March 5, 2017 --

LPR has long contended that Republicans who are unwilling to defend themselves against leftist attack give the people no reason to believe that Republicans will stand with them. The Jewish sage Hillel pointed out: “If I am not for myself, who am I?” He continued: “If I am for myself alone, what am I?” To LPR, this teaching instructs that the person who is not for himself is unlikely to be of much help to others.

There can be no doubt that Donald J. Trump stands up for himself, when attacked. And is he ever getting attacked. Perhaps it is the zealous, even hysterical, nature of the attacks that blinds the attackers to the reality that so long as President Trump responds to their venomous assaults, the ordinary people --disdained, dismissed, deplored by the left—will stand by him; in defending himself, President Trump he gives us confidence that he will stand with us against the aggressive, aggrandizing left.

William McGurn, in his Wall Street Journal column, February 21, noted:

“Millions of Americans who voted for Mr. Trump feel that when reporters sneer at him, they are also sneering at them. And one big reason they voted for Mr. Trump is because they want to see a Republican give as good as he gets.” Exactly so. Republicans who cower in the face of demonizing by the left do not warrant, do not merit, the confidence of the people. The “so-called” (cq) conservative columnists and politicians who are Never Trumpers give us this message: we would rather get patted on the head by our leftist colleagues than stand with you. Never Trumper George Will predicts that the Republicans will abandon President Trump by June. Weren’t we told that Republicans would never nominate Donald J. Trump? Weren’t we told that candidate Trump will lead the GOP to a devastating defeat? Republicans will abandon President Trump to their peril. The attacks on Trump are also aimed at them, as this assertion by Rebecca Solnit, in the March issue of Harper’s makes plain: “Today’s Republicans are democracy’s enemy, and it is theirs.” Hers, of course, is a voice of the Old Order, desperate to keep the “deplorables” in their abject place.

Cowering conservatives would lead the American people to an enchained, not an enchanted, future, where the few would despoil the many – the very process underway the past decade and more. Madison, in Federalist No. 57, noted that the spirit of freedom nourishes, and is nourished by, the American people. We see that spirit of freedom, today, in the person of Donald J. Trump standing unbowed in the face of vicious attack, giving as good, perhaps even better, than he gets -- and we are nourished by his example and, in turn, our support nourishes him – in the cause of the spirit, the American spirit, of liberty.

For LPR, the fierce opposition to the Trump presidency is explained by Machiavelli, in chapter six of “The Prince” – the resistance of the Old Order to a reforming New Order. In its resistance, as Wall Street Journal columnist Holmes W. Jenkins, Jr. suggested in his February 22 column, the “intelligence bureaucracy” [clearly an arm of the Old Order] is “trying to punish Americans for how they voted.”

For LPR, President Trump – and the American people – will prevail over the anti-democratic forces of the Old Order. Why? As Madison would appreciate: the election of Donald J. Trump is testament to the enduring spirit of liberty in America.