I’m not going to vote for Donald Trump, and I don’t happen to know anyone who is.

I think he’s run a presidential campaign that has been reprehensible on a number of levels. I think his lead in the Republican race is a lot more vulnerable than conventional wisdom suggests.

And I think his decision to skip Thursday night’s Republican debate is a foolish and needless gamble that may yet hurt him.

But for all that, let me break every taboo in polite society and offer some selective praise for Donald Trump and his presidential campaign. Yes, he’s a short-fingered vulgarian and, yes, he’s appealed to the lowest factors in American politics.

But he has also introduced five issues into mainstream political debate that weren’t there before, that should have been there, and which, thanks only to him, are there now.

1. Offshoring

Trump is the first serious presidential candidate in a generation to understand that a “free trade” agreement with overseas slave labor is a pact with the devil. He wants to slap tariffs on imports from China and possibly elsewhere. He may be right. He is certainly right to raise the issues involved, and he is the only major candidate who does.

Read:Donald Trump is right, says one brave economist

Contrary to what conventional wisdom likes to pretend, the arguments over “free trade” and protectionism are not simple. There are strong points on both sides. Without protection there would never been a U.S. Steel X, +4.87% or a Boeing BA, -3.81% .

Everyone else still pretends that our “free trade” agreements with developing countries are a one-way bet. They aren’t. Millions of American workers have been thrown out of work. And employers have used those agreements to undo a century’s labor and environmental laws. Once again, it’s OK to employ children in factories, work people till they die and dump all the toxic waste in the river — so long as you do it in poor countries overseas. How can civilized employers compete against that? They can’t. But until this campaign, everyone was pretending they could.

2. Scab labor

Yes, Donald Trump’s campaign against illegal immigration has pandered to terrible xenophobia. But there’s more involved. Illegal immigration has been cynically used by many wealthy Americans to bring in low-wage “scab” labor and drive down the wages of lower-skilled American workers. You think Mitt Romney had Guatemalans mowing his lawn in Massachusetts as a cultural-outreach program? They worked cheap. (As people probably say in the country clubs: “If you can’t send the job to the Third World, bring the Third World to the job!”) I am a huge supporter of immigration — my parents were immigrants — but our current policies are insane and upside down. We have allowed the unregulated and unsafe importation of low-wage labor — while blocking safe, regulated and skilled immigration. And anyone who’s said peep has been called a racist. Trump has put this issue on the map. Quite right too.

3. Corruption

One of the high points of the entire campaign came during the first Republican debate, last August, when Trump was challenged for past contributions he’d made to the Clinton Foundation. He didn’t apologize. Instead he blew open the whole corrupt nature of American politics. Rich people like me give money to politicians, he said, in order to buy favors. We want our calls returned. We want our interests heard. We want preferential access. We want politicians to come to our daughters’ weddings. And we get it. It’s just business.

Donald Trump backs out of Republican debate

We all know that we have the best political system money can buy, but it’s a huge leap forward to have an oligarch actually admit it on national TV during a presidential debate. Ever since the farcical Citizens United Supreme Court ruling turned the U.S.A. into the U.$.A., we’ve been subjected to endless lies, propaganda and BS about how “campaign finance” is just “free speech.” We owe Trump a vote of thanks for admitting and exposing the truth.

4. Capitalism

Donald Trump’s businesses have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection four times. His stockholders got hosed. His lenders and bondholders got hosed. And he walked away with billions. But when this was pointed out to him — by me, among many others — he didn’t try to lie or obfuscate. He just boasted that he’d gamed the system and used the laws to his advantage. Immoral? This was simply smart business, he said.

And he’s right.

We do not have a kind, caring, moral, “kumbaya” economic system in America. And it’s time we stopped pretending we do. We have a system based on reciprocal theft, mugging, cynicism and greed. We reward the worst behavior, and we penalize the best. And at last we have a Republican presidential candidate who admits it. Kudos.

5. Spin

The best thing about Donald Trump’s campaign has simply been the way he has broken all the boring and stifling rules of modern politics. No, he doesn’t listen to consultants. No, he doesn’t follow focus groups. No, he isn’t mealy-mouthed. No, he doesn’t tailor each message to a micro group. No, he doesn’t “walk back” controversial remarks. No, he doesn’t waste time apologizing for gaffes. And, no, he doesn’t pretend that every single remark made on the campaign trail needs to be taken literally and analyzed like we’re back in high school literature class discussing the metaphysical poets.

Thank heavens for that.

Whatever else he’s done, Trump has helped to return our political campaigns to what they were supposed to be: loose, free-flowing and robust debates, where people said what they thought, and where if you weren’t being booed by somebody, you weren’t doing your job. Love him or hate him, at least give him credit for that.