From Never Trump to MAGA?

[00:00:16] Today we're going to talk about why the recent felony convictions of Donald Trump are leading many of his former cricks to now become part of Team MAGA. That's what we'll talk about today. Hello, I'm Eric Simmons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. And also, I am recovering from some type of sickness. So this is not an AI generated version of my voice. It really does sound like this right now. Although if I was really AI generated, I'd probably say that, wouldn't I? You'll just have to figure it out. Okay, so before we get started, I just want to encourage people to smash that, like, button. Smash it like a liberal judge prosecutes Donald Trump. Also, subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it, and, and subscribe to our email newsletter. Go to crisismagazine.com, subscribe to our email newsletter there, put your email address, and we'll send you our articles once a day, two articles a day, every day, right into your inbox. Also, I want to say we are finishing, we finished our fundraiser, our spring fundraiser. We do two a year. It was a very successful fundraiser. I really do appreciate everybody who supported us. We asked, we were raising $100,000, and we were able to do that. And I really do appreciate everybody who contributed. We'll try not to bother you again until the winter, probably around December, something like that, for some into your donations. So we couldn't do it without you. So I really do want to say thank you again. [00:01:40] Okay. So some people who kind of followed me in the past, kind of my writings and my podcasts and all that, they're going to know what I'm going to say here at first about me. But I just want to kind of go over it anyway. It should be clear to most people who followed anything I've written, and I'm, I've never been a Trump fan in 2016. I mean, I haven't been a Trump fan since the, you know, eighties and nineties. I read his book art of the deal. I think it was in, whichever one that was the big deal came out in the late eighties. And I was like, okay. But it just seemed to me, you know, I just wasn't that impressed with it. [00:02:17] But when he decided to run for president 2016, I was very much opposed to him. I supported Rand Paul in the primaries. I was Republican, but I was already very frustrated with Republican Party. But I was very much against Trump. I was a never Trumper. I'll say it right here. I was, I was never Trump. Now I wasn't a never Trump or like a leftist Trump derangement syndrome kind of person. I've never had that, but I've always been not a fan of his. And so when he was running 2016, I opposed him. I publicly said, I'm not going to vote for him, and I didn't vote for him. In the end, I did not vote for Hillary Clinton, of course, never voted for a Democrat for president because I'm not insane and I'm Catholic. And so I didn't vote for him then. And in fact, I left the Republican Party because of the Trump. Now, I will say that was kind of the final straw. I, you know, couldn't stand. [00:03:05] I had no respect for Romney, for McCain. I ended up not liking Bush in the end. I just was very unimpressed with the Republican Party. I said, I'm out of here. [00:03:16] And so then in 2020, when he's running for reelection, as we led up to the election, I was thinking about not voting for him again. But in the end, I did vote for him. I voted for Trump in 2020 reluctantly. I wasn't enthusiastic about it. I wasn't going around telling other people they should vote for him. I just simply was like, well, I just, you know, I'm going to vote for him because I felt like in the situation with Biden and with everything going on in the country, I thought that, okay, I'm going to do this. And other candidates, third party candidates, weren't that impressive to me. And by the way, I'm a big third party guy. I vote for third parties a lot. [00:03:52] And then coming up on this election, 2024, I was pretty convinced that I likely would not vote for Trump in 2024 because frankly, I just was so unimpressed with how he handled Covid. I don't think he's very strong on abortion. Yes, I do know what he did with the Supreme Court, and I'm thankful for that and I commend him for that. I've done that in the past, but I just wasn't that impressed with him. And I really felt like there was no, I just, again, I don't like him. And so his policies I just did not think would be very good. I did not think, I did not support him. And in fact, I wrote an article and I had podcasts about this a couple months ago that I might not vote at all, that there's a decent chance that I would not vote because I felt like the election is probably rigged. All the candidates are part of the system. And so I just wouldn't vote. Now, I will say during this, I have been very much concerned, annoyed with the, the attempts to silence Trump, to get him out of the legal attempts to try to get him out of the running. I always felt like that was wrong. Like, if Donald Trump is the one that most people want the Republican Party be nominee, he should be a nominee. We should be allowed to vote for him if we want to. And I knew exactly what those were. Those legal attempts were just simply attempts to try to get him out of the election, get him out of the running and have it be another candidate. And I have been very much opposed to that as well. And