Posted on 09/11/2018 2:50:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Most voters say President Donald Trump is not a good role model for children, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
"While 90 percent of voters say the president should be a good role model for kids, only 29 percent say he is while 67 percent say he is not." -- U.S. News Jan. 26, 2018
As someone who has devoted his life to writing and speaking about moral issues and the importance of character, I am regularly criticized for supporting President Trump. Democrats and Republican opponents of the president consider conservatives who support the president to be, at best, inconsistent with conservative values such as tempered speech, commitment to truth, support for European allies and free trade. And those of us who are religious conservatives and support the president are deemed hypocrites for supporting a man who has presumably committed adultery on more than a few occasions and said gross things about women in a private conversation.
Perhaps the most common objection to supporting the president is this: "He is a terrible role model for children."
So, let me address this objection.
As a father and grandfather, I would like every adult man (and woman -- but I'll confine my comments to men) to be a model for younger men. I consider it to be a moral obligation of every man to aspire to be a model for younger men. Perhaps the most meaningful compliment I receive is when a man calls my radio show or writes an email and tells me that he sees me as a "father figure." I always respond how meaningful that statement is to me and always add that this is precisely what every man should aspire to be.
My suspicion is that this was much more common an aspiration among men generations ago. It is one of the reasons adult men and women seek to be called by their first names rather than "Mr." (or, in the case of women, "Miss" or "Mrs."). Many members of the baby-boom generation have not wanted to grow up: They dress, talk and act like teenagers, and many delay engaging in one of the most important statements of maturity -- getting married -- as long as possible. More men than ever never get married. In short, they want to see themselves as peers of young people, not father figures.
So then, if I emphatically support the idea that adult men should seek to be models for younger men, how could I support a president who apparently isn't?
The answer should be so obvious I am disappointed that all conservatives do not readily understand it. The role of the president of the United States is first and foremost to be a good president. If he (or she) is a personal role model, that is a lovely bonus -- but it is only a bonus. When I was young, I never regarded the president of the United States as a personal role model. That task fell on my father, my grandfather, my older brother, my uncles, my parents' friends, my teachers, my rabbis and other older males.
President Jimmy Carter was known to be a faithful and devoted husband, and was not known for making false statements (only libelous ones after leaving office -- like calling Israel an "apartheid" state). So what? Do conservative never-Trumpers think Jimmy Carter's personal integrity mattered more, or his presidential decisions?
And, by the way, I'll take Donald Trump's character over that of Hillary Clinton. I believe she sold her country's interests for personal gain. That she never committed adultery probably mattered to her husband and daughter, but not to me in determining who should be president of the United States.
What a president does as president is immeasurably more important than his personal sins. What he does personally affects his family. What he does as president affects the lives of 328 million Americans and, for that matter, the whole world.
Donald Trump is responsible for the lowest unemployment in generations, for appointing two conservative Supreme Court justices, for boosting defense spending, for confronting the illegal-immigrant crisis, for cutting government regulations, for strongly supporting Israel, for lowering taxes, for confronting Western European countries over their morally indefensible low defense spending and so much more that anyone who calls himself conservative should celebrate. Those achievements -- not to mention preventing a left-wing, i.e. Democratic Party, victory in 2016 -- are what should matter to every conservative and every American frightened by what the left is doing to the country, to its universities, high schools, families, gender relations and race relations, and everything else it touches.
If your house were on fire, would you be more concerned with the character of the firefighters sent to extinguish the fire or their firefighting ability?
The generation that grew up under one of the most decent presidential moral models -- Dwight Eisenhower -- turned out to be the most narcissistic, morally confused and unpatriotic generation in modern American history. So much for presidents as models for children.
Truck’s children turned out pretty good.
That is rationalization
So my not considering Bill Clinton as a role model because he has many of the same character flaws as Trump means I'm bigoted against him as well?
I didn’t vote for a guy who would use flowery words and blow smoke up my a$$ while sticking a knife in my back.
I think we’ve all had enough of those professional politicians.
