those who report it, are Progressives themselves), and really pissed off at the establishment Republicans who have looked at the Conservative base of the party as the ugly step children living in the attic, and done nothing to stop the decline of this great nation.

Oh, they’ll pull us out of the attic at election times, and promise us everything we could possibly want because (like it or not) they need our votes to win, and then put us back in our box after they’re elected thinking what morons we are for believing them yet again.

And, we are morons for believing them.  By and large, the leadership of the Republican Party has proven itself to be liars.

I don’t know about anyone else, but that really frosts my cookies.

They do not deserve my trust, or my support any longer, which is why I long ago stopped donating to the Party (and most PACs), and only donate directly to candidates I know share my principles when it comes to what is best for this nation and its people. #DefundTheGOP

Enter stage left one Donald Trump, billionaire, author, successful businessman, bombastic host of The Apprentice, and zero political correctness filter when he speaks.

Man, how refreshing is it to hear someone running for office tell an Amnesty activist, masquerading as a member of the press, to sit down and shut up until he’s called upon to ask his question, and then having said activist thrown out of the press conference until the candidate was ready to talk to him.  The master stroke was bringing Ramos back in to allow him to ask his question (which he never did by the way…he just wanted to lecture Mr. Trump on what he couldn’t and couldn’t do about amnesty).

As a disaffected member of the Conservative base, I, and apparently millions of others, have to ask myself, “Donald Trump, where have you been all my life?”

That’s the emotional side of me.  The side that absolutely loves the spectacle he makes of the press and Republican establishment, and the fact that he is totally freaking out the Republican leadership.  God bless him for that.

Famed polster Frank Luntz reached a stunning (for him – not for me) conclusion after recently showing a focus group of Trump supporters the flip flops of Trump: support went up for Mr. Trump after the secession ended: “I want to put the Republican leadership behind this mirror and let them see. They need to wake up. They don’t realize how the grassroots have abandoned them,” Luntz continued, according to Time. “Donald Trump is punishment to a Republican elite that wasn’t listening to their grassroots.”

I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly.  Many of us came to that conclusion years ago.

Then, when I actually start to consider him as President, reason takes over.

While I understand the emotions being fed by Trump, I have to wonder when Conservatives in this country became liberals.

Liberals, traditionally, have based their political decisions on emotion (the “low information voters”).  Didn’t matter that they knew absolutely nothing about our current President prior to his election – he said all of the right things.  Didn’t matter that he’d never run anything in his life, he “stuck it” to Hillary Clinton and the Democrat “establishment”.  Didn’t matter that he’d been a U.S. Senator for less than a year before announcing his bid for the Presidency – he was an “outsider” who said all of the right things.  Hope and change…our hope is basically gone, and the nation has been “fundamentally transformed” into something it was never intended to be.

Sound at all familiar?

Conservatives, historically, are the ones who take a hard, analytical, look at the candidates running for higher office, and make their decisions based on the principles and records of those running, not on their emotions (except, maybe, having a strong negative emotion to a particular candidate).  What has changed?  Why are Conservatives, supposedly staunch ones like Ann Coulter, standing so strongly for a man who, up till 3 years ago, supported Hillary Clinton?

When did we become so fickle?

There are several, very strong, very Conservative candidates (which, let’s face it, Mr. Trump is not) in this field that we thought, until Mr. Trump threw his hat into the ring, were the right choice for the Party and the nation.

In 2013, Ted Cruz and a few other Republican Senators (Rand Paul included) led the fight to uphold the promise made by Republicans to put a stop to Obamacare by de-funding it before it had a chance to take hold.  His leadership, and willingness to stand in the face of the establishment leadership, made him a hero to the Conservative base.  He was willing to stand for the people of this nation, and work to keep the promises he made to his constituents and the people of this nation – something we had not seen from a Republican since Ronald Reagan.

Since that time, he has been a leader in attempting to stop the illegal Executive Amnesty, uphold the Constitution, defund Planned Parenthood (#DefundPlannedParenthood), and stop the disastrous Iran deal.  He has gone so far as to publically call the leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, a liar on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Cruz has a record of actually fighting for Conservative principles, but he’s not the showman that Mr. Trump is, so he couldn’t possibly get elected.

Governor Scott Walker has faced the fires of hell with three elections in four years, and has been victorious each time.  Against enormous odds, against the government and teacher labor unions from around the country, he was able to convince the people of a very blue state that his Conservative ideas and principles would pull the State of Wisconsin out of the hole into which it had fallen, and put it back on its feet.  He did that.

Schools are performing better than ever, teachers are finding a level of challenge they have not seen in decades, and the state has gone from a significant deficit to a significant surplus in four short years.

Governor Walker was the darling of the Conservative base precisely because of his success in standing against the “forces of evil”, and coming out victorious in the end.  What changed?

Governor Perry of Texas and Governor Jindal or Louisana are the reasons that this nation “survived” the Recession as well as it has.  In Texas, Perry created a business friendly environment, which in turn brought hundreds of thousands of jobs to the state – tax paying jobs that kept the federal government running.  Governor Jindal enacted many of those same principles and policies in Louisiana, and brought that very blue state out of the deep hole it was in, making it profitable and successful.

Yet, they are both at the bottom of the polls.

Senator Rand Paul, who is more Libertarian than Conservative, was the front runner early on for his strong stance on securing this country, and stopping the rampant violations of our privacy through the NSA.  Yes, there are a few things when it comes to defense and international diplomacy where he leans more Libertarian than Conservative, but he’s still got more of a Conservative record to run on than Mr. Trump.

