We Americans like to vote for someone. We like to feel good about the fact that we are standing behind a candidate who either has earned our vote through their past performance or promises a vision and path toward a better, brighter future with an articulated way forward from our current state of affairs.
It's fair to view the 2016 election victory for President Donald Trump as a little of both. Trump provided a vision and path forward on three, clear themes in that campaign: Nominating conservative judges and justices, lowering federal taxes and enforcing our current immigration laws to put an end to policies that encouraged illegal immigration. He has accomplished all three.
You could add to the mix his promise to roll back federal regulations and renegotiate NAFTA and other trade deals to unleash the power of the American economy, and you'd be right about that too. You could also reflect on his promise to re-engage our military forces to remove the threat of ISIS from their footprint across the greater Middle East and to end long-term military engagements in stalemates like Afghanistan and Iraq, and you wouldn't be wrong.
But, you'd be lying if you told anyone that your vote for Trump in 2016 was based on his promise to re-imagine America's approach to the Middle East peace process and you hoped he'd somehow manage to secure peace agreements between Israel and three different Arab nations. Now you're just full of it if you saw that one coming.
The point is, there were plenty of reasons to vote for Trump last time around, but I suspect he got a lot of votes from skeptical Americans who weren't sure what they were getting in the real estate developer/reality TV icon. But, they knew they did not want Hillary Clinton as president.
Voting against someone is nothing to be ashamed of nor anything to apologize for. I recently read the autobiography of Ray Kroc, the visionary behind the McDonald's franchise empire and food service system that created more jobs in America than any big government program can ever imagine accomplishing. In his book, he writes about how he had donated to Nixon's 1972 campaign. Kroc said, "It was less a sign of support for Nixon than it was a move against George McGovern."
Kroc goes on to suggest that it was not a wise move. He said it went against his life-long philosophy of "finding a positive result from a negative action" or something like that.
He's mistaken. Preventing a negative is absolutely a positive thing to do. With all his many flaws, Nixon was still the better choice for president than the radical George McGovern and the radical members of the Democratic Party he would have empowered should he have won that election.
It's at this point you probably think this column will now compare Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the radical nature of the doomed McGovern movement and you will be compelled to support Trump's candidacy for no other reason than to stop their radical, Antifa-fueled movement.
Nah. The reader of this column already knows the lay of the land. You get it.
I'd rather focus on one other fringe benefit of a Trump victory this week; one other negative action you can take to reap a very positive result.
Last time you voted against Hillary, this time, vote against the mainstream media elite.
From Election Day 2016, the mainstream media originating from Manhattan and Washington, DC, have thrown off the shackles of objectivity and re-envisioned their role in the American political conversation.
From The New York Times to the Washington Post to all the network newsrooms to MSNBC and the once-respected CNN, the fourth estate has revealed itself as a fifth column.
They've stopped pretending to report the facts. They've become the voice of the resistance, and they've aligned their resources, talents and waning influence for one objective: To end the Trump presidency.
First, they tried to undermine his inauguration by publishing the phony "Steele dossier" days before his swearing-in. The narrative to the American people was to plant the seed that our new president was a traitor and puppet of the Russian government.
It was a complete lie.
But the damage was done. It led to the anonymous leaks that suggested Trump was trying to stop an investigation into his campaign. After he fired James Comey for lying to him and deceiving him about the investigation former President Barack Obama had initiated, the media screamed for a special counsel.
The investigation dragged out for over two years and produced no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Putin government.
No matter, half of this country still believe it's true.
This led to an impeachment of President Trump over a media stunt orchestrated by Rep. Adam Schiff and anonymous CIA operatives who secretly leaked partial information about a confidential phone call between the president and a foreign leader.
The impeachment went nowhere, and even the Democratic candidate for president has neglected to mention it in his run for office. Maybe because he and his son were guilty of more nefarious actions with foreign governments than Trump ever was.
No worries on that issue, either. The same elite media outlets that amplified every false, anonymous allegation against Trump for the past four years have found nothing newsworthy in the Hunter/Joe Biden scandal.
They're all in at this point... might as well go all the way.
It's a complete propaganda machine, and it's this close to ending Trump's presidency.
That's where you come in. You still can't find a reason to vote for President Trump because you don't like his tweets or some of the foul language he uses or his behavior at the debate or his hairstyle? You don't like being grouped with the red hat crowd and their pick-ups and Trump flags?
OK. Fine. There's nothing wrong with being more motivated to vote against someone or something if you can't bring yourself to vote for a candidate.
Vote against the media. Send them a message. Tell them you won't be manipulated. You won't be dictated to. You won't be patronized. You won't be condescended to. You won't be taken for granted.
Do you think our elite, mainstream media needs real and revolutionary reform? Do you think they need to change the way they go about reporting on American politics?
The best way to make that happen is to vote against them this year. And a vote for Trump is absolutely a vote against them.
Do it. Save this country and revitalize the American media.
Vote against the Manhattan and DC media elite. If anything, your vote will make for very entertaining Tuesday night television.