Unca Darrell

NOVEMBER 3, 2020 / Unca D's valedictory

MY NAME IS Darrell Hancock. For some years, I have blogged under the name Unca D. At the top of my blog, I described myself as Old. Conservative. Christian. In love with my wife, our boys, Texas, America, Western Civilization, and Jesus. Sorry about the decline of newspapers. This year I added another line: Therefore, a Trump voter.

Today is a good time to quit the blog. It’s national election day. Voting results lie ahead, still cloaked in mystery. I will now have my last say, then euthanize the fictional persona of Unca D and say goodbye to readers who were kind enough or curious enough to read my essays and other postings through the years.

STORED ON MY HARD DRIVE are drafts of Unca D’s Ninety-Five Theses—truths to be remembered and cheered when glasses are raised in memory of the good Unca and his blog.

I worked and worked, but could not finish the project. These days, writing anything longer than a sentence or short paragraph is harder than it needs to be. An hour after completing a draft, I can reread it and know, as one knows such things, not to publish it. So I shall not.

Instead, here are ten mini-essays about what I and my alter ego, Unca D, know to be true and what we recommend to those who care to know. Call it Unca D's last say.

1. God

God exists. His son is Jesus Christ. God loves us. The path to God is through Jesus Christ. That path is open to you. Take that path today.

2. Western Civilization

Western Civilization is an amalgam of the civilizations of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, brought to life by Christianity, the body of believers in Jesus Christ. Western Civilization, so formed and animated, has given the world its greatest art, music, architecture, literature, music, learning, and social, economic, and political systems. It has nurtured humanity materially, artistically, intellectually, and spiritually. Of all civilizations, none is better. Study Western Civilization. Understand it. Honor it. Preserve it. Advance it.

3. America

The United States of America is the epitome of Western Civilization. It was founded, not on blood or soil, but on brilliant ideas and noble ideals. In America, one celebrates personal freedom, equality under law, opportunity, religious freedom, and more. In America, one can realize the greatest possibilities of material, intellectual, social, political, and spiritual life.

Were it possible, men, women from all continents would migrate to America by the millions, perhaps billions. Meanwhile, virtually no one leaves America. Citizenship is a glorious privilege. Love America. Preserve it. Advance it.

4. The Family

The single most important social institution is the nuclear family. Mothers and fathers in traditional families are, in the main, healthier (mentally, emotionally, and physically) and wealthier than other adults. Their children do better in school and are less prone to drugs, violence, and criminal conduct. (Science, people. Look it up.)

Families are chiefly responsible for introducing children to God, passing along the heritage of Western Civilization and America, and forming the character of children. Marry. Have children. Love your spouse and your children. Do everything you can to make their lives better.

5. The Fallen Nature of Humanity

Human beings are made in the likeness and image of God, but we are also selfish and greedy creatures. All of us are prone to do bad things. Some are prone to do evil things. Things that are intrinsically good, useful, and necessary—money, sex, and power—can be perverted to drive us past boundaries set by God, civilization, law, nature, and morality. Accept this truth. Live in humility. Fight temptation.

(The Christian footnote here is that we are not, and cannot be, good though our own efforts. Inevitably we fail. We are taught to confess our shortcoming to God and to ask for the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us.)

6. The Imperfection of Human Institutions

Because human beings are imperfect, all human institutions are also imperfect. The earthly church has been corrupted by financial and sexual greed. Western Civilization has been rent by war upon war and atrocity upon atrocity. America was a slaveholding nation until 1865. Families are susceptible to infidelity and abuse. Imperfect human beings can and often do corrupt the things they touch.

In passing, take note that the American system of government was designed to work despite, and through, the ministrations of imperfect human beings. Why else do we divide sovereignty between states and the national government? Why else to we have two houses of Congress? Why else can a court overrule the legislature or a president? Why else do we have three branches of government---executive, legislative, and judicial? Why else do we have a bill of rights?

Each device makes it more difficult for individuals and factions to force their will upon those who disagree. The great success of the American system of government is based upon a realistic understanding of human nature. 

