America and Trump

I sometimes feel like I’m the only person I know who still likes America.

My more left-leaning friends have one thing to say about Jefferson and it is that he had sex with his slaves. Capitalism crushes the soul. “America has never actually wanted immigrants, even though we are all immigrants.” And this is to speak the truth in hopes of a reckoning and a healing.

And it used to be that the right-leaning folks had the opposite tune. “America is the greatest nation on earth.” But this is not the brand of MAGA. Trump seems to say precious few positive things about America. The military is a disgrace. Woke-ism has ruined our institutions. Nothing gets done anymore. And for many, the point of this rhetoric is to speak the truth in hopes of a reckoning and a change.

Then here I am, still super happy to live here.

What I’m talking about when I say I like “America” is both the everyday experience of living here, and also the grand ideas that America was built upon—and of course, these two topics are deeply linked.

My everyday experience of living in America is… honestly fantastic. Today, I took some paid time off from my job, which I generally like, and sat at a coffee shop and enjoyed the autumn weather, which I very much like. There’s all kinds of folks sitting around me, and they are generally polite to one another, even though they are very different. I’m drinking free water out of a nice glass cup, with a pretty glass bottle of water at my table, serving as a refill whenever I need it. The wall to my left is this lovely green tile—a very interesting color! There are plants growing everywhere you look. There is industry and study and friendship and beauty all around me. Am I communicating? I love this place. I love Costco, and Netflix, and Five Guys, and baseball, and Jay-Z, and Bob Ross, and Marvel.

Let’s talk incredibly briefly about our national parks because everybody loves those. “America the Beautiful” is right. Have you been to the Grand Canyon? Have you hiked on the Appalacian Trail? Have you smelled the sulfur of Yellowstone? Or seen the mountains of Alaska? I have. And they each took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes and made me love this land. Yep, even the weirdest place on earth, Yellowstone. I love that we invented the idea of a national park.

What of the American Experiment? What does this phrase mean? Beyond our land, our institutions, our corporations—what is the American Identity? Who are we, at our core?

Are we racist in our very essence? I don’t think so. Are we ambitious chasers of the Great in our very essence? I would say no. What defines America? My answer is summarized in a single word: Freedom.

I know, the cringe is real. The word is a meme. But beyond all the jokes drowning in irony, I think the earnest, sincere reality remains: America is the Land of the Free more than anything else. The thing Americans want most is to just be left alone so that they can live their lives.

This leads to and is supported by Equality. I want to be treated as an Equal because I desire freedom from your control. I want legal protection from discrimination because I want to have free opportunity to pursue happiness and participate in government.

And freedom is the main thing that the Founders optimized for. Sure, you could immediately say “Freedom for white land owners only” if you want, but the truth is that the concepts they espoused cannot, as history plainly demonstrates, be constrained. Freedom marches on.

The government they built had many innovations designed specifically for liberty. It is obsessive in its implementation of the balance of powers. Every single place you look there’s careful checks and limitations and tensions. The whole thing is designed to pin opposing forces against one another. Inherent conflict for the sake of limited power, all so that the Average American would not be dominated by the State.

This is what I really sincerely feel about America. I think it is amazing. And this tiny snippet of praise is really only the very beginning. Our identity is immensely complex. I love that we are a Melting Pot/Tossed Salad. I love that my friend from Chad tells me that America is the only government that ever actually does anything to try and help French Africa improve. I love that our Declaration and Revolution have inspired countless others around the globe. I love that we are explosively innovative. I love that we beat the Nazis—hell yeah. I love that our music and movies are enjoyed in every corner of the world. I love that the American Church sends out more missionaries than any other country, that we contribute more to the UN and NATO than anyone else, and that we donate more money to charity than any other country. It is simply incredible to me that this absolutely crazy notion of self-government actually turned out to work. I mean, we have been a republic longer than Athens was a democracy. It is unbelievable to me that this wild and boisterous concept of Liberty—seemingly so destined to fail—could work. It fills me with patriotism and pride.

Of course, even in this post, it’s worth stating very clearly that we are, and always have been, a mess. We have done horrible things. Evil things. Let’s name some of the worst things we’ve ever done: betraying virtually all Native American treaties we ever made, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, ubiquitous immigrant discrimination, covert colonialism through government-toppling intelligence operations, and institutionalized abortion. Just to name a few. And right now, I admit that it seems like there are too many problems and dysfunctions to count, and many people’s experience of America differs from mine (not that my life has been a walk in the park).

And yet. And yet. Somehow, the Dream is still here. It is an imperfect Union. It is. But we are still here. It is a very great and profound paradox of a nation.

