If you’re a Republican and you disagree with President Trump on some issue or other, I have no problem with it. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, although I would be only too happy to explain where you’ve gone wrong.

The folks who annoy me are those supercilious Republican soccer moms and their country club husbands who stick their noses in the air and sniff haughtily every time President Trump tweets or utters a snarky insult directed at his foes on Capitol Hill or the media. So far as I’m concerned, that’s like complaining about George Washington’s wig.

The thing to keep in mind is that if he weren’t what you consider vulgar and common, he never would have defeated Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t just that he said he opposed open borders and endless wars when he was campaigning, it was the way he said it. He said it like he meant it, which made him unique. Politicians never speak like human beings. They speak like robots, just the way Trump mimics them when, at one of his rallies, he goes into his pompous presidential routine.

The problem is we have grown so accustomed to presidents speaking in the arch and solemn tones of a funeral director that when we finally get one who talks the way the rest of us do, some of us seem to think there’s something wrong with him. No, there’s something wrong with us if we think phonies like Clinton, Obama and the Bushes, are the real deal.

For my part, I don’t think it would hurt if once in a while he even showed up without a jacket and tie.

I’m not comparing myself to the President, but when I showed up for my first day on the job after being signed to be the Executive Story Consultant (staff writer) on Dick Van Dyke’s series, “Diagnosis Murder,” I asked if there was a dress code. I was told there wasn’t, so long as I did the work. So, on the second day I showed up in tennis shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and sneakers, and I did the work. For what it’s worth, within a week, half the folks on the show were showing up in shorts and t-shirts.

So, all you Republicans who are withholding your admiration of President Trump, in spite of all his accomplishments, because he doesn’t fit your image of what a bank president or a church elder should be, should try to remember what a mess those other schmucks left for this guy to clean up.

---

While we’re on the subject of the first or second greatest president in American history, I’ve watched a lot of the footage of Trump addressing the troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day and one thing continues to stand out. It’s the rows of troops standing behind the Commander-in-Chief. Most of them are applauding him as he steps to the microphone, but a few of them not only aren’t applauding; they look like hostages who wished they were back fighting the Taliban instead of sitting down to have turkey with their president.

A number of them, I’m sad to say, were black soldiers. At a time when I’m hearing that there are polls showing that Trump has a miraculous 34% favorable rating among American blacks, seeing such disdain on the face of these soldiers is very off-putting.

I have written about this sort of thing in the past when those sitting directly behind the President at his rallies show total disdain for the man and his words. There’s no way not to notice those who are sitting just over his shoulders or above and behind him and it’s incumbent on his handlers to do a better job of vetting them whether it’s in Afghanistan or Alabama.

---

Anthony Romero, the head of the ACLU has condemned President Trump for trying to place Mexico’s drug cartels on the list of terrorist organizations, calling it “cruel.” I suppose it’s just one more attempt to make Trump sound like a racist. After all, if trying to protect America’s sovereignty by building a wall and to protect Americans by deporting MS-13 gangbangers constitutes racism, I suppose it’s inevitable that a pinhead would call him cruel for labeling drug lords terrorists.

But I would think that even the head of something as god-awful as the ACLU would recognize that when cartels have murdered more than 360,000 of their countrymen since 2000, that places them right up there with the Taliban, ISIS and al-Qaeda.

I wonder if Mr. Romero also regards it as cruel to have those Islamic groups designated as terrorists. Where the Communist-dominated ACLU is concerned, you’d be wise not to jump to any rational conclusions about what their answer would be.

---

I was surprised to hear that during his first three years in office, Barack Obama deported 1.1 million illegal aliens, whereas Donald Trump only deported 800,000. I was surprised until I realized the difference is that states and cities used to cooperate with federal agencies. But ever since they’ve gone rogue and begun waging war on ICE by declaring themselves sanctuaries, it’s become nearly impossible to evict the trespassers even after they’ve committed rape and murder.

---

Apparently, even in places where they’re not voting overwhelmingly for Socialists, the way they insist on doing in the U.S., my fellow Jews can’t seem to catch a break. In a recent poll, 11% of Italians admit to being anti-Semites.

It’s bad enough when underachieving Arabs and Muslims hate Jews, but it saddens me greatly when I hear it about people who have given the world Christopher Columbus, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Giacomo Puccini, spaghetti and Sophia Loren.

---

According to Brit Hume, the difference between Michael Bloomberg and his competitors, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, is that “He’s trying to buy the election with his own money and the others are trying to buy it with yours.”

---

Bob Hunt, who is never too far away, sent along a few memes that bear repeating:

Therapist: “Your wife says you never buy her flowers.” Patient: “To be honest with you, I never knew she sold flowers.”

Confuse your doctor by putting on rubber gloves at the same time he does.

The three hardest things to say are: I was wrong, I need help and Worcestershire sauce.

---

A couple of somewhat related jokes arrived almost simultaneously.

Although it came all the way from Australia, Dennis Stockton’s arrived first.

A married couple were seated at a cricket match when the wife spotted another couple in the stands who should have rented a room. They were all over each other. The wife nudged her husband and pointed to the couple. After watching for a few seconds, he laughed and said: “I don’t know whether to watch them or watch the game.”

The wife replied: “Better watch them. You already know how to play cricket.”

Then there’s this couple Russ Mothershed knows back in Knoxville, Tennessee.

It seems that in the morning, the wife asked her husband if he’d care for some bacon and eggs, but he declined, saying “Thanks for asking, but I’m not hungry right now. It’s probably this Viagra. It’s really taken the edge off my appetite.”

Later, it’s the same deal at lunch. She offers to make him soup and a melted cheese sandwich, but he’s still not hungry.

At dinner time, she tempts him with a juicy ribeye steak or perhaps a tasty stir fry. But still he declines, blaming it on the Viagra.

“Well,” she finally snaps, “would you mind letting me up? It so happens I’m starving!”

---

I’ll close with a meme I was sent a couple of times last week. It showed Hillary and Chelsea patiently holding out their dinner plates to be served. While Bill Clinton carves the bird, he assures his daughter “We didn’t kill the turkey, sweetheart. It committed suicide.”