VIDEO: Trump’s Virtues, by Tom Klingenstein

This is six weeks old, but it continues to percolate around the internet and we thought we’d give it its own post. Tom Klingenstein is the chairman of the Claremont Institute, which has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for quite some time and has been particularly demonstrative in leading the movement in the direction of a populist America First direction which dovetails perfectly with the revivalism we espouse here at the site.

Klingenstein is a fan of Donald Trump’s, and in this speech he gives a stirring recitation for why.

Essentially, he commends Trump for his masculinity, his courage, his fighting spirit and his patriotism, and Klingenstein also lauds Trump for the hornet’s nest he kicked up both with his entry into presidential politics and his refusal to allow the DC swamp to persist in its status quo. Of course, the Swamp responded with four years of dirty pool which lingers still, nearly two years beyond Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, and the recriminations and attacks won’t stop until Trump retreats from politics or drops dead.

Everyone knows this. Democrats like it. The rest of the country is put off by it; the contentious question is whether it’s a reason why Trump shouldn’t be the GOP nominee in 2024.

Klingenstein’s answer is yes, though he’s also been very complimentary of Ron DeSantis and is open to seeing more from the Florida governor.

We tend to agree with Klingenstein. But with the caveat that we don’t just need Donald Trump. We need DeSantis. And Tom Cotton. And Ted Cruz. And Rand Paul, and Steve Scalise, and Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson and Kari Lake and J.D. Vance and all of the rest of the populist, reformist, revivalist conservative Republicans who might give challenge not just to Team Biden but to the sclerotic and out-of-touch Washington GOP establishment.

We need a whole new Republican Party, and that’s going to take a large ensemble cast and a deep bench to provide rock-solid GOP nominees up and down the ballot for a generation or more. Which means it’s a much larger project than Trump in 2024.

None of which invalidates anything Klingenstein says. His speech is a must-see for everyone in the Republican Party – not just because it’s about Trump, but because it’s about what the GOP must become.