How Trump has made the country better off than it was four years ago
The 2020 election is four weeks out. Here is the short case for backing the Trump-pence ticket and voting forrepublican senators and representatives in your state.
Have President Donald Trump and the Republicans helped you since they assumed office in 2017, or are you the same or worse off than you were nearly four years ago?
My guess is that the president and the GOP have helped you. Yes, of course, count the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. But I think Trump has done as well as any president could have done — and better than Joe Biden would have done. Remember that when Trump restricted flights fromchina on
Jan. 31, as the pandemic that spread fromwuhan had barely started, the next day Biden criticized the president’s “hysteria” and “xenophobia.” More recently, Biden has vowed to “shut down” the entire country in response to the pandemic if necessary.
Now consider that you are much safer and more secure under this president than youwere on Jan. 20, 2017, because of the military buildup Trump has overseen. Every member of the military has received higher pay, and the armed forces are nowmuch better equipped. (Youmight not be safer if you live in crime-afflicted Chicago or New York or Portland, Ore., but that’s another matter.)
Trump has reduced the U.S. military footprint abroad, choosing to punch hard while pulling back. The Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in themiddle East has been destroyed. Syria and Iran are on notice. The two biggest terrorist leaders alive when Trump took office, the Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-baghdadi and Iranianmilitary commander Qasemsoleimani, are now dead.
The United Arab Emirates and
Bahrain have recently signedmajor diplomatic agreements with Israel, a breakthrough engineered by the Trump administration and the first such pact between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors in 25 years.
The president has focused the world’s attention on the Chinese Communist Party’s imperial ambitions, human rights abuses and role in letting the coronavirus escape fromwuhan. Trump has also shown how theworld Health Organization’s ties to Beijing worsened the crisis.
Trump hasmade America’s NATO allies paymore for their share in the costs of a common defense. The savings for the United States are better directed to domestic use.
On the economy, policies championed by Trump and the GOP succeeded in bringing unemployment to all-time lows early this year. Now the economy, after the pandemic-forced shutdowns, is bouncing back, with unemployment below 8% and heading lower.
Your taxes are down, and the value of your home has likely gone up.
Your freedoms and your fundamental right to be left alone are much stronger than they were before Trump’s inauguration, because the president, working with Senate Republicans, has bolstered the Supreme Court and federal courts with strong judges who honor the Constitution. These judges will long protect your religious practices and your right to bear arms, and will rein in the administrative state’s attempts to control your life.
Millions of Americans have benefited enormously fromthe Trump administration in their own particular ways. Military veterans recognize that the Department of Veterans Affairs has been dramatically improved under the Trump administration. Lovers of national parks knowthat long-overdue maintenance and improvements to the parks have beenmade possible by the Great American Outdoors Act. Those in prison for nonviolent offenses or who have incarcerated family members celebrated the reforms of the First Step Act.
You may love Trump, you may loathe him, but his policies have undoubtedly been good for you and the country.
Meanwhile, let’s look at the Democrats. Biden won the nomination, but Bernie Sanders won the battle of ideas. Democrats aremoving hard left, ready to wreck health insurance, again, withmedicare-for-all, and the energy industry with their disastrous Greennewdeal. The left wing of the party, if Democrats control Congress and thewhite House next year, will push for expanding the Supreme Court so a liberalmajority can restrict freedoms they don’t like, especially religious freedom and the right to bear arms. Many Democrats are pushing to repeal the requirement of 60 votes to passmost legislation in the Senate — andwhen that happens, watch out. The leftwing playbook will become law, with dire consequences for the economy and U.S. society.
This is what’s at stake on Nov. 3. You won’t see a fair reading of the facts about the Trump administration’s record because 95% of themedia is overtly anti-trump. It is the most absurd, partisan imbalance I’ve ever seen. And it will get only worse in the coming weeks. The collapse of media fairness, prompted by a seething hatred of Trump, is a harbinger of an enduring one-party state. The answer is to vote against this oneparty state — and to vote for a second Trump term.