@hazem91,

Actually, I didn't vote for Trump.

I'm a Canadian, although I've lived in the US for 27 years. As I'm not an American citizen, I do not, appropriately, have the right to vote. I do, however, have a right to try to influence American voters ... which I do with happy abandon.

I'm 50 years old. The last US election was, for me, torture. In no prior election, in any country, was I so conflicted about who to support. I could not believe that the vaunted American electoral system had yielded the two choices it did. I know countless Americans (Republicans, Democrats and Independents) who felt the same way. I could not decide who was the lesser of two evils. In the end, about 24 hours before the polls closed, I reluctantly concluded that if I could vote, I would vote for Trump.

I have lived in, or traveled to, 57 countries, both as a civilian and as a soldier. I have seen first hand what happens when ideologues, in whatever form, obtain the reins of power. Look at modern-day Venezuela. Ideology is not so much about political policies as it is about a "manner of thinking."

As such, it is immune to reason. Common sense and easily observable facts become victim to utopian dream-schemes. Natural morality falls prey to the manufactured mores of those arguing that the "ends justify the means." Much of the genocidal lunacy of the 20th Century, whether Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia or the host of communist copycat regimes, was the result of the embrace of such utopian fantasies.

Trump, for all his braggadocio and bombast, is not an ideologue. If anything, he seems to believe in nothing more than his own grandiosity. American Presidents are elected every four years and can only be elected twice. The coterie of bureaucrats they appoint hang around for decades.

The traditionally center-left Democratic Party (for non-Americans, America only has two viable political parties, the center-left Democrats and the center-right Republicans) has been hijacked by its Far Left elements, with mainstream Democrats being marginalized in their power and influence. These elements, I would argue, have become ideologically obsessed. Reason, rationale and logic have become dirty words. Providing evidence for an assertion is no longer required and the Truth of anything is subjective, and therefore non-existent.

"Rape Culture" advocates, for example, assert that 40% of women on US university campuses are raped or sexually assaulted during the 4 years of their undergraduate degrees. This is EIGHT TIMES THE NUMBER of German women raped by the invading Soviet forces at the end of World War II, what historians consider the worst "mass rape" in history.

Does this strike you as being plausible? 800% more rapes than a revenging Red Army amidst the calamity and destruction of a World War ... at Harvard?

To manufacture such self-evident stupidity, rape culture advocates simply changed the meaning of the word "rape" so as to include any woman who had had sex while intoxicated, as intoxication supposedly invalidates a woman's ability to "give consent."

Having sex while drunk IS NOT what any thinking person would classify as "rape," or "sexual assault" for that matter. Indeed, a great many people reading this article were undoubtedly "conceived under the influence." And yet, many college campuses, and government departments, are now staffed with ideologues claiming that your father raped your mother, even though it was her who poured the wine and turned down the lights. Get real.

This is a refutation of the Enlightenment ideals, which were purchased at great cost, and which I am unwilling to see perish without a fight. The idea that we determine what's true, and what's not, by examining and weighing observable and measurable evidence. Empiricism. And that, because the interpretation of such evidence can lead to different conclusions, we subject all such conclusions to peer review.

We don't just make things up.

US Presidents are not dictators. The American Constitution, perhaps the most ingenious governance document ever devised, deliberately built in checks and balances. No man was ever to be allowed to become too powerful.

My assessment was that the damage that Trump could do paled by comparison to the alternative.

Here is a link to a poem/article I wrote entitled, "The Day That Trump Was Sworn" (poem) ... Is He Dividing The Nation or Are We?." It was an appeal to people to stop being so hyperbolic and hateful towards one another because of their politics. To take a chill pill and put things in perspective. Of all my low-paying posts ... it was amongst the lowest.

Voices of moderation ... are now the extreme.

(You'll need to magnify as the text is small. For those of you who don't know how to magnify: Click the three horizontal bars on the top right of your screen. Zoom.)

https://steemit.com/poetry/@quillfire/the-day-that-trump-was-sworn-poem-is-he-dividing-the-nation-or-are-we

Quill