I didn't like that. And so I been doing that. And now, of course, what do we have? Just last week, it was announced that Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts. 34 felony counts. [00:05:43] I mean, this sounds awful. I mean, he's basically one of the worst human beings who ever lived, right? I mean, he's convicted, that means he's guilty, right? A jury of your peers, what, what else are all the midwits saying on Twitter? They're basically saying he is just this terrible person because, look, he's a convicted felon. I mean, the term convicted felon has probably been used more on social media in last week than ever in the history of the world. [00:06:07] Now, I'm not going to go into super details about the conviction because it was, they're just a joke. [00:06:14] I mean, ultimately, what happened is the basic 64,000 foot view is simply that Trump's team, someone on Trump's team might have committed a misdemeanor for an accounting error of basically making, classifying a certain expense in the wrong way. [00:06:38] And that at most is a misdemeanor. Possibly the Trump team is guilty of that. I don't know, but it's possible. [00:06:48] I think there's reasons to think maybe not, but let's just say, okay, well, why is he now charged at 34 felony counts? Well, what makes it a felony is the idea. What makes that a misdemeanor? A felony in this case is if you do that misdemeanor to cover up another crime, then that's a felony. [00:07:08] But here's the thing. [00:07:10] Nobody can say what the crime is that he was covering up. Nobody, the judge couldn't say it. None of the pundits can say it, none of the anti Trump forces can say it. Nobody can say what it is actually that he's covering up. [00:07:25] So the whole thing is a joke. And I think everybody knows it's a joke. [00:07:30] Like I said, at most it's a misdemeanor. Now, that being said, let's assume it was a misdemeanor. Okay? [00:07:40] We've had an implicit agreement in this country that we don't go after presidents or major presidential candidates for stuff like that. Because frankly, you know, and I know every single one of them is guilty of these type of things. Think about what a massive operation is running for president. [00:07:57] I guarantee Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, you know, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, all of them on their team. There have been misdemeanors committed. [00:08:09] And honestly, I don't think we should go after anybody, nor in that situation, because it's just not worth it. If it was an egregious abuse of power, that's one thing. But we're talking about basically a mischaracterization of an accounting classification. [00:08:26] So we've agreed to this. So what this means is this is clearly a weaponization of the judicial process in order to silence a political opponent. Because we're talking about here the former president, United States, who is now the front runner to become the next president of the United States, who's being charged on these crazy, insane technicalities and called a convicted felon just to get him out of the race, just to get him to lose. That's all it comes down to. That's the whole thing. And to be honest, in my mind, they've finally crossed a line. Enough is enough. Here we go, folks. Here it comes. [00:09:10] That's right, baby. [00:09:13] I'm on Team Trump. [00:09:15] I would just say here, for those who are just listening and watching, I just put a MAGA hat on, which I purposely have never worn because I never had one and I would never wear it. But at this point, I just feel like we've crossed a line and we have to basically recognize the situation we're in today. To me, this has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Actually, I haven't actually changed my views of Donald Trump one iota. [00:09:45] However, I am basically now completely supporting Donald Trump personally, by the way, just so people know, this isn't like an endorsement of Donald Trump. I'm just some dude. It's not like crisis magazine endorses candidates. We'll probably have articles in the future criticizing Donald Trump. But the fact is, is that I now support him because I just feel like this, again, is not about Donald Trump. This is about our whole political system, our whole judicial system. [00:10:17] Now, just to get clear kind of how I got to this point, it actually happened over a week, about two weeks ago, I never would have thought I'd be this pro Trump right now. [00:10:29] But ultimately, that's exactly what's happened, and I'll tell you why. First, no, now, just so people know, ideologically, kind of politically, I align most with the Libertarian Party. Now, for people who just have the kind of, the kind of stereotype libertarian party, you probably laugh about that, that's fine. But I've followed the Libertarian Party closely over the past few years, and I am most aligned with that. And about a week ago, the libertarian national, two weeks ago, I guess it was, now, libertarians had their national convention and they invited Donald Trump and RFK junior and Ramaswami, Vivek Ramaswamy to come and speak. And at the convention, Donald Trump made concessions to the libertarians. [00:11:17] One thing, he said he'd be very pro crypto, pro bitcoin, which I like. He also said he appoint a libertarian to the, to his cabinet, which is great. And so essentially, his