Column: It’s Trump for the Republicans

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By Edward Dadakis
Sentinel Columnist

After a lifetime of involvement with Republican politics, I like to think of myself as a bit of a political prognosticator. I also like to think that, if not always right, at least I’m pretty close to the mark. But I never saw this coming. If you’d ask me a year ago who I thought the 2016 GOP nominee would be, I would have never predicted Donald Trump, even if you had given me 17 guesses.

Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee, and it’s time for all Republicans to join with him and begin the campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton.  More then just the presidency is at stake. A strong Republican campaign can maintain Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. We need to fight here in Connecticut to gain Republican control of at least one house in the General Assembly to put the brakes on the destruction Democrats have caused to Connecticut’s fiscal health. 

I’ve never agreed with a political candidate, even the revered Ronald Reagan, 100 percent of the time. Trump is no different. But everyone can admire him for coming from nowhere to capture the imagination of millions of voters, reject politics as usual, and give hope that America can escape the horrors of political correctness, the socialism of our economy, and the bypassing of the rule of law at the whim of the president of the United States. And he did it without selling his soul to the fundraisers or the PACs or the elite ruling class. His message so resonated with voters that he spent very little, relatively, to win the nomination. 

It has been a hard eight years under Barrack Obama. His decision to raise taxes enormously, impose government healthcare and over-regulate industry has handcuffed the U.S. economy. The Obama presidency has earned the dubious distinction of being the only one in history not to achieve 3 percent economic growth in any year.    

Together, Obama and Hillary have embarrassed America globally. They abandoned friends like Israel, reset Russian relations back to the Cold War era, failed to preserve the hard-earned success in Iraq and Afghanistan, allowed the creation of ISIS due to their horrible missteps in Libya and Syria, and sanctioned a blueprint for Iran to get a nuclear bomb. Hillary and Obama’s failed policies have put tens of millions of lives at risk. Trump is right, and maybe a bit too generous, when he calls her tenure as Secretary of State a disaster.

Certainly, Trump has been over the top with some of his rhetoric, but, of course, that’s what has gotten him noticed. While his words may not have been perfect (after all, he is not a career politician who spent a lifetime parsing every word), you need to look at the meaning. Trump absolutely embraces immigrants coming to America, but wants them to come in legally. What’s wrong with that?

His language was overbroad in talking about temporarily banning Muslims from coming into the country, but he has repeatedly emphasized that this should be so only until our leaders figure out what is going on (they still haven’t). That’s exactly what President Jimmy Carter did during his presidency.

And he is not frightened to call evil by its name—radical Islamic terrorism, which killed hundreds of my friends and colleagues on September 11th. 

Despite Trump’s business record of supporting and encouraging women, Hillary is chomping at the bit to go after him as a sexist. But if she does, she will have to explain her role in accepting and defending her husband’s deplorable behavior with women. I doubt she wants to do that.

Much like Bill Cosby, the impeached President Clinton has a long history of sexual abuse allegations, and some consider him a sexual predator. As he defended himself over and over again, Hillary was at his side, attacking any woman who dared to accuse her husband and to seek justice.  That does not make Hillary a friend of women; it makes her an enemy of women. As Bill Cosby finally faces trial for his sexual wrongdoing, maybe it’s time that Bill Clinton faces his accusers, too.

We are heading into a general election that will be unpredictable. Trump will be relentless on the issues he and his supporters care about. I increasingly get the sense that Trump is channeling America’s silent majority, as President Nixon called it. That constituency crosses party lines, geographic boundaries, and ideologies. It is likely to shake up the historical electoral college map.   

So to my fellow Republicans, we can no longer focus on our differences; instead let’s focus on all the views we have in common and stop the Democrats from further damaging our country. Join with me in supporting Donald Trump and all the Republican candidates. Common sense, the rule of law, and responsible leadership will make America great again.

Edward Dadakis, a lifelong Greenwich resident, has served more then 35 years on the RTM, having been first elected as one of its youngest members. He is a former chairman of the Greenwich Republican Party and currently represents our 36th Senatorial District on the Connecticut Republican State Central Committee.

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