First of all, let me make it clear that I was not on the Trump Train from the very beginning. It was around December of last year that I decided that the one candidate I firmly aligned with was Marco Rubio, the junior U.S. senator from Florida. I was very hopeful that he would win the primary election, and convinced that he was one of the few Republican candidates who stood a chance in the general election.

After four of the final five Republican candidates—Dr. Ben Carson, Senator Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, and finally Governor John Kasich—dropped out of the race, I decided it was time to reassess my options. I had three, and I could cross off one of them immediately: voting for Hillary Clinton. This woman comes from the same party as Senator Bernie Sanders, a good and honest man who seemed to genuinely care about the future of America, yet she seems to represent everything that he did not, and fails to represent anything that he did.

With every campaign event I watched, it became increasingly clear to me that this woman does not care about America. I did not see a patriot, I did not see someone who understands that young people are the future of this great nation, and I did not see an honest woman. What I did see was a conniving career politician who saw every American as nothing more than a voter. I saw a liar who was drowning in a sea of scandal upon scandal that she and her husband had accumulated throughout the last three and a half decades.

This left me with two options. I could vote for Donald J. Trump, or I could vote for Gary Johnson. I wasn’t too fond of the latter candidate. Johnson has rested on his laurels ever since Trump became the Republican nominee, giving scarce talk about policies because he knows fiscal conservatives and social liberals will flock to his libertarian platform as a means of not having to vote for either major party.

All told, I came to the conclusion that I was going to vote for Trump in the general election. I did a great deal of research on all three candidates in question before making this decision. And in doing so, I found that the plus side of voting for Trump was not merely in bringing the Republican Party back to the White House, or in keeping Clinton (along with her husband and his potential interns, but that’s a story for another day) away from the White House.

As I followed every campaign event that Trump held, and read every policy that he proposed, I came to realize that there were policies of his that I agreed with. I just hadn’t looked into them because, prior to reassessing my options, I had scarcely considered voting for him.

I will say outright that I am not fond of the idea of building a wall on the United States’ southern border with Mexico, nor am I fond of banning all Muslim immigrants from entering our great nation. But I also do not believe that Trump will even attempt to build a wall if elected. The wall was his trademark proposal when he first announced his candidacy in June of 2015. How else is a total outsider supposed to gain attention for his presidential run, without saying something absolutely crazy that the media will flock to? I firmly believe that if it didn’t mean losing his initial group of supporters, Trump would have thrown out this proposal long ago.

However, I do agree with Trump’s general sentiment in this regard. I do not believe in open borders. I feel strongly that we need to crack down on immigration, and that is something that neither Clinton nor Johnson has proposed doing. Should we offer a simpler pathway to citizenship for those who are already here, working hard and pursuing an education? Of course. But we should also reform our immigration system so that only hardworking men and women who love our great nation are coming through, and so that they are doing so legally.

Another aspect of Trump that I admire is that he is extremely patriotic. Trump has made it clear that America has been good to him, and that he wants nothing more than to be good to America in return. (He has even said so directly in similar words. You will hear no such thing from his opponent, and quite frankly, she has made it clear that she feels as if the presidency is owed to her.)

Trump has exhibited this patriotism not just through words but through proposed policies. On September 16th, Trump released a series of stated proposals on Google that included his plan to “preserve Medicare for future generations” and to assure “no changes to promised Social Security benefits.” These are common-sense proposals that we aren’t even used to hearing from a Republican candidate. Up until now, the Republican Party has advocated privatizing Social Security and cutting Medicare.

Another way Trump has shown that he cares: he wants to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs. Ask any veteran how they feel about the VA and you won’t exactly find yourself with a pleasant answer. These are the people who have fought in battles for our great nation, some of whom have lost limbs doing so or have begun to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and therefore have limited job opportunities. These are the people that should mean the most to our great nation, and yet the current administration has treated them like dirt.

In contrast, Trump has promised to “ensure that every Veteran gets timely access to top-quality care through the VA or private Medicare providers if the VA cannot provide timely access.” His statement on Google also shows that he intends to “fix VA corruption and help Veterans find good paying jobs.” Meanwhile, Clinton and Johnson have had little to nothing to say on this pressing issue.

The policy of Trump’s that I most admire is one that affects not just the retired, the disabled, or the veterans, but every single working man and woman in our great nation. Trump has proposed a plan to “reform the tax code and trade policies to make it easier to hire, invest, build, grow, produce, and manufacture in America.” 

This includes cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, and cutting personal income taxes across the board. If you make less than $75,000 per year, you’d be paying 12 percent in taxes, rather than upwards of 15 percent. If you make up to $225,000 per year, you’d be paying 25 percent, rather than upwards of 28 percent. If you make more than that, you’d be paying 33 percent, rather than upwards of 39.6 percent.

This tax plan rests on two basic principles of economics. The first one is that spending drives the economy, and that people will spend if they have more money. Cutting taxes for the middle and lower classes stimulates the economy, because it keeps more money in the hands of hardworking, everyday Americans.

The other principle is that cutting taxes on the wealthy will stimulate the economy. If you cut taxes for businesses, large or small, and for the top five to ten percent of Americans, you will find that those at the top will hire employees from the middle and lower classes, stimulating the economy in favor of the common man.

Some will argue that cutting taxes on the wealthy will result in those at the top hogging all the extra cash for themselves, increasing the existing income gap in America. History shows that this belief is far from the truth.

Trump’s plan to provide tax relief for all working Americans would be the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan, who cut the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent, then to 38.5 percent, and finally to 28 percent. What we saw as a result was a period of high employment, low inflation, and overall economic prosperity. 

Although some might, I will not defend to the death every last action Trump has taken. I have noticed that he has made several mistakes throughout his campaign, some of which have been perceived as blatantly racist and sexist. These are not okay and if I knew the man personally, I would be begging him to look for attention in ways that more of the public would consider “presidential.”

But sometimes—and particularly in this election, where neither candidate is especially likable—we have to separate the man from the artist, so to speak. This year, I am choosing to vote for Donald J. Trump, because he stands for policies that I firmly believe in. He’s not the perfect candidate by any means, but in an election year where perfection is something only heaven can have, he comes closer than any other candidate to perfection.