whole speech was basically saying, hey, we can have a common cause here, libertarians. And I think that is, and I think basically, I was like, okay, that makes sense. And then the Libertarian Party went and nominated, and there's a whole bunch of reasons for this. I'm not going to get into here, nominated the most woke, awful candidate possible. They had a candidate that was more right wing conservative, but libertarian that they could, and he was, he came in second, but instead they voted a gay, openly gay, pro abortion, pro trans, like children type of person as their nominee. I had always had in the back of my mind that I would have an option for the libertarian candidate because I thought the other guy was going to win. I was like, well, if push comes up, I can just vote for that guy as a third party candidate because that would have been a good conscience vote. And by the way, just so you know, my voting is never that strategic. Mine's just like, what do I think is the right thing for me to do? That's how I vote. And so I was like, okay, I always had that as a backup. I will also be honest with you right here. I like RFK Junior. I don't care what you say, I like him. [00:12:42] I'm not saying I agree with him. I think some of his positions are awful. But I think he's also the only one of the big three that has read a book. He's the only one that really thinks through things and has considered things deeply. And I think he's very good on some very important issues. He's horrific on abortion, of course. But honestly, his position isn't that different from Donald Trump's, and he's horrific on Israel, but that's the same as basically Trump and Biden, but he's very good on certain issues. And so I was like, you know, I don't think I ever would have voted for RFK, but I was considering, like, okay, I do like him. I like listening to him. I like a lot of stuff he has to say. [00:13:22] So anyway. But in the end, though, after what happened to Libertarian Party with both Donald Trump showing up and saying, hey, I think we can work together, libertarians, I'll do some things that make you happy. And then what happened with the convictions? I felt like, okay, this is ridiculous. Now I'm not going to do this. In fact, I did something I've only done once before in my life. I donated to a presidential campaign. I voted. I donated to Rand Paul's presidential campaign back in 2016 when he was the first to accept bitcoin. [00:13:53] And then I donated. I was one of those many people who donated in that first day after the convictions to Donald Trump's campaign because I felt like something, it needs to be said. It's kind of like when everybody went out and bought the Harrison but Kerr jerseys after what happened to him. It was a way to say, listen, normal people know what's going on here and we're ticked off about it. And in fact, he raised, what was it, 52 million in the first 24 hours after the convictions were announced, which is by far the largest ever. I mean, I remember Biden's team was making a big deal a few months ago and they made like 25 million in a weekend. Well, Trump made 52 million in a day. [00:14:32] And so I really do think that. [00:14:36] So I donated his campaign. And now I'm honestly, I'm in. I'm in, guys. My, all my Trump friends, now I will say this, I still don't like him. My opinion of Donald Trump has not changed one iota from two weeks ago. [00:14:51] What's changed, though, is that it's clear that there is a huge effort to silence him and to get him out of the race. And in my mind, the enemy of my enemy is, is my friend. Because if there's one thing I have always recognized about Donald Trump is he has the best enemies. What I mean by that is his enemies are the worst people in the world. They are by far the worst people. They're the people who hate me. The people who hate Donald Trump hate me as well. They hate you. If you're listening to this because you're a practicing Catholic, more than likely, or at least a practicing conservative Christian. They hate you and they will do anything, destroy you. We saw that during COVID And by the way, I don't think Donald Trump was very good at Covid. I think it was taught terrible, frankly, during COVID Again, my view of him has not changed, but my view of the situation has changed. And now what I see is, is that we just, I feel like I have to do something. [00:15:46] I have to, you know, do I think he will actually be allowed to win? Notice I didn't say be win. Be allowed to win. Be allowed to be in the White House. I don't know. I mean, clearly they will stop at nothing. [00:15:57] Clearly they will stop at nothing. And so the likelihood of him actually getting into the White House, I think, is actually still very slim. But I'm not responsible for that. I'm just responsible for what I can do. [00:16:10] Excuse me. And I think if he becomes, if he actually becomes president, I don't think he'll be a great president. I still don't think there'll be a great president. Now. I will say he will be a lot, lot better than Joe Biden or RFK on some of the most important issues, which is particularly when it comes to foreign policy, the one thing I do think Donald Trump is very good at is keeping us out of wars. Now, he should have done more. Okay, fine. When he was president to end wars. I do think that. But the fact is, the one thing he's good at, keep this out of