Who’s the really scary authoritarian on the presidential ballot?

Donald Trump at RNCTrump is an unpleasant mixture of bullying, bombast, and boasting. I don’t like his style. But to those who are worried about his authoritarian streak, I’d like to point out that there’s only one candidate on the presidential ballot who has called for weakening both the First and Second Amendments — and that candidate isn’t Donald Trump. Indeed, unlike all tyrants everywhere, Trump supports an armed citizenry.

It may be because Trump’s too much of a damn fool or an egotist to believe Americans won’t love his version of heavy-handed authoritarianism (as opposed to anybody else’s), but the fact remains that he’s willing to let us stay armed . . . and Hillary is not. Moreover, once Hillary’s done packing the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment will be a thing of the past, with the First Amendment rapidly vanishing in the rearview mirror of American life.

Moreover, as I keep pointing out, while Democrats in Congress will do anything Hillary asks and Republicans will be as cowed by cries of “sexist” as they were by cries of “racist” during Obama’s presidency, when it comes to the Donald, Congress critters, both Democrat and Republican, will suddenly discover separation of powers, checks, and balances, and some spine.

Conservatives have a choice — They can gamble that they will be able to save some pure form of the Republican party or conservativism if they vote for Hillary or sit out the election, or they can gamble that they will be able to save some remnant of our Constitutional republic if they vote for Donald.

My take is that the first tactic is not a gamble at all: It’s a sure loser. Whether Donald wins or loses, the Republican party and traditional conservativism are dead. If you like, you can think of Trump as the zombie remnant of the Tea Party. The Tea Party was enthusiastic, polite, and committed to the Constitution. Progressives and Democrats naturally wanted to kill it. The real shocker, though, was the vengeful glee with which the GOP slashed, stabbed, maligned, undercut, and otherwise destroyed a truly grassroots movement.

The Tea Party is dead and buried, and Zombie Trump has risen in its place — coarse, powerful, and very effective at getting into the heads of both Democrats and Republicans alike. The GOP can never be resurrected, but perhaps we can raise up a stronger, purer form of conservativism in the place of that which the GOP destroyed.

And what about the gamble of voting on Trump? The way I see it, it’s anybody’s guess now whether Trump will be sufficiently conservative to leave some salvageable remnant of a constitutional America, or if he’s the Devil in disguise and will destroy it. Definitely a gamble. But Hillary’s a sure thing — she’ll destroy the country from Day 1, expanding government, packing the court, limiting speech, destroying the right to bear arms, flooding the country with immigrants who will quickly become Democrat voters, refusing to acknowledge the Islamic jihad directed against us, abandoning Israel to the wolves, and entering into grotesque cabals with anyone, foreign or domestic, who’s willing to pay her in cash.

Bottom line, I’d rather take a gamble to save my country, then pretend I’m preserving a party and ideology that have already committed suicide before our eyes.