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April 13, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Donald Trump drives me crazy. I can’t handle his bumbling way of speaking, his complete disinterest in many of the topics he should be familiar with as president of the United States, or the fact that he has the self-control of a teenage crack addict on Twitter.

Then there’s the fact that his administration seems to be a chaotic combination of rampant information leaks, infighting, and an obvious absence of any unifying vision. That’s why as I scroll my newsfeed, I often have to sit back and remind myself of something: Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t the president of the United States, and that fact alone makes things so much better than they could be.

Trump has already proved disappointing to social conservatives in several ways. His healthcare plan, which included the defunding of Planned Parenthood, tanked badly. He has yet to follow through and sign an executive order protecting religious liberty, and there is much speculation that the influence of his socially liberal daughter and son-in-law Ivanka and Jared Kushner has quite a bit to do with that.

And of course, the growing influence of the social liberals in his administration and family is the most worrisome, as Trump increasingly relies on them as he weathers firestorm after firestorm. Ivanka Trump, the president’s most recent hire, even sat down for a friendly meeting with Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards.

On the other hand, one of Trump’s first actions was to rescind the Mexico City Policy to ensure that no foreign aid money would be used committing or promoting abortions overseas. He has assured social conservatives that his commitment to defunding Planned Parenthood still stands, and even flanked them quite brilliantly by informing them that he’d fund them if they stopped performing abortions, something everybody knows they will not do, but Trump’s offer shines a light on how fundamental abortion is to Planned Parenthood.

Trump also revoked the draconian Obama guidelines on transgender bathrooms, which forced every public school in the nation to accept radical gender ideology as fact. The Trump Administration was heavily represented at the March for Life, with both Vice President Mike Pence and Kellyanne Conway speaking at the event and the president forcing media coverage by tweeting about it.

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Additionally, while many valid concerns have been raised concerning the late Antonin Scalia’s replacement on the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, including the very liberal church he attends and some troubling statements during his confirmation hearings, Gorsuch has still acquired the emphatic endorsements of rock-ribbed Christian intellectuals like Dr. Robert P. George. If George and others are correct in their assessment of Gorsuch, a 49-year-old anti-Roe justice may have the opportunity to direct Supreme Court decisions for the next half-century. And regardless of Gorsuch’s positions on an array of issues, all conservatives can agree that he is vastly preferable to Merrick Garland—and certainly better than any radical Hillary would have pushed onto the court. After all, Gorsuch’s record on religious liberty is impeccable.

So whenever I’m frustrated by the seeming incompetence of the Trump Administration, I remind myself where the United States of America would be if Hillary Rodham Clinton were the president.

I remind myself that Planned Parenthood’s funding would most likely increase, that any opportunity to repeal Roe v. Wade would vanish for a generation, and that court appointments utterly hostile to religious liberty would be filing into courtrooms across the nation. Hillary Clinton would continue Obama’s war on traditionalist Christians, and would certainly support the radical gender ideologues in their attempts to infiltrate the school system and indoctrinate America’s children.

But Hillary Clinton isn’t the president. Donald Trump wasn’t my first pick, or even in my top five. But even when he isn’t pursuing policies we had hoped he would, he isn’t Hillary Clinton—and that is always encouraging to think about. 

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.