7. The Radical American Left

The radical American left despises and would tear down the Christian church, Western Civilization, America, and the nuclear family. Why? Because these things stand between the radicals and their single-minded goal: power.

Decent leftists -- commonly known as liberals -- cannot believe radicals would destroy things that they, the decent ones, love and respect. Keeping decent leftists on board, politically, is why radical leftists so enthusiastically and cynically pretend to be moderate leftists. 

8. The Ground of Battle

The radical American left has three arguments. The first, inarguably correct, is that Christianity, Western Civilization, America, and the family are imperfect.

The second argument, desperately wrong, is that the these institutions cannot be reformed, that they are worse than imperfect, that they are inherently evil, that there’s nothing good about them, that anyone who says differently is racist or worse, that these institutions must be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

The name the radical American left gives this tearing down and rebuilding is fundamental transformation. The implication, rarely articulated, is that this will bring perfection, heaven on earth. Books have been written on how socialism could bring heaven on earth. President Obama once said he was "confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth." 

The radical American left already plans destroy the Supreme Court by packing it; to destroy the Constitution with a packed court; to destroy the Senate by admitting new states to guarantee banana-republic-style one-party rule; and to destroy consent of the governed by corrupting America’s elections and opening them to easy fraud.

The third argument of the radical American left is that only they can be entrusted to do what must be done. All others, as candidate Clinton reminded us in 2016, are racists, sexists, homophobes, whatever. Part of this same argument is that the radical elite may use any means necessary to achieve Nirvana.

The left's formula for using its power, addressed to the less enlightened citizen—meaning you and me—is (a) shut up, (b) give us your money, and ( c) do as we say.

From this formula, as from a fountain, flows speech codes and other efforts to criminalize free speech, bans on fracking and other attacks on the hydrocarbon-based economy and the market economy generally, defunding the police (so money can be diverted to more congenial agencies of leftist government), ever-higher taxes, and regulation of the smallest details of ordinary human life.

9. The Good Alternative

Stand up for God. Even if you are not a believer, stand up for freedom of religion. Celebrate the glories of Western Civilization. Say without apology that you love America and act accordingly. Make your family a haven of love, peace, and joy.

Identify and reform the shortcomings of every institution. Cooperate in this project with all men and women of good faith who share your love of these institutions.

As for radical leftists who would destroy these things, resist fiercely, as you would resist all barbarians. Fight them and defeat them.

10. Donald J. Trump

The bizarre reality of November 3, 2020, is that a supremely imperfect man—Donald John Trump—is champion of all who love Jesus, Western Civilization, America, and the family.

These is little reason to vote for him except these three: (1) He has done a good job as president. (Wish I had time to give the list.) (2) He is mentally, physically, intellectually, and morally superior to the candidate he opposes. (3) His policies are better, on balance, for Christians, the West, America, and families. 

Standing against President Trump is a candidate who, through age-related cognitive decline, clearly lacks mental capacity to serve as president and whose body will soon betray him, as well; who has grown wealthy in office and cannot credibly deny that his family has corruptly used his public offices to enrich itself; and who will, if elected, be used by the radical American left to carry forward the grand project of tearing down things that are good, though imperfect, and replacing them with things that are worse.

It’s too late to ask you to vote to reelect Mr. Trump. Be sure, however, that the fight will continue. After today, do what you can when you can. Find ways to withhold your money and good opinion from politicians, newspapers (The Houston Chronicle, for example), universities (Rice University, for instance), and other entities (National Public Radio, the National Basketball Association, and churches that love socialism more than they love Jesus, for instance).

Defend, and never apologize for, loving Jesus, Western Civilization, America, and the institution of the family.

Thank you for dropping by. I treasure your readership and friendship. May God bless you and yours. May you live always in truth, beauty, and goodness, and in peace and joy.

This is Unca D’s last essay. Unca D, my alter ego, has now expired. He is not pining for the fyords of Norway. He has passed on. He is no more. He has ceased to be and has gone to meet his maker. He’s a stiff, bereft of life. He rests in peace. He’s pushing up daisies. His metabolic processes are history. He has kicked the bucket, shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the choir invisible. THIS IS NOW AN EX-BLOG!