Here’s where I start getting to the main point. I think a real American Leader understands and feels all of this. And my thesis is that Trump doesn’t. I cannot believe that Trump likes America. Does he love Checks and Balances? Does he celebrate the Constitution’s design? Does he represent our Dignity? Those whose love is Freedom For All cannot truly love Power.

The truth is that I am persuaded that Trump hates America’s heritage of classical liberalism, because it works against his ambitions. I confess that I have not once in my life doubted that he would be a bad ruler—and it is rare for me to have certainty. But during his first term I only considered him deeply odious. The moment it dawned on me that he is not only odious but fundamentally un-American was January 6.

The most basic, the most central aspect of our system of government, which is rooted in our identity of freedom, is the concept of democracy. This essentially means government by the people. And the way that this concept is implemented is through elections of those who represent us, making us a republic. The single most important and powerful representative of us all is the President.

Therefore, it is not hyperbole to say that the most sacred event of our system of government is the election of the President. It must be inviolate.

This means two things. First, there must be no corruption in regards to how the election results are determined. And second, even if there is, the results must be respected.

The first of these concepts is a spectrum, and the second is a binary. I acknowledge that there is (and always has been) election fraud. An uncle of mine told me that he was once helping count the votes at his local election station, and the leadership wanted to just make up the numbers rather than actually count, because by all accounts the end result was inevitable. He stood up and said no, that’s not how we are going to do things, and so they counted the votes. These things happen, and it is unacceptable, and we must be continually improving.

However, the research I have done has persuaded me that all the fraud combined does not meaningfully move the needle (unlike in other countries). And even if it did, there is a standard procedure for contesting election results (see the 2000 presidential election). If somehow the results have been so cleverly defrauded that it made it past all the normal officials and procedures (something has never occurred in America’s history), then the fact is that it is too late. The tricksters won this round. We must accept the results, and be more vigilant next time. To do otherwise is the abandonment of our core values, and utmost folly. And so, the second concept—respecting the results—is absolute.

This is precisely what Trump did not do. He in fact had a public, precise, and viable plan to forcibly overturn the results. Pence received significant pressure from his own President to participate in this plan, but did not, and is now estranged from Trump because his loyalty to the Constitution trumped Trump.

In my job, I am sometimes asked to do seemingly impossible things with technology. Without arrogance, I can say that in the middle of a crisis, I have performed miracles. You could ask some of my coworkers. And to do this, I had to adopt the attitude “nothing matters in this moment except for accomplishing the mission.” This attitude has allowed me to get extremely creative, move mountains, and deliver results.

I recognize this attitude in the Trump campaign in the final moments before the ratification of the 2020 election results. Put all options on the table, do anything necessary to win. In my case, this attitude is valuable because my mission is aligned with law and procedure and ethics. However, I recognize that my own mentality could be used to great effect not only for good but also for ill. The ratification of election results is not the time to adopt this attitude. It is the time when all genuine Americans would put down their weapons and submit to the will of the People. Trump did not do this.

And then, a mob violently attacked and successfully infiltrated the Capitol building. Who has the words strong enough to condemn this action? Shays’ Rebellion was about taxes. Jan 6 was about the most critical function of our great nation’s government. It was a real attempt by a few thousand to violently defy the will of hundreds of millions.

Finally, the very first day of his second term, Trump issues a presidential pardon for every single participant in this insurrection (except for a handful, for whom he instead commuted sentences, which is functionally the same). Tell me, if you can, how this is remotely forgivable? What conclusion can I have but that Trump does not believe in the values and ideals that make America a singularly exceptional nation?

I could go on. I am extraordinarily proud to be a contractor for the US military, and from my perspective, there is not a single moment in my life that I have been more ashamed of America than watching Trump’s public humiliation of Zelenskyy, a true and genuine Hero of our time.

Trump is the first US president to be a convicted felon, and the first person to be impeached twice. Stepping back, is this not a cause for alarm?

Trump has threatened both Greenland and Canada with military conquest. Every American knows that Canada is our closest ally. Ought I to rejoice that we now act as aggressors rather than defendors? And obviously, at this point, it seems those were just words. In that case, does the US President make it his business to issue empty, absurd threats to our closest allies?

I am open to a broad array of opinions on immigration enforcement and reform. However, I am not open to the detention and deportation of US citizens, or any individual without due process. Is there any doubt on this? Due Process is a bedrock of Liberty.

