Editorial: How PolitiChicks Has Survived ElectionGeddon 2016 (So Far)

Over a year ago I almost lost one of my best friends over Donald Trump.  We were discussing his growing popularity, something she was terrified of, and I was trying to convince her that she had nothing to worry about.  “Wait until they hear his Howard Stern interviews,” I told her.  “And I’ve seen every episode of ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘Celebrity Apprentice’.  He’s fun to watch but certainly not anyone to take seriously.” She disagreed.  Very strongly.  She insisted that Trump was going to become the Republican nominee and that we needed to warn the world.  I thought she was being over-dramatic and tried to assure her that Donald Trump would ultimately be responsible for his own undoing.  It took almost two hours of mostly calm, respectful, yet passionate discussion (and perhaps a few cocktails) for us to get back on track.  Several months later I had to apologize to her after everything she predicted came true. As she had predicted, Donald Trump steamrolled over both our personal favorite candidates (Rubio for her, Cruz for me), and here we are today.

Morgan Brittany and I actually “opened” for Donald Trump at an event in Nashville last year; we were impressed with the way he spoke off the cuff and we found him as charming as any other celebrity we’ve met. I’ve personally never considered myself a #NeverTrump but I have many good friends who are.  I’ve been more of a strong #NeverHillary than a sycophantic Donald Trump supporter.  Other than Jesus, I prefer not to blindly follow anyone–especially a politician–no matter how much I agree with him (or her).  After all, anyone vying to be the Top Banana Politician in America is, in itself, something to be leery of these days.

As the owners of PolitiChicks, Morgan Brittany and I could have easily turned our website into a DrudgeBreitbartRedState-type organization, only promoting our favorites.  Instead we made the conscious decision not to elevate any one candidate during the GOP primaries.  Some of our contributors were not happy about this, including one person who accused us of “hating Trump” for not publishing all her pro-Trump videos.  The truth is after I was named a National Co-Chair for Women for Cruz, as Editor I could have queued up a constant stream of pro-Cruz articles and videos–but I didn’t. Morgan and I wanted to offer our PolitiChicks readers a truly balanced, diverse amount of articles and commentary about all the GOP candidates.  We also chose to focus the majority of articles on the evil that is today’s Democrat Party, the history of socialism, what “conservatism” is all about, and of course the vast amount of baggage associated with Hillary Clinton.   

What we learned is that you can’t make everyone happy, and sometimes you just have to shrug.

As for me, after seeing Donald Trump’s poor performance in the first debate I had very little confidence that he could overcome the leaked recording with Billy Bush.  Very soon after the leak, the Establishment Republicans who had previously been standing by Trump through thick and thin were now acting like the rats they are, abandoning the entire presidential race.  Suddenly they were aware that Donald Trump has, as Ann Coulter says, a “potty mouth”.  Did these Politicians (with a capital P) somehow not know about the very public recordings of Donald Trump on the Howard Stern Show, or any random gossip articles about him throughout the 80s and 90s?  Why did these Politicians “suddenly” determine that this secret recording was the one thing worse than anything/everything else they had previously accepted?

Unlike the Democrat Party, the Right rarely stand by anyone who’s been deemed Wrong by the media.  For years I’ve watched the way so many on our side completely abandon anyone who the Leftist media has declared “immoral”, “intolerant”, “unredeemable”, or a “trouble maker” (see Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Senator Ted Cruz…).   They’re fine with the skeezy, sleazy Bill Clintons and Anthony Weiners of the Democrat Party, but if a Republican steps out of any type of “morality” line suddenly a guy like Chris Matthews turn into the Pope.

In this case, Establishment Republican Politicians already had access to exactly who Trump is (not was, but is) and yet they chose to ignore it–but now that he’s literally the last man standing for president, these politicians are suddenly shocked?

I’m not justifying any man who talks in such a vulgar way about women, but unfortunately in the real world it happens.  The inconvenient truth is if all conversations were secretly recorded, we would probably be mortified to learn things we didn’t know about a lot of people.  I recently mentioned this to a very well-known politician who seemed incensed that I would dare suggest such a thing, telling me he would “never talk that way about any woman.”  When I scoffed, he said, “We as politicians can’t do that.  We have to live up to a higher standard.”  (Ironically, this particular politician really shouldn’t be talking.  At all.  Trust me.) 

So after surviving such a contentious, divisive election cycle, I was very trepiditious about Sunday night’s debate.  It seemed impossible that Donald Trump could overcome the approaching political hurricane, and after the last debate all I could hope for was that he had practiced.

After watching, I was extremely impressed.  All along I had been wanting him to do and say something substantial–offer viable plans, solutions to problems, succinctly explain how he will handle everything from Obamacare to national security, and he did.  He didn’t speak in soundbites; he didn’t just yell ‘It’ll be great’ and ‘Believe me, you’ll love it” (whatever “it” is).  Instead, Donald Trump formed complete sentences and very satisfyingly attacked one of the most corrupt Politicians in American history.  He said straight to Hillary Clinton’s face what no other politician has dared say, and what so many of us have wanted to tell her for decades.  And it was fun watching the seething anger just under the surface of Hillary’s smiling face.

Yep, it may be too late.  Hillary has that huge political machine behind her while we’ve got those creepy Establishment rats who continue to jump off the ship they built.

I’m writing all of this as someone who has never been a cheerleader for Donald Trump. I’m still not. However if he’s willing and able to fight Hillary Clinton with all his might, he absolutely has my vote and if he does as well as he did in the last debate I won’t even hold my nose doing so.  And if by some miracle Trump becomes President, I will watch him like a hawk and hold him accountable for his actions and/or inaction, as all of us at PolitiChicks try to do on a daily basis.