NOVEMBER 3, 2020 / Reagan's handwritten letter announcing his Alzheimer's

ALZHEIMER'S is a slow way to die. Most often the patient knows what is happening and, more painfully, what is to come. President Reagan's acceptance of  his condition is a model of how to live and die with grace. An excerpt from his letter of November 5, 1994:

November 3, 2020 / Reagan's farewell to the American people

 

UNCA D WAS NEVER a great communicator, but President Reagan was. Here, an except from his farewell to the American people, January 12, 1989:

I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation - from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.

They called it the Reagan Revolution, and I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the Great Rediscovery: a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020 / Unca D still loves you . . .

. . . but the time has  come to stop blogging.

Not today, but soon. Two reasons:

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 / Gibberish from . . .

. . . our future president, at least nominally, in the Harris administration:

Cause if you could take care, if you were a quartermaster, you can sure in hell take care runnin’ a, you know, a department store uh, thing, you know, where, in the second floor of the ladies department or whatever, you know what I mean?

To my good-hearted Democratic friends: Your presidential candidate, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is cognitively impaired, period. If you agree, how can you vote for him? If you disagree, how can you disagree? Explain.

And if you know he's impaired but are willing to vote for him as a Trojan Horse for Kamala Harris, I withdraw "good-hearted." You're knowingly supporting a radical socialist against a candidate who is personally flawed and disagreeable but who has done a better job in the White House than any other president this century. And on many issues that Democrats supposedly care about (preCovid) historic black, brown, and female employment, prison reform, peace in the Middle East, resisting China, and more.

If Mr. Biden's handlers put him on the debate stage with President Trump, they should be sued for political malpractice.

A cognitively impaired candidate stripped of his TelePrompter cannot last two hours with the agile and combative Mr. Trump.

I believe Mr. Biden's campaign will tank the debates, but only at the last minute.

After all, a lot of Americans are already casting their votes. No need to worry them needlessly with further evidence of Mr. Biden's severe cognitive impairment.

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 / Walter Russell Mead on . . .

. . . the geopolitical realities behind President Trump's stunning foreign policy triumphs in the Middle East

NOT SINCE May 1948, when both the [United States] and the Soviet Union recognized the state of Israel in the critical weeks of its war for independence, has Israel had a diplomatic month like this. On Aug. 13, the United Arab Emirates and Israel signed an agreement to normalize relations . . . . On Sept. 11, Bahrain followed suit. . . . . On Sept. 13 another Arab nation, Oman, issued a statement of support for Bahrain’s decision to normalize relations.

Meanwhile . . . Kosovo became the first Muslim-majority country in the world to agree to place an embassy in Jerusalem in another Trump-brokered deal. . . .

With Saudi Arabia allowing flights from Israel to the U.A.E. to pass over its territory and Morocco reported to be close to allowing direct flights to the Jewish state, something of a tipping point seems to have been reached in the Middle East. Resentment of Zionism and sympathy for the Palestinians will no longer be allowed to interfere with what embattled Arab rulers see as a vital relationship.

These changes are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Arab opposition to Israel’s existence has never been as unanimous or implacable as casual observers sometimes assume. Geopolitically, conservative Arab states have long understood that their interests and Israel’s are connected.

The strongest force in international politics is driving the change: fear. The Arab world as a whole is confronting its greatest crisis since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Iraq and Syria, once pillars of Arab nationalism and strength, can barely hold themselves together. Yemen and Libya are sunk in bitter civil wars. Egypt, whose economy is staggering as the pandemic slashes its income from tourism and trade, can barely manage its own security, much less export stability to the rest of the Arab world. Lebanon, for so long a financial and cultural capital of the Arab world, suffers from a failing state and Hezbollah’s heavy hand.

Even the wealthy Gulf oil states fear for their economic future. American fracking is likely to keep oil prices low even when the global economy recovers from Covid-19, and with pro-Green New Deal Democrats leading in U.S. polls, the pressure from the West on fossil fuels seems likely to grow. What limits a President Biden would place on fracking likely wouldn’t cut domestic production enough to raise oil prices significantly. The Gulf states must diversify from hydrocarbons or wither away, and they know it.