war. I honestly believe if he gets elected and he becomes president, the war in Ukraine will end very shortly after that. I also think the Israeli, I'm not as confident about this one, but I think the israeli Gaza conflict will probably be resolved as well. Not permanently resolved, obviously, but at least the horrific things that are happening in Gaza right now will stop. [00:17:08] But most importantly, I don't think he will get us into world War three, which is probably the most important thing right now, is I think, honestly, Joe Biden's team, not Joe Biden, he didn't know what's going on. [00:17:20] Joe Biden's team is trying to get us into World War three. And I think, honestly, it might be like a Covid thing, like, let's use Covid to get Biden elected. I think they're, they might try to get World War three started so that either there is an election or that somehow we rally around the flag, which is Joe Biden, and he gets reelected. I don't put it past them at this point. So I do think Donald Trump would be good about that. [00:17:45] I also think, I'm hoping he would keep his promises to libertarians. [00:17:49] I think that would be something I would support, obviously. [00:17:54] Here's another thing I think would happen, a good thing that could happen if Donald Trump actually becomes president. [00:18:00] I think it increases the chances of secession, which I think is a good thing. [00:18:06] I've long been publicly supportive of the country breaking up. But here's the thing. [00:18:13] The right likely won't secede from a liberal president, a liberal government. But I could see the left doing that. If California or New York, Oregon, whatever, if Donald Trump's president, I can see him not necessarily seceding, but like, breaking apart even more. We have seen that some after Covid, like Florida, Texas, some others becoming more independent, not following the federal lead, which is a good thing. [00:18:41] And I think you'd see that then all of a sudden on the left, where else in California, New York would stop following the federal lead, which I actually think is a good thing ultimately, because I do think that we're too big to succeed. I do think we need to break up. I don't think we should be this humongous. I don't think a government of our size can be a successful, liberty oriented government. [00:19:01] So I think actually, in that sense, I do think it is. Now, here's the thing. The question becomes, when I talk about secession, you know, obviously civil war comes up about violence. [00:19:11] I mean, I think I've been pretty clear. I'm not advocating violence. I still not advocating violence. I hope for a peaceful secession. It has happened in the past in other countries. It can happen here. [00:19:23] That being said, the lengths that the elites, the people in charge are going to to crush any dissent, history just tells a story, and it's not a good one. [00:19:36] And that story is this almost always leads to violence. [00:19:40] Almost always leads to violence. And I think, honestly, they're hoping for it in this case, they're hoping somebody does something stupid in response to Donald Trump's convictions or if he goes to jail or something like that in order to pin another January 6 in order to try to bring down the pro Trump movement. I honestly think that's what they're hoping for more than anything. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some crazy leftist tries to act like a right winger and does something crazy in order to just get this going. [00:20:10] But ultimately, the reason I'm kind of pro succession and pro this is because I think the key point here is that I don't see how we can be united. [00:20:22] We literally have two different views of reality in this country. I mean, yes, it's not that basic. There's nuance and there's, you know, scaling, whatever. But ultimately, we have two different views of reality. On the one hand are people who think they can create their own reality. They can say, I'm a man, I'm a woman, whatever you want at that moment, and that's reality. [00:20:48] And then you have people who believe reality is outside of themselves, not controlled by them, not something they determine, but is determined by a higher power. [00:21:00] And those two different viewpoints, worldviews, they can't live together permanently. Eventually, there's going to be a divorce. That's just the reality. [00:21:12] And so my hope is, is that we, we move that along in peaceful ways. So eventually we do break up. [00:21:18] And so whether or not that happens, I don't think would happen under Donald Trump if he, if he won the four years of him. I do think it could happen, though. [00:21:27] Now. Okay, one more, one thing I want to say about all this. I want to say a word to trump supporters out there. [00:21:38] You guys got it, like, chill out a little bit about people who aren't cultishly pro Trump like you might be. [00:21:47] I mean, when I wrote, I wrote an article last week about this, and I said at the beginning, I don't like Donald Trump. I gave a couple reasons why. Very short paragraph just saying I don't like them. But then I talked about how awful this, this prosecution, the persecution of Donald Trump is. I got an email from somebody who said, you clearly support the child murder lover named Biden. [00:22:06] And I got another one from somebody else criticizing me, saying