Where Does a Patriot Turn in 2016?

Joe Skipper/Reuters

Donald Trump and President Obama share the philosophy that America causes more problems than it solves, and no champion of conservatism is left./i>

Where does a patriot turn in the 2016 election? The Democratic party’s national convention is attempting to lay claim to the patriot mantle. Yet the party is not quite there. Former defense secretary Leon Panetta was heckled with chants of “no more war.” The Code Pink wing lost the nomination this year, but it won the platform, and may yet win it all in the next cycle.

President Obama seeded his own speech with patriotic grace notes, and while he recoils from Trump, his horror at Trump’s style seemingly blinds him to their similarities. On substance, they are more alike than not. This shouldn’t be shocking, considering that Trump has been a Democrat for most of his life. What is stunning is the degree to which so many patriots, whose eyes water at the flag and the anthem, imagine that Trump is a patriot in the same mold.

Obama reproached the Republican nominee for wanting to “turn away from the rest of the world.” But that’s Obama’s view too. He’s happier to be a follower than a world leader, never more gratified than when the U.S. is more modest. When asked why he failed to give even rhetorical/moral support to the millions of Iranians in the streets during the abortive “Green Revolution,” his administration explained that the U.S. was tainted by its history, and any expression from us would have backfired.

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Trump thunders that “we don’t win anymore” (he’s referring to trade, which is completely wrong) and bristled (rightly in this instance) at the humiliation of our sailors at the hands of the Iranians in January. But, like Obama on steroids, he takes a dim view of America’s moral standing.

When he was questioned about his warm endorsements of Vladimir Putin and reminded that Putin has killed quite a few critics, Trump shrugged: “We do a lot of killing in this country too.” That’s an extraordinary calumny, implying not the indisputable fact that we have too many violent deaths in America but that, like Russia, our government engages in targeted assassinations of political opponents. Here, Trump leaves Obama behind altogether. ...

Read the full National Review op-ed HERE.

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