I live in Washington DC, and have now grown accustomed to seeing National Guard members with ARs patrolling next to the kids’ soccer camp in my neighborhood park. You can potentially blind yourself to the undertones, and make the argument that Trump has the authority to issue orders to the DC National Guard. But this is not the case for the National Guard of a state. The Second Amendment is not only (or even primarily, in my view) about the right of an individual to bear arms. It is also about the right of a state to keep a militia, which today is named the National Guard. This serves a variety of functions, but a critical one is that it is a check against the one thing that is nearly impossible to check: the federal military. The takeover of a state’s National Guard against the permission of its governor is a profound infraction, deeply dangerous, and is close to a demonstration of the collapse of constitutional democracy and its replacement with military dictatorship. I don’t say these things lightly.

USAID being effectively shut down. Is this strength? No, it is weakness. I believe that America is not just Powerful but Strong. And I was taught that the truly strong love and protect the weak. And even leaving aside the moral case, any amateur foreign policy analyst would tell you that USAID is the core of our global soft power, and its shuttering is a profound affront to our national security posture. Not to mention it is a complete failure to execute the law legislated by Congress, which is the President’s entire job.

DOGE as a whole. Many of my friends in my church lost their jobs because of an unconfirmed, now estranged, businessman who was temporarily given at least as much power as a cabinet position.

The most recent unforgiveable I’ve seen is Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, invoking “plenary authority” to justify an action of Trump’s. Did we not fight a war to expel a King from this land?

Jim Mattis and Mark Milley and countless others appointed by Trump in his first term have known Trump’s authoritarian leanings for years and stated these concerns publically after resigning. These are serious people.

And there are many more things to say. This is just off the cuff in mid October 2025, still the first year of his second term.

Here’s the thing. From my perspective, the alarm bells that Trump is raising in my head are precisely the alarm bells I was taught to look out for by my conservative, Christian schooling. I was raised to love the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers, and all that. I care about limited power. I care about democracy. I care about it more than an efficient government, or one that reflects my personal views. I care about what one person’s boundary-pushing behavior means for that person’s successor. I am far, far too conservative to abide Trump.

But, you might say, you are only telling half the story. The other side is no better, and their failures and duplicitiousness have driven the Rupublican party to this point. One example of many is the constitutional crisis that happened early this year in Minnesota.

I share no love for the Democratic party, I’ll tell you that much. And two years ago I might have hesitated when considering this counterpoint. But I think there’s an important distinction between Trump and others. The difference is that Democrats (and nearly all Republicans) still fear the People’s wrath and the normal processes of the government. They are still constrained in their actions. When they get caught misbehaving, they (mostly) suffer consequences. They also do not mess with such unimaginably high stakes plots such as a real effort to overturn a presidential election. Show me an example of something like that, and I’ll change my mind. I can’t speak to what they actually believe about democracy and the will of the people, but I don’t see them acting in the way Trump has.

Finally, I think it is important to state that in my deepest heart, I do not actually believe in democracy above all things. I am religious before I am political. I believe in the Church more than the State, and the Church has persisted through many forms of government. I know that if God’s got us then we gon’ be alright. But I do like democracy. I believe in it. Don’t you? I believe it tends towards justice. It is a jewel of Western Civilization. It is classical liberalism. Christian Nationalism might have you believe that Christianity and democracy are in conflict, but I say otherwise.

So, I ask you to consider these things. If you broadly agree with my position, I’m glad. How concerned are you? Do you pray about it? Have you spoken to your representatives? You are an American citizen—in our current system of government, this means you have power. Your power is primarily the reality and the threat of the ballot. This is how it was designed. Express your concerns. Most don’t, which means our reps have precious few data points on what their constituents actually think. Therefore, any direct communication has outsized impact.

And, all cards on the table, at this point I strongly support impeachment and removal. Clinton was impeached because of lying about sexual misconduct—what a thought. Nixon resigned because he was impeached and would have been convicted of covert political espionage. Very bad, but frankly, obstructing investigations and defying court orders seems like a regular occurrence for Trump.

Realistically, I doubt this could occur until the midterms, and we are less than halfway there. Will the fundamental rule of law remain in place long enough for elections to go forward normally? On my bad days, I’m not sure. Maybe you could look into helping work the polls. I would, but like I said earlier, I live in DC, so you’ll have to do this for me. In the meantime, are there other things to do?

And if you broadly disagree with me, or think I am not seeing clearly, that’s okay. But—perhaps it is time to ask yourself, what are your red lines? What is something that Trump could do that would change your view? If the answer is “nothing”, then perhaps we have nothing more to speak about. But if you have an answer to that question, then write it down. And then if it happens, change your mind.