Thank you, Donald Trump. Now Goodbye.

Go while the going is good.
Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing that anyone can learn.
Go!

I’m afraid my heart isn’t very smart.
Fly while you still have your wings.
Knowing when to leave will never let you reach the point of no return.
Fly!

Sail when the wind starts to blow.
But, like a fool I don’t know when to leave.

Knowing When to Leave – Dionne Warwick/The Carpenters – Burt Bacharach composer (1970)

…..

The presidency of Donald J. Trump had many notable accomplishments. Among them are starting to secure the border; successful and effective foreign and trade policies; tax rate reductions that increased revenue; three excellent appointments to the Supreme Court and a number of effective cabinet appointees and executive orders. He also made the Republican party more populist bringing in blue collar families and driving out the old “country club Republican” image. I’m sure there are more that I am leaving out in the interest of brevity.

But his presidency was not perfect. No one’s ever is. And there were some substantial failures on his watch as well.

He ran up deficits and debts, admittedly as part of the lockdowns, that would be the envy of any big spending Democrat. He loved debt and spending in his private life and did so in his public duties as well.

And about those lockdowns. They were started by Trump, not Biden, as was the devotion to the unproven vaccines. We will never know if more lives were saved from the lockdowns and vaccines than the lives that were lost in suicides, drug use, children without two years of education, economic disruption, and vaccine (it really should not be called a vaccine but a gene therapy) related deaths. It was also Donald Trump who slavishly followed the advice of Dr. Fauci and gave him the platform he still uses today. If a Democratic president had responded to the threat of the pandemic in the way Trump did, the conservative press would have been screaming as would many of us conservatives. We have been screaming about Biden’s policies about the China Virus, but Biden only continued what Trump started and amped it up.

The way Trump belittles people and verbally abuses so many is not additive to the national character. And our national character is declining and is in need of good examples.  The role model I like to think I tried to be for my children was literally the opposite of everything Donald Trump is.

On balance, however, President Trump did a good job. But there is a time to leave.

The Captivating Mrs. Campbell and I are big fans of the British television series Midsomer Murders now in its 23rd season. The lead character in the series was played by actor John Nettles for the first 13 seasons. Then, he stepped away much to the distress of we fans who could not imagine the show without him. In explaining why he left the show, the actor said “it is always wise to leave people wanting more, rather than be booed off the stage because you bored them.” Wise words.

This is something Donald Trump does not understand. His overwhelming ego and his need to exact revenge for his loss in 2020 overshadow reason, good sense, and an interest in what is good for the country.

The Hunter Biden scandals, and the likely involvement of his father in all of the corruption, is rarely covered by the leftist slingers of propaganda like CBS and NBC. But when they do cover it, the juxtapose it against the various misdeeds on the part of Mr. Trump as if to say, “you can’t say one did bad without indicting the other.” In that sense they are correct. The Biden family’s corruption would be much harder to hide or dismiss were Trump not creating so many distractions. And whereas there is no question that justice in the Biden DOJ is being meted out on a completely partisan basis, there is little doubt even amongst the right-leaning press that Trump exacerbated a lot of his problems with his own bombastic behavior.

I do not believe that Donald Trump can win another general election, regardless of who his opponent is. He won a narrow victory in 2016. But he and his chosen candidates were overwhelmingly defeated in 2018, 2020 and 2022. When you see Senator John Fetterman in action, you get a feel for how far voters in a purple state like Pennsylvania will go to elect someone not connected to Donald Trump.

I have stated in these writings before that it is hard for me to imagine that both parties are dumb enough to nominate Biden and Trump when both presidents have such huge disapproval ratings. I now think that the Democrats will move forward with Biden (assuming health or felonies do not intervene) if Trump is the Republican nominee because Biden will beat Trump. People will vote for senility and corruption over unhinged ego and instability. Again, I reference the 2022 US Senate race in Pennsylvania as evidence.

However, if Republicans come to their senses and nominate someone else, I think the Democrats will find a way to pivot from Biden. Biden will likely lose to any of the other main Republican contenders who are younger, vibrant, attractive, not corrupt and offering something fresh. The Dems  have over 13 months before their convention to make a change if they deem it necessary.

In conclusion, Donald Trump cannot win another term as president. Even if he did, he would destroy the Republican party along the way. Some of you may think that’s a good thing, but there needs to be a strong, effective force to counter the neo-communist destructive force that the Democratic party has become of late. Furthermore, I actually do fear how much a second Trump term might be characterized by petty retaliations against those who he feels have wronged him, including internationally. We cannot be better than Democrats if we act like them. We need to have a DOJ that does not have two standards of prosecution even when it favors our side. We are and need to be better than that.  

I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. I will not do so again. I would likely vote Libertarian or leave that line blank on my purple state (Arizona) ballot. I feel that strongly about how much the country and the Republican party need to move on from the 45th president.

I talked about actor John Nettles leaving Midsomer Murders after 13 seasons. We couldn’t imagine the show without him. Ten years later, the show goes on and we are still watching. Mr. Trump did many good things. Others are in a better position to carry those things on. He could be a respected elder statesman going forward. Unfortunately, Mr. Nettles understand this much better than Mr. Trump.

Goodbye Donald. Would that we could have parted on better terms.

I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free