I have to start by confessing that I like Ted Cruz as a principled conservative. Trump is more like Winston Churchill's line about Russia: He's a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Everybody talks about Trump, but nobody knows what he believes.

Donald Trump is a vulgarian. Trump is a winner. Trump is not a real conservative. Trump is this, that, or the other thing. Everybody has an opinion.

Let's look at his actions so far. Forget his words.

The first big fact is that we're talking about Trump at all, among an exceptionally good field of GOP candidates – much better than Bob Dole and John McCain. Almost any of our runners is better than the Hillary-Bernie socialist throwback team. Hillary could be indicted soon – not saying she will be, but the evidence keeps piling up for culpable and extremely dangerous violations of national security in her State Department. The words "espionage," "massive bribery," and "sabotage in time of war" might leap into the headlines any day now.

The second major fact is that Trump keeps defeating the Party Line cartel. Trump's daily jiu-jitsu blows against the media are unprecedented in recent decades, ever since the P.C. police took over.

That is a big achievement by itself, because Trump's big mouth is making it possible for millions of Americans to speak their minds honestly for the first time in many years. Big, big news.

Yes, he sounds like a guy on the street in New York or Jersey, but our freedom of speech is worth it. If Cruz wasn't running, I would certainly vote for Trump, just because the United States needs a break from years of politically correct witch hunts, courtesy of Al Sharpton and the Weird Sisters of Macbeth, come back to haunt us. Obama would never have made it big in politics without years of leftist media indoctrination of the American public.

During the Obama years, constitutional government has been damaged immeasurably. It's been done legally, by "affirmative discrimination," destroying the Equal Protection Clause, and it's been done illegally, by Justice Roberts's bizarre switch-hitting with O'care, and by Obama's repeated and merciless violation of fundamental legal principles.

Obama now rules by fear and intimidation. That is why the GOP keeps betraying conservatives.

It isn't just a change in law. The atmosphere of persecution and intimidation has entered our souls. You and I have internalized it. This is why we desperately need a truth-teller, to show how flimsy the left's power really is.

Every other GOP candidate has had to kowtow to Obama's Marxist-Leninist style of governance. The nuclear surrender to Iran is just another betrayal by the most radical and destructive president in history. Our weak response to ISIS is another one. Even the Russians are shocked by Obamanism, and by its European cousin, Merkelism, which is leading Europe to voluntary suicide.

The West is in unprecedented trouble, and the Republican Party is too scared to even look over the parapet. Even the speaker of the House has grown a jihad-chic beard.

Well, Trump isn't scared. Whatever else he may be, he is not easily intimidated.

I just bumped into a long Trump commercial on YouTube, parading as a promo for his big Boeing 757. It's worth watching, if only because it is uncensored by anybody but Trump. Even in the GOP debates, we get only sound bites. This curious little promo is a glimpse into his business life, and it's interesting in that way. It's Trump filtered only by Trump, which is very different from Trump filtered by Media Cartel. If Trump is elected, this may be how he will try to govern.

Trump's Boeing is run along military lines, by people who could be working in the military. They are incredibly picky and time-sensitive. They are not exactly cowed by Trump, but they are constantly on the hop, and Trump keeps them that way. They could be on a military staff.

Donald Trump walks into his oversized jet and starts looking for tiny flaws in the woodwork. He looks for loose carpets and tiny scuffs. Is everything polished to perfection? When his top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce engines are overhauled, he insists on double-checking the serial numbers, to make sure they are his Rolls-Royce engines. He demands instant changes in the itinerary, which is not easy with a Boeing 757 with a tight maintenance schedule. The jet itself isn't new, but it's bigger – this is important – than any other private jet on the runway. His outside paintwork shouts to the world "THIS IS DONALD TRUMP'S BIG BOEING 757." It's a classic Cadillac, not a new Ferrari.

Everybody's first thought is that Trump is an egomaniac, and Trump likes to encourage that idea. His first rule is to provoke the hell out of you. His second rule, I believe, is to reach out and make personal contact. All politicians try to do that, but few succeed. All politicians smile maniacally and kiss babies. Trump doesn't bother with the big grin. He comes in with a frown, demanding spit and polish.

This is not the guy who busted through the media barrier with intemperate language, directed against perfectly good and respectable people, all excellent GOP candidates. Trump was grossly nasty and insulting to Dr. Carson; Carly Fiorina; and, to a lesser extent, Ted Cruz. In private, Trump looks like a different person, more disciplined and more personable.

(Obama is the opposite: a giant toothy smile in public and a terror in private.)

Trump's big plane works like The Art of the Deal: start with high demands, and negotiate a practical outcome. I don't think it's phony. It looks as though he learned this style in the military academy, where he was sent after screwing up badly as a teenager. That is not a bad thing in itself.

There are two kinds of narcissist. There are the ones who have been completely protected from the rough and tumble of life, like Obama. And then there are the ones who have had to polish their rough edges by getting one bloody nose after another. Trump has lost some and won some. He understands the difference.

Teddy Roosevelt was a pretty ferocious egoist, who suffered from asthma as a child and went on to fame as a Rough Rider in the Spanish-American War – mainly for the sheer glory of doing it. H.L. Mencken called him a demagogue, and that is surely true. T.R. was not Abraham Lincoln.

But against the hothouse flowers of the left I would vote for T.R. any day. I think we need a little more Teddy Roosevelt at a time of unprecedented weakness, feminization, and American self-hatred, sponsored by the radical left. The left and its media are pathogenic: they try obsessively to crush our self-confidence as a nation. Compulsive self-hatred is bad for individuals, and it's bad for nations. But talk to any American liberal about this country, and you'll hear the whine of national self-loathing.

Donald Trump would not start his presidency with an apology tour. He does not apologize for himself or his country. He is not a policy wonk, but he can probably tell the difference between sense and nonsense. Trump won't be mentally stuck in some fantasy ideology, like Obama and Hillary.

After eight years of Obama, we need a period of healing. I still like Ted Cruz, but Donald Trump is a lot better than the Other Party.