Be the hero, President Trump

A column by Wayne Root in the “Las Vegas Review-Journal” perfectly portrays what’s happening in Washington right now on the issue of health care. However, what it’s missing is a potential solution.

We’ll get to that potential solution in a moment. For now, here’s how Root describes what Republican leaders are doing in order to obtain the votes of members like his very own Senator Dean Heller, who has a “D” liberty score here at Conservative Review:

Root has accurately diagnosed the disease here. The GOP told us for seven years if we didn’t vote for them we couldn’t repeal the disaster known as Obamacare. Now they’re telling us if they do repeal a policy currently polling at a robust 11 percent, they won’t win the next election. Of course, both of these self-refuting statements cannot be simultaneously true. So pick one, Team GOP.

Given the fact that about a thousand Democrats have lost elections since Obamacare’s passage, I’m guessing the lie is the one that says repealing it will cost the GOP its current majority. Of course, the GOP lying to us is nothing new.

We’ve seen this movie before, and it always ends the same way. All the same excuses/lies for poop policies that will just propel the Democrats to victory the next election. All the same liberal and progressive Republicans who were campaign conservatives, but once in office have failing liberty scores. And then there’s always the principled conservative — this time it’s Ted Cruz — who attempts to come up with some problematic accommodation for the swamp, which the swamp then strips of any morsel of conservatism whatsoever.

In fact, none of this new, except for one thing.

Residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is supposedly an anti-establishment, populist alpha male who don’t take any you-know-what, who can move mountains with his Twitter account and bend the swamp to his every whim with his force-of-nature badass persona. At least, this is what we were sold by his campaign last November. It’s high time we see it in action and not just in teleprompter speeches. As President Trump himself likes to say: “The time for talk is over. The time for action is now.”

This is the potential solution missing from Root’s column. In full disclosure, I consider Root a friend although we don’t always agree. For example, last year we didn’t agree on Trump, albeit not for the reasons most of us disagreed on Trump.

See, I’m actually fine with Trump being the political equivalent of a Molly Hatchet album cover. In fact, I think that’s exactly the arse-kicking the system needs. I just didn’t think Trump was up to that task, even though that’s the brand he sold us. And I’ve decided to retire from the “lesser of two evils” racket. All that decades of that gave me was a permanent limp and twitch and a more liberal government than the one I started protesting.

Sincere patriots like Root, though, became convinced Trump was that caricature he sold us as. Because he already had all the money and fame the system has often used to lure our heroes to join the Dark Side, Trump was free to go flirtin’ with disaster.

I so want folks like Root to be right. I really do. Mere words cannot adequately express how much I want friends of mine like Root to tell me “I told you so.” I long to write that mea culpa column for CR.

Well, Mr. President, now is your chance to give them the proof they’ve long sought and force skeptics like myself to reach for the palm branches. Prove me wrong. Become the hero patriotic Americans like Root believe you are.

Because the only person alive right now who can change the paradigm before the GOP goes Heaven’s Gate on Obamacare is none other than Donald Trump. He alone has the bully pulpit and position to rally the country to pressure Congress to keep its promise. But he needs to use it, as his predecessor did back in 2009 to convince the country to swallow the Obamacare Kool-Aid in the first place. If Trump doesn’t, a lot of swing districts could look like a Republican Jonestown next year.

Mr. President, that can’t be the November 2018 outcome you want, is it?

Yet it’s unlikely the president is going to be all that sympathetic to the pleas of former Never Trump people like me, and that’s understandable. That’s why I’m hoping folks like Root will plead their case to him before it’s too late.

We desperately need a man like Trump. But we need Trump to be that man even more.