1. Trump and the Republicans in office who support him are fiscally irresponsible. After just a couple of years of Republican control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, the US deficit has swollen to $898 billion and will just increase under current policies. (That’s up from $585 billion when Trump took office.)

2. Trump’s economic policies are foolish even according to other conservatives. The pro-business Wall Street Journal warns that Trump’s tariffs will lead to higher prices for US consumers and in the long run will hurt the economy. When the US raises tariffs our trading partners just raise tariffs of their own; this does nothing but make it harder for US businesses to buy and sell the goods they need.

3. Trump’s foreign policy gives things away for free. Our international allies do not have embassies in Jerusalem because they know that it is not in their interest to do so. However, Trump’s son in law (who has no previous experience in foreign policy) made this concession to Israel without receiving any benefit for the US. (Do you think that Trump’s son-in-law knows better than Nixon, Kissinger, Reagan, and both Bushes?)

4. Another concession in exchange for nothing: the dictators of North Korea have been begging US Presidents to meet directly with them, but previous sitting Presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, have refused to do so unless North Korea agreed to substantial concessions. Trump agreed to meet with dictator Kim Jong-un in exchange for nothing, and now North Korea says they want MORE concessions from the US before they will get rid of their nuclear weapons.

5. Trump loves our enemies: Trump literally said both of the following: Trump says he “fell in love” with Kim Jong-un and Trump says he trusts former KGB agent and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin not to lie to him. (Remember when Republican foreign policy was about standing up to enemies of freedom like North Korea and Russia?)

6. Trump makes our enemies happy: The FBI and CIA both agree that Russia secretly tried to persuade US voters to vote for Trump in 2016, and Vladimir Putin, the former KGB agent and dictator of Russia, says that he is happy that Trump won. (Do you think this is because Putin wants what is best for the US?)

7. Because of the preceding, it’s no wonder that the world laughs at Trump. Many US Presidents have addressed the United Nations, but this year, for the first time ever, the US President was openly laughed at by the entire General Assembly of the UN. This is representative of how people around the world view the US because of Trump.

8. Trump’s own administration laughs at him too. A current high-ranking member of the Trump administration published an editorial describing Trump as “impulsive,” “ill-informed,” and “reckless.” The Trump administration did not deny that the editorial was written by someone inside the administration. This is consistent with numerous other accounts, which quote members of Trump’s administration describing him as a “moron” and an “idiot.”

9. Trump has ignored the needs of Americans devastated by a natural disaster. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, and Puerto Rico is still devastated by Hurricane Maria, which occurred in September of 2017. Trump has done almost nothing to help besides staging a photo-op in which he threw rolls of paper towels to a crowd.

10. Under Trump the Republican party has abandoned all the principles that it ever stood for. Don’t forget that war-hero and lifelong Republican Senator John McCain left instructions that President Trump was not allowed to attend his funeral. McCain’s disdain for Trump is shared by many leading conservatives, like Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist and Reagan-supporter George F. Will, who resigned his membership in the Republican Party because of Trump. Others Republicans, like Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, say they hope that for the sake of the long-term health of the Republican party that Republicans lose control of the House and Senate in 2018.

In short, if you really believe in conservative values, hold your nose and vote for whomever the Democrats nominate in 2018 and 2020, until Republican leaders get the message that you expect them to stand up for real conservative values.

About The Author

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Bryan Van Norden

Bryan W. Van Norden is a leading expert on Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. He is the author, editor, or translator of nine books on Chinese and comparative philosophy, including Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy (2011), Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han to the 20th Century (2014, with Justin Tiwald), Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2nd ed., 2005, with P.J. Ivanhoe), and most recently Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (2017). Van Norden lives in Singapore, where he is currently Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor at Yale-NUS College. He is also Chair Professor in Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University (PRC) and James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy at Vassar College (USA). A recipient of Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Mellon fellowships, Van Norden has been honored as one of The Best 300 Professors in the US by The Princeton Review. His hobbies are poker (he has played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas) and video games.