I’ll Never Vote for Trump Again. He Still Got These Issues Right

I voted for President Donald Trump in 2020. But I would have preferred any other candidate in the 2024 Republican primary. And I didn’t vote for Trump in the 2024 election.

I’ll never forgive Trump for Jan. 6, 2021. Or for his lies about the 2020 election. Or asking the Georgia secretary of state to find 17,000 votes. Or calling me a criminal. Or being liable for sexual assault.

Or his unwillingness to stand up for Vice President Mike Pence. Or that he turned his back on the police officers who defended the Capitol. Or his equivocation about the immorality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Or his pay-to-play cryptocurrency scams.

However, politics isn’t always black and white.

Trump still goes to bat for traditional conservatives

Yes, much of Trump’s first five months back in office has been a parade of horribles (pardons of petty criminals, attacks on our judges, the unlawful deportation of many American residents, tariff pandemonium, interference with private markets).

But it’s also worth acknowledging that Trump still has an uncanny ability to deliver wins on items of importance to traditional conservatives.

Here are a few big ones:

Trump made the U.S.-Mexico border secure

On June 11, the front page of this newspaper boldly printed: “For the first time in decades … the border is silent.”

One year ago, in May 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered 117,905 illegal border crossers. Last month, in May 2025, the same patrol officers had only 8,725 encounters with illegal aliens — down 93%.

Also, fewer drugs are entering the country. Fentanyl seizures are down 54% from last year. Heroin is now more difficult to get into the hands of Americans.

We Arizonans spent all of 2022 and 2023 complaining about the border. That already feels like a distant memory.

Now “border news” is about building additional Arizona segments of the border wall. Trump doesn’t mince words about Jewish hate

I don’t like the term anti-Semitism. It’s too sterile. It allows a level of detachment from what’s really going on in the United States: Jewish hate.

In 2023, there were 291 hate crimes against Jews in the United States for every 1 million Jews. The second most targeted group — LGBTQ+ people — came in way lower, at 111 hate crimes for every 1 million LGBTQ+ people.

Other groups, many of whom are common targets in bigoted hate, came in significantly lower: Muslims, 79. Black people, 64. Asian people, 17. Hispanic people, 13.

In May, homegrown terrorist Elias Rodriguez is accused of shooting and killing a young couple that worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Rodriguez told police officers that he performed his executions “for Palestine, I did [it] for Gaza.”

At the beginning of June, Mohamed Sabry Soliman threw Molotov cocktails (fire bombs) at a group of Jews in Boulder, Colorado. Soliman said he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”

Past leaders have minced words about Jewish hate. Not President Trump.

Antisemitism debate is now in the mainstream

Even while he has, ironically, kept close company with many notorious Jew-haters and has turned a blind eye to rising Jewish hate among right-wing populists, he has also forced the topic of Jewish hate into the mainstream, and he has prompted introspection where previously there was denial.

Consider what The New York Times editorial board wrote on June 14:

“Progressives reject many other forms of hate even as some tolerate antisemitism. College campuses, where Jewish students can face social ostracization, have become the clearest example …

“Consider the double standard that leads to a fixation on Israel’s human rights record and little campus activism about the records of China, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela or almost any other country.

“Consider how often left-leaning groups suggest that the world’s one Jewish state should not exist and express admiration for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — Iran-backed terrorist groups that brag about murdering.”

These are words that probably aren’t written but for President Trump.

Trump pushed Europe to step up on defense

Traditional conservatives believe in a strong America that protects American interests abroad and promotes free people, free thinking and free markets.

But we don’t have to do it all alone.

It’s high time that Europe contributes more to its own defense and the defense freedom throughout the world.

And they’re now starting to do that. Most NATO countries recently announced that they would increase military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP.

That’s a good thing if it happens. And it likely wouldn’t have happened without President Trump.

Trump wants to cut taxes

The Republican Party is no longer the party of wealthy business executives.

Households earning more than $100,000 voted for Kamala Harris over Trump, 51–47%. Those over $200,000 favored Harris 52–46%. And more millionaires and billionaires favored Harris.

Despite that, President Trump continues to govern as a tax cutter. His “One Big Beautiful Bill” extends his massive 2017 individual income tax cuts. It proposes to increase the estate tax exemption, and it adds a number of new tax credits and breaks.

Yes, this will likely continue Trump’s record of massively adding to the national debt (another professed conservative interest). And yes, the “Big Beautiful Bill” could cut some important government services that might, ironically, disproportionately affect MAGA voters.

But in the eyes of many traditional conservatives, there’s no such thing as a bad tax cut.

Trump focused debate on intellectual diversity

Trump has also prompted long-overdue recognition that intellectual diversity doesn’t exist at many universities.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, “[b]etween 30 and 40 percent of Americans identify as conservative, but [as of 2014] conservatives make up only one of every 10 professors in academia, and even fewer in the humanities and most social-science departments. … Of the money donated by Yale faculty to political candidates in 2023, for example, 98 percent went to Democrats.”

Duke University’s 2024 survey of its faculty found that, “23.2% … identified as ‘very liberal,’ 38.53% identified as ‘somewhat liberal,’ 24.48% identified as moderates or centrists, 9.92% identified as ‘somewhat conservative’ and 3.87% identified as ‘very conservative.’”

Harvard surveyed its faculty in 2022 and found that “[m]ore than 80 percent … characterized their political leanings as ‘liberal’ or ‘very liberal’ … Only 1 percent of respondents stated they are ‘conservative,’ and no respondents identified as ‘very conservative.’”

Trump has attempted to address this problem through a series of ham-fisted, likely unlawful threats, violations of the First Amendment and breaches of contract.

But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong that there’s an underlying problem. And people are now looking at it seriously, likely in part because Trump has elevated the issues.

Does that make Trump worth it? Not in my book

Does all of this make the Trump presidency worth it?

Not in my book.

We are flirting with levels of chaos, corruption, unchecked executive power and lawlessness that this country has not seen in a long time, and it could do real damage to American values.

But if I were to say that President Trump hasn’t delivered any wins for traditional conservatives, then I’d be denying reality.

And that would make me just like Trump following the November 2020 election — something I never want to be.