On top of all this, the American withdrawal from the Middle East keeps gaining momentum. The Trump administration continues to push to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, while a Biden administration would seek to revive the nuclear deal with Tehran while distancing itself from Saudi Arabia on human-rights grounds.

Behind all these worries lie the real terrors of the Arab world: Turkey and Iran. Muslim Brotherhood leaders fleeing Egypt have found a haven in Turkey, and many Arabs believe that Ankara’s ambitions pose a greater long-term threat to Arab independence than Tehran’s.

In the short term, Iran, which hopes that a Biden election would lead to open trade with the West, poses what Gulf Arab leaders see as an existential threat—especially with America looking to reduce its regional commitments.

The more the [United States] withdraws, the greater the value of Israel to the Sunni Arab world. Israel, growing numbers of Arab leaders believe, is the only country with both the will and the means to help the Arab world defend itself from regional threats—and the only country with enough political support in America to ensure that Arab pleas for help will not be utterly disregarded.

Beyond that, more Arabs are beginning to see the advantages in working with Israel. Israel is not, as many Arabs once believed, a fragile artificial society held together by U.S. support. It is by any measure the most successful state in the Middle East with the most technologically advanced economy in the region. Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Indian and American military leaders all want the benefits of Israeli tech.

Timing aside, the Arab rapprochement with Israel is no preelection stunt staged to help Donald Trump. It reflects a sober and serious response to realities that no Arab state can ignore. As a military and intelligence partner, as a diplomatic force multiplier, as a trading partner, as a source of investment and of development expertise, Israel is too valuable to the Arab world to be relegated to the status of a regional pariah. It has earned its place in the Middle East.

(Walter Russell Mead, "The Long Road to Israel's Very Good Month," The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2020 (emphasis added, lightly edited))

• • •

Mr. Mead's essay is fodder for the great, never-to-be-resolved debate between the Great Man (or, today, Great Woman) Theory (that heroic leaders shape history) and the Forces of History Theory (that the forces of history shape the leaders).

Mr. Mead is not taking sides, but he elegantly lays out proposition that great forces have led to the sudden, surprising peace initiatives in the Middle East — that sensible Arab leaders have little choice but to normalize relations with Israel.

The Great Man Theory is that President Trump deserves credit not only for the diplomatic breakthroughs, but also for setting in motion many of the Forces of History that have forced the Arabs' hand —reducing U.S. military forces in the region, breaking the oil cartel with fracking, and weakening much-feared Iran.

Candidate Biden is also playing what might be called a negative Great Man role in these events. Both Arab and Israeli leaders know their best change for obtaining U.S. support for their peace initiatives is by getting them done while their ally, President Trump, is still in office.

A President Biden (or Harris) cannot help but reflect the anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian sentiments of the modern Democatic Party. Giving the Palestinians a veto over all U.S. Middle East diplomatic moves, as a President Biden/Harris might do, is a guaranteed way to weaken or stop the peace process.

A vote for President Trump is a vote for peace.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 / An elegant reminder of how . . .

. . . the radical left corrupts all it touches, including architecture.

Roger Scruton on "The Fury of the Modernists," excerpted below.

In every art form there has been a “battle of styles,” as the old idioms became tired and repetitious, and new idioms searched for space in the creative mêlée. For the most part the battle has been good humored, with new solutions steadily gathering approval from the art-loving public.

The passage of The Rite of Spring from an act of outrageous defiance to . . .

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 / Kamala Harris can't wait

She's already referring to the "Harris administration."

Don't believe me?

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 / It can be dangerous, literally, to . . .

. . . elect radical Democrats (meaning most Democrats), anytime, anywhere: Harris County edition.

Unca D adapted this essay from a piece written by Andy Kahan. Details below. Please don't blame Mr. Kahan for errors or omissions by Unca D, or for Unca D's political prescription to cure the ills in the Harris County criminal justice system diagnosed by Mr. Kahan.  

