Patricia, Please Reconsider Trump, and Go Hear Him

My wife and I are members of the Heritage Foundation; as such, we received an invitation to a conference last week in Washington, D.C., where some of its policy experts spoke for a couple of days on various issues. Topics included national security, the current domestic cultural clash, international relations and America’s leadership role, energy policy, healthcare, and economic policy.
Also, President Trump and several from his administration addressed us. One who stood out, in particular, was Nikki Haley, our representative to the United Nations. She impressed both Patricia and me – she is an intelligent, no-nonsense, incisive individual, while also being congenial, and well-spoken.
Haley appreciates the United Nations because the representatives from the other nations have direct access to their respective heads of government. This enables her to effectively explain to the other nations the U.S. position in given matters, while at the same time bringing their views directly back to President Trump. She has found this to be particularly helpful in dealing with Russia and China on North Korea.
When Haley concluded her remarks, Patricia turned to me and said, “I’d like to see her as our next president.” Clearly, others had the same reaction, as during the Q&A afterward, she was asked if she would consider it.
Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, also spoke. While he is accused by the media of undoing Barack Obama’s work, he doesn’t see it that way — explaining that everybody wants a clean environment, both Democrats and Republicans. He is undoing regulations which don’t produce results. He explained that the reason he reversed Obama’s regulations on using coal for electrical generation was because the benefits were miniscule while the cost was enormous.
At the end of the conference, Trump recapped his overall objective, to return America to our traditional ways of doing things — ways which made us the most prosperous nation on earth. He explained that he is achieving this by reducing regulations, reducing the size of government, restoring the dignity of work over handouts, reducing taxes, restoring pride in America’s heritage, and restoring fidelity to the Constitution by appointing judges who interpret it as written. 
To achieve peace through strength, he is spending to rebuild the military. He’s working to cut taxes on the average family by $4,000 per year. He observed that these efforts are already paying dividends, with the market up over $1 trillion.
This was an especially busy stretch for Patricia and me, and I had not planned to go to this particular conference, but I had been prompted several times by our regional representative to attend. What changed my mind was the thought that Patricia is negative toward Trump, whereas I am more forgiving of his behavior.  I thought that, perhaps, if she spent some time among his staff, she might develop a different perspective.
As for how I can be more patient with him than Patricia, I can’t say, for example, that he is wrong to tell the head of North Korea that his threats will bring down ‘fire and fury’ on his nation.  I know that the German chancellor and others excoriated him for saying that; but, in my mind, his manner of speech may be the only way to reach Kim Jong-un. We and the world have been ineffective over the decades in addressing North Korea’s growing nuclear threat. Perhaps Trump can eliminate this menace; we’ll see.
Well, did I achieve my objective? Did Patricia change her view of Trump? No, not really. But she did say Trump has assembled a focused, bright, enthusiastic team, which is putting our country back on the path which created this great nation which we love so dearly.