From: Paleo Liberal [Email him]

James Kirkpatrick’s clearly written  article sums up why I initially favored Trump, but voted against him in the 2016 election.

I am a Wisconsin Democrat. I hate the Democratic Party, but I always vote for Democrats in Wisconsin because of Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus. Nationally I vote Democratic because the Romney-Ryan-Priebus-McConnell wing of the GOP has taken over.

I held my nose and voted for Mrs. Clinton because I believed Trump would hand over power to Priebus, Ryan and McConnell. So far it looks like he has done so.

Was it Milton Friedman who said we can have a welfare state or mass immigration, but not both? [VDARE.com note: Yes, it was (“It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state”)and he said it in an interview with Peter Brimelow in Forbes in 1997.]

I want a nice social safety net, with very little immigration. I lost a job last year when replaced by an H-1B Visa holder, and I have also seen how massive immigration destroys the safety net. The neo-cons want the opposite, making them even worse than the Democrats from my point of view.

If Trump were to work to preserve and enhance the safety net for American citizens, massively cut immigration, and put together an infrastructure package, he would win re-election in a landslide, and he would deserve it.

This would be the biggest change in politics since at least Reagan, possibly FDR. I would vote for him, and so would many of the other patriotic Democrats who are being abandoned by our party.

If Trump continues to be the water boy for Paul Ryan, he will lose in 2020, and drag the GOP down with him, just as you are warning. And I will feel obligated to vote for whatever corrupt Democrat my party nominates.

Keep up the good work, and remember many of us Democrats as still patriots, even if our party has forgotten us.