Daniel Musterman was a devoted son and caretaker to his 87-year-old mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s. Caitlynne Rose was a young mother and was eight months pregnant. Gregory Brooks had a wonderful sense of humor but he prided himself in taking his education seriously and was proud to be one of the first in his family to go to college. Reginald Larry was on his way to his grandmother’s house when he stopped for a drink at a corner store.

What do Daniel, Caitlynne, Gregory and Reginald have in common? All four were murdered, and in each case, the suspect was someone who had . . .

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 / Kamala Harris is not a political moderate

She is a radical leftist.

THE TEXT BELOW is snipped from Matt Margolis, "The Media [Are] Absolutely Wacko for Claiming Kamala Harris Is a ' Moderate'," jpmedia.com, August 13, 2020.

After Mr. Margolis wrote his article, Senator Harris publicly moderated some extreme positions she had supported earlier. She moved slightly to the center, at least cosmetically. She did it for political expediency, I believe, as for a genuine change of heart or mind.

Mr. Margolis's description of Ms. Harris's views is a true portrait of who she is. It shows how she would govern if she were to succeed to the office of president, where she would be the most radical leftist . . .

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 / Well said

GLENN REYNOLDS on 9/11 and President Trump

19 YEARS AGO TODAY, WE SAID “NEVER FORGET,” BUT WE MOSTLY HAVE. Maybe that’s okay, in a way. As hardly anyone has noticed, Trump’s Mideast peace deals have pulled the teeth of Islamic terror — without funding from the Saudis and the other rich Arab states, these “grassroots” terror movements miraculously disappear, just as the “people-based” communist revolutions vanished as soon as the Soviet Union went belly-up and quit funding them. And also, with fracking, there’s not as much Arab money lying around to begin with.

No one who was alive and aware that day will forget it, but my law students are already mostly young enough not to really remember it.

But look at it this way: The Bush presidency was basically all about reacting to 9/11. The Obama presidency was mostly about reacting to the Bush presidency’s reaction to 9/11. Trump’s presidency has been about putting the United States in a position where things like that won’t happen. I’ll take it.

(Glenn Reynolds, Untitled Post, pjmedia.com/instapundit, September 11, 2020 (lightly edited, emphasis added))

Mr. Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee and proprietor of the legendary and indispensable Instapundit blog. He is also one of America's preeminent public intellectuals. (Another is Houston radio talk-show host Michael Berry, but that's a story for another day.) 

Professor Reynolds tosses off better occasional pieces, such as the text above, than most of write after hours of agony. I often steal from his blog. I do it without shame under the principle that he said what I would have said if I could have said, so — in some sense — I said. When Unca D ambles off the stage, which will be soon, your homework assignment will be to keep reading Instapundit. 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 / McWhorter on political theater . . .

. . . Columbia University, "white supremacy," the 2016 elections, Ta-Nehisi Coates, black professors, and religion and heresy.

ONE RARELY spends time more profitably than in reading anything by John McWhorter. If you do not know him, read this almost three-year-old interview. I'll offer snips below, but you'd do better to go to the source.

He is — or was in December 2017 — an outspoken anti-Trumper. That's fine. He's wrong about how to vote, I believe, but his negative view of Trump adds weight to his positive views on how students, professors, and others should behave. I look forward to reading more from him, now that the left has more clearly embraced the words — white supremacy —he criticized in 2017 and, more troubling, has embraced . . .

 

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 / Hanson on the thin veneer . . .

. . . of American civilization and the barbarism beneath

[The] idea of live and let live with the past is ancient history now — and hundreds of decapitated and defaced statues ago. A mindless mob, appeased and enabled by a terrified establishment, has systematically and with impunity . . .

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020 / Roger Kimball on Trump's first-term accomplishments

[HERE] IS THE INDIGESTIBLE TRUTH for . . . Democrats. Donald Trump has had the most successful first term of any president in memory, maybe ever. 

•••

His policies brought unemployment . . .

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 / Democrats in California plan to legalize . . .

. . . racial discrimination (and more) by removing these words from the state constitution: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to . . .