Did they ask this about Bill Clinton the rapist
Or Johnny Wadd LBJ who schtupped most of his closest friends wives allegedly with his legendary oversized appendage and bought votes by the precientload
Or JFK who kept a stable of barely legal interns and other office meat around to screw at will and even organize gangbangs of the most nubile for his pals including newsmen while he watched and directed the train all hopped up on all sorts of hormones and fun drugs
But Trump with just simple run of the mill womanizing of very hot women and who apparently raised his kids well gets pilloried
I agree on the bragging
However men do like to cherish the memories of the fine women they have known intimately I hate to break it to you
I’m old now I sure as hell remember and I’m so grateful for it
It’s why I’m never bitter about ex loves or affairs ...I’m glad I knew them..they were so lovely in hindsight
Married I avoided for the most part....but married women are sometimes available ...it’s exciting to please an unhappy married woman
I think some guys like that thrill
Or a neglected married woman will act like she needs you ..and she does actually but it’s messy no question
And Trump sure went there
I generally had my limits there
Women will always win the who can cheat the easiest competition
King David was a rotter until he understood his role in life. Does that remind you of anyone?
I'd never want my kids to go through life trying to conform to anyone else's life. They must work with their own talents, as he has with his manifest gifts, even the ones like good looks, success and wealth that caused him and so many women to participate together in bad behavior, for which he is now having to pay a price. So if not a role model in every area, he can be an object lesson for kids in that no matter how good you are at some things, all that glitters isn't gold and can come back to bite you.
When a powerful influencer affects our kids, parents must teach their kids to differentiate themselves and be their own person answerable to their Lord, not other people. We had an in-law who broke up our family because she didn't like the (totally non-criminal) offenses of her husband's siblings. Rather than teach her kids at home what values she and her husband wanted, she set about burning everyone else's relationships to the ground, deeply distressing her husband's parents. You guessed it: liberal, elementary school teacher, mainstream Sunday School director.
I remember one of his campaign videos so vividly. He said, "I didn't want to have to run for president. I had a beautiful life; I built a beautiful company. But when I saw what was happening to our country, I had to do it. I had to do it."
Thank God my husband and I raised our children with our values. But I was merely answering the question if Turmp was a bad role model. By my standards he is.
If your nephew has a wealthy father with a thriving business he expects to take over, exceptional athetic ability and good looks, high testosterone, success and wealth in the middle of a postwar economic boom and a cultural marxist Sexual Revolution, he will inevitably face all the same temptations Trump has faced.
And he could do a lot worse than emulate a man who fought his way back onto his feet time and time again after each critical failure in the midst of his great successes. Because no one is supposed to go through this life as anyone but himself; all fall short of the glory of God.
I am generally a bit cynical about politicians, which perhaps comes from meeting too many of them. However, I have also known a lot of very wealthy people. I know that Trump didn't become president to get richer, and also not to get access to interns like Hillary's husband since billionaires have that option already. When he said that he "had to do it", I believed it was patriotism. The mystery was what he wanted to accomplish, and I imagine a lot of people are surprised to find that his campaign promises were all true.
Especially if it's the ones whose husbands pay them no attention. The husband won't even notice.
But if a man cheats whose wife pays him no attention, she will still notice, and react like he has graffitied the cathedral. :-)
Judgment is mine, saith the Lord.
Agreed! But even his goals were no mystery; he had been saying the same things about other countries taking advantage of us economically since the 1980s.
Donald Trump 1980 Interview with Brokaw, age 33
Trump on Oprah discussing foreign trade in 1988
Donald Trump Testimony before Congress on Economic Recovery, 1991
have to agree with Prager... and very true, Carter is a highly moral being, rare these days, but not a great leader.
Graffitified....now that’s a word
In my opinion, someone who basically made himself super-famous and GOT ELECTED PRESIDENT by sheer force of will is a good role model. Like him or hate him he’s been tremendously successful.
Is a President that got his willy sucked in the oval office by a barely legal intern a good role model?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.