We have spent the past month devoting a lot of attention to refuting the #NeverTrump movement’s arguments in favor of abstaining from participating in this year’s election because the Republican nominee is wholly unfit to serve as President of the United States.
I have talked often about how awful Hillary Clinton is and how her election would prove ruinous for America in so many ways. One of those disasters would show up prominently in the federal bureaucracy. Simply put, Hillary’s appointees would be turning the wheels of government, just as Barack Obama’s have been doing for the past seven-plus years.
And it does make a difference. Conservative groups have felt the wrath of Obama’s ideological war on administration critics, none more so than “Dissident Prof” Mary Grabar, who set up a conservative advocacy business in her basement and decided to apply to the IRS for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
Grabar writes in PJ Media, “In 2011, while working as a college English instructor and writing articles … about corruption in education, I set up a website called Dissident Prof with my own funds and by working in my basement. After one of my longtime readers sent an unsolicited $500 donation, I decided to apply for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
“Thus began the ordeal with the IRS.”
Grabar then described a nightmare that lasted over three years and included numerous run-ins with the IRS, including invasive questionnaires, excessive and burdensome paperwork and a hostile anti-citizen attitude from agents of our own government.
“We finally received approval in September 2014. They forced me to waste money and time when we should have been building on the momentum of our launch and fundraising. Other groups also lost opportunities, namely in 2012.
“That’s how this IRS, this administration, works.”
Grabar’s story corresponds nicely with that of many conservative groups that endured run-ins with the IRS under Obama’s rule and led to IRS Commissioner Lois Lerner’s admission that such organizations were given special scrutiny and ultimately to her resignation (though of course no charges were brought against her, so there’s no accountability).
This is one of many reasons why this year’s election matters. The federal government has become so large and intrusive that it even reaches one woman’s attempt to run a small computer-based business out of her basement. When you add agenda-driven Democrats to the mix, you’ve got all the right conditions for serious government overreach and corruption of the highest order.
This year, at the very least, government needs reform. In reality, it needs a complete overhaul. Grabar’s is just one example of the type of yoke being placed on citizens and job creators across the country who are being nailed to the floor by excessive regulations, snooping government agents and political leadership that looks on the People with an eye toward suspicion, not service.
This is certainly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when establishing the freest nation in history with a federal government that was designed to allow state and local governments to handle most if not all of the oversight. You know, having citizens look after their own communities where they live instead of a dominant central authority.
As far as #NeverTrump is concerned, are we really ready to say we’ll impose these kinds of shackles on Americans for another four years just because some Republicans and conservatives see Donald Trump as too loutish and “unfit” to serve in the Oval Office?
It’s an awful high price to pay for a little pride, #NeverTrumpers. When all of us are staring down at the working end of an order from the IRS, EPA or some other federal agency, we’re not thinking of what Trump said a couple weeks ago about the ethnic bias of the judge in his civil suit; we’re thinking we need to do something to bring our government back into line.
Donald Trump is an imperfect man and even more of an imperfect candidate. But he’s the nominee of the Republican Party, the choice of Republican primary voters and will certainly work to reform government, hopefully with the help of principled conservatives like Ted Cruz.
So instead of wasting your time pontificating about the latest off-the-wall utterance from The Donald and playing the “See, I told you so!” game on poll numbers, start focusing attention on the real problems in the country and how they might be fixed.
In essence, it’s time to start participating, people.
Something to think about the next time you press the send button on your next Tweet.
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