What are Mr. Trump’s Conservative credentials?  He has none.  This may end up angering some of his supporters, and turn out like Mr. Luntz’s focus group, but let’s take a look at Mr. Trump’s record, shall we?

• Until 2009, he was a registered Democrat.
• He supports a “simplified” Progressive tax code that “makes the rich pay more”. From the Washington Post:  “The one problem I have with a flat tax is that rich people are paying the same as people that are making very little money,” Trump, who is worth an estimated $2.9 billion, said Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.” “I think there should be a graduation of some kind.”  The Republican front-runner also advocated higher taxes on hedge-fund managers, a position shared by his Democratic opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton.  “They should be taxed a fair amount of money,” he said, without offering details. “They’re not paying enough tax.”

  Does that sound like a Conservative principle to you?  Who determines what is “fair”?  Let’s see…who has been saying that the rich do not pay their “fair share” forever?  Oh yeah…Democrats.   The dirty little secret the ultra-rich like Trump and Clinton don’t want you to know is that they have very little “income” on which they pay taxes.  They have trusts and investments – all of which are taxed at lower rates than the income tax.  No, the only ones hurt by the Progressive tax rate are small-to-medium business owners and the average American citizen.

• As recently as March 2012 he said “Hillary Clinton I think is a terrific woman,” he told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren.  “I am biased because I have known her for years. I live in New York. She lives in New York. I really like her and her husband both a lot. I think she really works hard. “I think she really works hard and I think she does a good job. I like her,” he added of the then-secretary of state.
• Trump has said he will honor the Iran deal.
• He’s okay with the NSA spying on Americans.
• He supports Affirmative Action. During an interview on Meet the Press earlier this month he had this to say:  “I lived with it for a long time. And I’ve had great relationships with lots of people. So I’m fine with it.”
• He supports Eminent Domain to further his goals. On the Kelo Decision, that upheld the government taking private land for private, not government, purposes, Mr. Trump told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto: “I happen to agree with it 100 percent.”
• He supports tariffs. According to an August 19 story on Breitbart:  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that if companies manufacture cars in China or Mexico “you’re going to have to pay a tax to get the cars back in” in an interview broadcast on CNN on Thursday.
• He supported the auto bailouts. In a 2008 interview with Neil Cavuto Mr. Trump was asked if he thought we could do without one of the Big Three automakers (Ford, Chrysler, and GM):  “No. I think you should have the Big Three. I think, frankly, they should do dip financing. I think the government should stand behind them 100 percent. You cannot lose the auto companies. They’re great. They make wonderful products. Maybe they’re making too much. Maybe they’re not making too much. I mean, I just bought a Dodge Ram truck from Arrigo Dodge, who’s a member of one of my clubs and great guy.”
• He believes in security over freedom.
• As recently as the first Republican debate he expressed his support for universal healthcare, stating that the Canadian and Scottish systems were great. From Buzzfeed:  Donald Trump stood by his past support for single payer health care at the Republican presidential debate Thursday night, and even said he thought it worked well in Canada and could have worked in the past in the United States.  “As far as single payer, it works in Canada, it works incredibly well in Scotland, it could have worked in a different age, which is the age you are talking about here,” Trump stated.
• He believes we should continue to fund Planned Parenthood, just not the “abortion part”. Pray, tell, Mr. Trump…how do you verify that this organization you’re supporting with tax payer dollars is only using those dollars for everything but abortions?  “I would look at the good aspects of [Planned Parenthood], and I would also look, because I’m sure they do some things properly and good and that are good for women, and I would look at that, and I would look at other aspects also. But we have to take care of women.”
• He states that he is a Christian who loves and reveres the Bible, and while I cannot speak to the state of his soul, I have to wonder when he cannot give a straight answer when asked what one of his favorite verses is (he says that’s too personal and he doesn’t talk about that), or name even one book of the Bible. Based on the answers I have heard from him on the topic of his “faith”, he is more superstitious than religious.  That’s fine, as long as he’s up front about it.  He is not.  When asked if he’s ever apologized to God for anything he’s done, and his answer is “no”, that is a problem.  The foundation of the Christian faith is to admit that you are a sinner and ask for God’s forgiveness for those sins.  Apparently, based on his comments, the man does not consider himself a sinner.  This alone should give pause to any Christ-follower who supports Mr. Trump.

He is a Progressive “Republican”, along with Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee – In favor of big government, but big government run by Republicans.  Managing the big government – Republicans choosing the winners and losers– because they can “do it better” than the Progressive Liberals.  Same dance, different band.

Mr. Trump may be a good businessman, though I have some questions about a man who has run four businesses into bankruptcy, but he will not make a good President.

There are so many better candidates, with stronger, longer, Conservative records who are running to be the leader of the free world.  Conservatives who have actually spoken about restoring the Constitution (a subject on which I have heard nothing from Mr. Trump), about the limited role dictated by the Constitution and their pledge to govern the country within those limitations, and about restoring true hope to the people of this nation.  Mr. Trump pays lip service to “making America great again”, but he is as big a divider as a current President.

I don’t know about the rest of Conservative Americans, but I want a “gentleman statesman” running this nation next time – not another narcissistic ego maniac.  We’ve seen what that gets this country.  Do we really need more?

How long will it take Conservatives to wake up and let reason trump emotion?