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 / Grenell on "the most pro-gay president . . .

. . . in American history."

PRESIDENT TRUMP is the most pro-gay president in American history. I can prove it. My name is Ric Grenell. I'm America's first openly gay cabinet member.

As a United States senator, Joe Biden said gay people . . .

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020 / Hugh Hewitt: The case for Trump

MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, he has brought the existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party into the sunlight. No more nice words. . . .

Trump’s tax cuts, along with . . .

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020 / A Bible lesson on the sin of mockery

AS UNCA D winds down his blogging career, it is time to confess the sin of mockery. I am a mocker. In my prime, I was good at it.

Soon after I turned my life over to Jesus, however, I learned that mockery is a sin. I even taught a lesson about the subject during Easter season, 2017. Here are excerpts from the lesson, edited for print. May this lesson help you understand and do what I understand but . . .

 

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 / With sixty days to go . . .

. . . Real Clear Politics (RCP) reports 44 percent overall job approval for President Trump. 

This number is quite low. On its face, it casts a cloud over President Trump's prospect for reelection.

Buried in RCP's data, however, is a reasonably clear path to victory. Read on and see if you agree with Unca D that Mr. Trump not only can win, but probably will win.

If nothing else, you will see why Mr. Biden has scurried out of his basement and started campaigning more aggressively.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 / The question of character

ROGER KIMBALL believes President Trump "is, in the ways that matter for a president, a man of good character." A good introduction to his full argument appeared nineteen months ago in "The Character That Matters," American Greatness, January 4, 2019. The essay is part of Mr. Kimball's ongoing debate with a prominent conservative never-Trumper who takes the opposite view and believes that, as a consequence of Mr. Trump's bad character, his administration must necessarily end badly. Mr. Kimball's essay offers the thrust and parry of debate, not a systematic argument.

The snip that follows reminds us that American presidential elections are, as a practical matter, binary choices: Candidate A versus Candidate B. This means the character of both candidates matters. In 2016, Mr. Kimball writes, the "choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was an existential, a moral choice—a choice, if you like, that turned upon the character of the two candidates."

I submit that anyone possessed of even a smidgen of what Henry James called "the imagination of disaster" will shudder at the prospect of what a Clinton presidency would have entailed. Who knows whom she would have nominated to the Supreme Court and other federal courts, what she would have done about taxes, about energy, about the plague of political correctness on college campuses, about military spending, about religious freedom, about militant Islamism, about American manufacturing, about the size of government and the burdens of the regulatory state. And who knows what she would not have done, such as prime the economy to ensure near record peacetime employment and strong economic growth—which are moral acts in themselves given the millions whose lives have already been changed for the better.

I say "Who knows," but of course we all know. Hillary Clinton was the most corrupt serious candidate for the presidency in history, and her corruption was not merely in her lying to Congress and  the FBI, her pay-to-play schemes while secretary of state, and her handling of the Benghazi attack. It was evident, too, in her fealty to the dictates of the administrative state, to the unaccountable elite that 63 million voters elected Donald Trump to combat.

Well said. What Mr. Trump has done while in office (as distinct from what he has said or done before he came to office) is easy to defend. They are the acts of a man of character. 

Once again, we can say "who knows" what the other candidate will do. Except that, once again, we do know. While he had his wits about him, Mr. Biden might have been a political moderate. Today his party is the party of the hard left, and he belongs to that party. 

His policies are the policies of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez—Marxism in all but name. Goodbye to a strong economy, honest judges, and the rule of law. Mr. Biden also embraces the cultural left that rules academia and the press. So much for religion, the family, patriotism, free speech.

Worse, he struggles to say an unkind word about the acts of arson, looting, and physical assaults committed by the loosely affiliated militant wing of his party. And when, finally, he condemns the violence (though not, by name: Black Lives Matter or Antifa), it is a transparently political act—corrupt and unprincipled—to fool decent, good-hearted traditional Democrats. When these folks see the truth about their party, he knows, they will bolt to the more principled candidate, Mr. Trump.

Character matters. Mr. Trump's character is better than Mr. Biden's.