First of all, I think Donald Trump is being persecuted. That is pretty much a given.

By now, even the least fair-minded among us should acknowledge that Trump is being pursued with a vigor with which few people ever are. Al Capone comes to mind; the Unabomber too. But few others have been the subject of so much effort to “get” them.

Hillary Clinton actually created a situation where classified documents leaked to hostile powers, and the country shrugged, as did prosecutors. So clearly the issue Trump is being harassed over has nothing to do with preserving national security. Nobody alleges that Trump’s negligence led to classified material leaking, as happened with HRC.

With that said, Donald Trump sure has made it easy for his enemies to not only pursue him with at least the passive support of vast numbers of Americans, but he has handed his opponents the evidence that could lead to his conviction. That tape is pretty damning. If he skates it will be based more on a sense that the prosecution was politically motivated and selective, not likely on some fine point of the law that made him definitively innocent.

Trump’s pursuers may be the bad guys, but he walked right into their trap.

There are legal scholars who will defend him, but even some of his defenders in the past seem to believe he is screwed.

If so, that is as much Trump’s fault as any others. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that if he gives his opponents even the thinnest shred of evidence to get him, they will go all out. It’s not like they haven’t proven that dozens of times. If they will push lies to get him, what can they do with the truth?

Is what Trump did disqualifying? In my own view, only in the sense that it was needlessly reckless. Trump’s rather stupid hoarding of the documents and bragging about having them to people who shouldn’t have seen them would cause no actual harm to America. He wasn’t going to sell them and wasn’t going to leak them. Nobody could have gotten in to steal them. We know that Hillary’s classified documents almost certainly were stolen by hostile foreign powers, so in a practical sense what she did was far more damaging.

Still, what he did was reckless, both personally and as a steward of the nation’s secrets. I don’t think he will go to jail, although a plea deal is not out of the question. Were he convicted I even think Joe Biden might pardon him, not to “save the nation from discord,” but to humiliate Trump. It would be the ultimate slap in the face, and if I were a Democrat I would find it delicious.

If the election were to come down to Trump vs. Biden, that is an easy call. I would vote for Trump in a heartbeat.

But with that said I do not now, nor have I for a long time felt that Trump is our best candidate. My rule is to vote for the most conservative candidate who can win, and I worry that a distracted Trump tied up in courts next year cannot campaign effectively nor will he be most likely to win. He might win, but the odds are worse than with somebody else.

I also am not convinced–based upon the evidence of the past 7 years–that Trump is the best equipped to actually put a huge dent in the Deep State, which is, by far, the most important job of the next Republican president. More important than the economy, or foreign policy short of averting a war. The greatest enemy of American freedom is our government bureaucracy, and it needs to be dismantled.

Trump claimed to understand this, but when push came to shove he was bamboozled by the Deep State–which is why he isn’t president right now. Even Trump says so every day–the election was stolen, and the FBI and the Justice Department hounded him out of office. He was betrayed. He tells us that every day.

This may be an excuse for why he lost, and for why he handed the country over to Anthony Fauci in 2020–and no matter what retrospective excuses he gives, he did precisely that–but it is not a recommendation for his ability to defeat the Deep State in his last term as a man in his 80s. It seems implausible to me that he will win the next round in the battle.

Trump has also–again, by his own admission–done a terrible job of hiring people. He keeps screaming about how awful his personnel choices were–even those that were actually quite good, like Kayleigh McEnany. If all the people who served in his administration turned out to be traitors, how good a hiring manager is Donald Trump? He keeps telling us he sucks at hiring people. Shouldn’t we trust him when he makes an admission against interest?

The next Republican president has a huge mess to clean up. Perhaps the largest governmental mess since Reconstruction. Our entire federal government appears to be corrupt to the core. We need a president who can serve 8 years, has conservative principles, and who knows how to fight the bureaucracy. Donald Trump has, at best, one out of three of those covered.

Currently, Trump is vigorous. Will he be in 6 years when he would leave office if elected? How much could a lame-duck president who is despised by much of the country accomplish in these circumstances? We don’t know, but Trump would be 84 in his last year. How much do you want to bet he will be vigorous then?

Are you willing to bet the country? Does that seem a solid bet?

Some Trump supporters are claiming they will refuse to vote for any Republican but Trump, and some Republicans are claiming they will never vote for Trump.

Both camps strike me as nuts. The alternative is handing the country over to Biden or somebody who will almost certainly be as bad or worse, and if Biden is replaced that Democrat may have 8 years to ruin the country even more. Handing that power over to the current Democrat Party to spite others is a bizarre choice. Look at what the NeverTrumpers are like. Do you want to be an equivalent?

We are fighting for the future of America. No matter which Republican gets elected, they will disappoint you at some point. At best you will get 70%-80% of what you hope for, and likely less. When Reagan was in office conservatives screamed “let Reagan be Reagan” because so many decisions went against us.

But Reagan saved the country. And we are in much worse shape now. We need a Republican to win. Hopefully they will be as successful as Reagan was, but even somebody who only pares things back somewhat is better than another 4 or 8 years of Democrat rule.

It is unfair that Trump’s enemies have had so much success in harming the president unfairly, but that alone does not entitle him to be president. Lots of things are unfair–none of the heroes who died for this country got a fair shake, but each of their sacrifices was made to ensure the preservation of our freedoms. Any sacrifice Trump makes in not becoming president again pales in comparison to their sacrifices.

None of those heroes complained about fairness. They did what was necessary. Trump should too, and step aside to ensure that America has the best shot at carrying on the torch of freedom into the 21st and 22nd centuries.

Duane wrote a VIP piece yesterday that was on similar themes, and I wish everybody out there could have read it. Hot Air has a paywall for a reason on VIP posts, though–we need to pay the bills. If you haven’t joined VIP yet I highly recommend that you do so. Not only are you missing out on some great content–Ed’s shows in particular are worth the price of admission–but you also get to read some exclusive content that makes it worth it.

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