Trump has delivered despite everything
A YEAR ago this week Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States – and half of Americans promptly lost their minds.
Across the nation we witnessed a mass outbreak of a virulent strain of a serious disease – TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome. Many people refused to accept the reality of the election result, demanding it be re-run. Some decided Trump was “not my president” and pledged to oppose him every step of the way.
There were calls for the Supreme Court to intervene and even demands that martial law be imposed and all civil liberties suspended in order to prevent Trump from taking office.
In increasingly hysterical outbursts Trump was described as a racist and fascist who was “worse than Hitler”. Some just sat on the ground and screamed helplessly at the sky. It had to be seen to be believed.
It was a turbo-charged version of our own Project Whinge after the Brexit referendum – members of an entitled, privileged elite throwing a toddler tantrum because a democratic vote didn’t go their way.
Even if Trump intended to establish a tyranny – a preposterous idea – he couldn’t. The Founding Fathers deliberately devised the US constitution with checks and balances as a bulwark against a despot taking control.
I suggested a year ago that this was all completely overblown and Americans under Trump – of all genders, sexualities, races and religions – would remain among the most free and prosperous people on the planet. So it has proved.
The mainstream media in the US has embarrassed itself. The New York Times – once a respected if insufferably dull newspaper – abandoned all pretence at impartiality to set itself up as the leader of the anti-Trump resistance. Hey, guys, that’s the job of politicians. Reporters are supposed to report the news objectively.
Time and again over the last 12 months the media have led the charge against Trump – only for their reports to be proved false, either through sloppy reporting or because of deliberate attempts to mislead. No wonder Trump finds such traction with his allegations of “fake news”.
Take for example the obsession with the notion that Trump colluded with the Russians to “steal the election”. Despite official investigations and endless press reports there is very little hard evidence to support this conspiracy theory. It is, as the Americans say, a great, big “nothingburger”.
A more trivial, but revealing example, were press reports last November that Trump had dumped a whole box of fish food into a koi carp pond during a trip to Japan “like a big baby”.
It didn’t take long for this narrative – like so many others – to fall apart. In fact Trump was diplomatically following the lead of the Japanese prime minister who emptied his box of food first.
Is it any wonder that trust in the American mainstream media, already at a historical low point, has fallen even further during Trump’s first year of office?
As for Trump, he continues to bewilder the establishment by doing something few politicians have done before him – keeping his promises. For example every US president from Clinton to Obama made solemn promises that the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Trump is the only one to have kept that promise.
He promised to reform the tax system – and he did exactly that, delivering big tax cuts to working people, fuelling resurgent economic growth. He promised a tougher line on illegal immigration – and delivered. He said he would withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement – and sure enough that’s exactly what he did.
He promised tougher action on terrorism – and he says he will withdraw aid from Pakistan and the Palestinians and is threatening to tear up the deal with Iran.
Already his uncompromising approach to North Korea seems to be bearing fruit with a thawing of relations between the dictatorship and its democratic southern neighbour.
Don’t get me wrong – I am not a natural Trump supporter and have been highly critical of him in the past. He is thinskinned and frequently petty and some of his outbursts – particularly on Twitter – make me wince. Although, to be fair, some others make me laugh like a drain.
But what I do know is this – if the American left and their allies in the media keep up these unhinged attacks they will make a Trump victory for a second term in 2020 all the more likely.