Unsurprisingly to those who follow this space, I plan to vote for Donald Trump in November. Not just that. This week, I'm co-hosting a fundraiser for him.
So, how precisely did a conservative who didn't vote for president in 2016 and didn't support Donald Trump during the Republican primaries become a Trump donor? The answer is obvious: Donald Trump's opponent is Joe Biden. And Joe Biden is the worst president of my lifetime.
Because Donald Trump is the nominee against Joe Biden, I won't just vote for him. I'll go into my own pocket to support him. Which is what I'm doing.
My calculus is simple: America was better off under Donald Trump than it is in under Joe Biden.
At home, America was safer and more prosperous. When Donald Trump was president, we did not have an open border. We were not flooding our country with at least 7 million illegal immigrants, overwhelming our cities, leaving our country wide open to the plague of Chinese- and Mexican drug cartel-backed fentanyl poisoning.
When Donald Trump was president, we did not have a president who tried to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to force 80 million Americans to take a vaccine or lose their jobs -- and my company didn't have to sue to stop it.
When Donald Trump was president, we did not have 40-year highs in inflation and decreasing real wages.
When Donald Trump was president, we did not have a federal attempt to teach children that boys can be girls and vice versa, or to force taxpayers to subsidize abortion, or to target religious institutions for the great crime of upholding traditional Judeo-Christian values.
When Donald Trump was president, we did not have an administration hell-bent on stymying the police in their attempts to fight crime, or an administration that values diversity and inclusion and wokeness above military readiness, all in the name of "equity."
When Donald Trump was president, we did not have American businesses preparing to have their incomes robbed from them in the name of the biggest spending programs in American history.
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When Donald Trump was president, we did not have unconstitutional attempts to simply wipe away student loan debt, or a Department of Justice dedicated to the targeting of political opposition.
When Donald Trump was president, the world was not on fire.
When Donald Trump was president, we did not cut and run in the face of 8th-century barbarians in Afghanistan, who blew up 13 American soldiers, hunted down our allies, and reestablished al-Qaida bases.
When Donald Trump was president, peace was breaking out in the Middle East between Arab nations and Israel, and Iran was in a box. We certainly didn't have a multi-front hot war between Iranian proxies and American allies -- or American soldiers directly -- and we weren't trying to pay billions in bribes to the Iranian mullahs.
When Donald Trump was president, we didn't have war in Ukraine.
When Donald Trump was president, we didn't have China threatening imminent blockade of Taiwan.
When Donald Trump was president, America was better off.
I'll always be honest with you about Donald Trump. He wasn't my first choice in the primaries; he's a deeply flawed man. I've been open in my criticisms of Trump on both character and policy. And I'm not going to stop criticizing Donald Trump when I disagree with him. I always have, and I always will. That's my job, and the job of all Americans.
But Donald Trump is the man standing between America and a second Joe Biden term. And a second Joe Biden term means America in dire, dire trouble.
It's that simple.
It's Trump or Biden.
Unlike in 2016, we don't have to guess at what a Trump administration will be. And we don't have to guess what a Biden administration will be either. We know. America cannot afford another Joe Biden term.
Or, perhaps more realistically, a Kamala Harris term.
Joe Biden is here to finish the job that Barack Obama started, of fundamentally transforming America into the image of the left. That cannot happen. That's why I'm not just giving Donald Trump my vote, I'm giving him my money. Because this election matters. And Donald Trump must be the next president of the United States.
Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, the host of "The Ben Shapiro Show." He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author; his latest book is "The Authoritarian Moment: How The Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent."
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