how awful I was because I don't like Donald Trump. What a terrible person I am. That basically Trump is God's chosen one, that Trump is the one who lead us in the promised land, that, how dare you say anything negative about Donald Trump. You just love Biden. [00:22:23] I'm sorry, but I just don't. I have to be me, and I'm not like that. Listen, I love being Catholic. It's the most important thing in my life is my Catholicism, being a member of the Catholic Church. And I criticize all the time, the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, if I'm willing to criticize Pope Francis. You really think I'm not going to criticize Donald Trump, a political leader? [00:22:46] I mean, if there's one person in the entire world I'm the most hesitant to criticize publicly, it would be the pope, because he's the pope. Yet all of you who kind of listen to me and follow me know, I criticize him all the time. [00:22:59] So I am going to continue to criticize Trump. I'm not going to all of a sudden act like he is the greatest thing that's ever lived. [00:23:08] But I do think that I support now Donald Trump running for president. I do think that people should vote for him, basically is just a way to try to fight back in the little way we can. Like, I still think my vote doesn't count for very much in the big scheme of things, but it's all I have. [00:23:29] I don't have anything else. That's why I vote for third parties a lot of times because I feel like it's not about some strategy, as George W. Bush would say, that I can actually have an impact on, but instead, it's about me and my conscience. What can I do to try and make this country better? And so a lot of times I will vote for a third party. But this time, I don't think, I think the best vote for me for my conscience is going to be for Donald Trump because of what they're doing to him. Again, not because of Donald Trump, because this is bigger than Donald Trump. This isn't about Donald Trump. I mean, he says it often. He's right. They can do this to him. Who's got all these resources, all this money and everything to defend himself. [00:24:10] Why wouldn't they do it to you? [00:24:12] And they're going to do it to you because, like I said, the enemy and my enemy is my friend, and the enemies of Donald Trump are my enemies. And they're your enemies as well. They're the Catholic Church's enemies, ultimately. [00:24:23] Now, I will say, okay, all this, all my rah rah, my wear my MAGA hat and all that, I will say this. [00:24:32] He could still lose my support before November. And I think the main thing that would be appointed if he, if he picked, like, Nikki Haley to be his vp. Cuz here's the thing with Donald Trump's age and the serious concerns about his safety. Let's be honest, Tucker Carlson mentions this a lot. Let's be honest. [00:24:51] His safety is in, is in danger. And there's no question that his safety is in danger, that he is a target. [00:25:00] So there is a very decent chance that if he was elected, he would not still be alive at the end of his term, which means his vice president matters. [00:25:09] If he picks somebody like Nikki Haley, then I don't think I can support him. Okay, actually, this is good. Let me put that comment back up. Eric s good name. The weird thing is, if they had just left Trump alone. I mean, if they had never impeached him or done any of that stuff, then very likely, absolutely never would have achieved this popularity. Amen. You're absolutely right, Eric. I don't think I wouldn't vote for him. I don't think I would have voted for him if he had just simply, if they had left him alone. [00:25:38] But now it's like I'm completely behind him because of what they're doing to him, because I know what it means. I look a little bit deeper than just do I like his personality? No, I don't like his personality, but I'm not, I'm not trying to marry him. I'm not going to move in with him or something like that. [00:25:52] I just know that he represents something that the worst people in the world hate. And so that's, that. That's gonna be good enough for me. But again, he could lose my vote if he decides, for example, to pick Nikki Haley or like, somebody like Lindsey Graham, some terrible person, as his vp. Now, most of the people on the, that have been named as possibilities, I mean, are all fine with me. Somebody like Ramaswami, I think, would be great. You know, if you pick somebody like that as a, as a running mate, I'd be fine with that. [00:26:25] But not somebody like, not, not a complete neocon Warhawk, because that would just tell me that he couldn't, he doesn't get it at all. But also, more importantly, that if he doesn't make it through his term, we'd have an awful president. So that that would be the only thing. But otherwise, like I said, I'm over 90% chance, you know, I am definitely voting for him if, like I said, he doesn't do something really stupid between now and November, and it's not because of him. My view of Donald Trump has not changed one iota, but at the same time, what has happened in the world has changed. And for that reason, I am definitely on the MAGA team. [00:27:00] Okay, everybody, I think that's it for me. This was a major confession out to the public for everybody. Hope you enjoyed my tech talk, or whatever you call it. Ted. TED Talk, wherever you call these things. Until next time, everybody. God love.