Trump’s first year: A story of promises kept

President Trump promised in his inaugural address his administration would be guided by one “crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.” He went on to say that “every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.” His first year in office has been the story of promises kept.

By every measure of personal and national prosperity, the nation is better off than it was one year ago. The Trump administration has overseen a renewed respect for citizenship. Gone is the lofty-sounding rhetoric of globalism that led to unwinnable foreign wars and open borders. Back is talk of what we can do together as Americans.

You’d hardly know of his accomplishments by watching cable news, which continue to indulge in a perverse obsession with Russian conspiracy theories, West Wing intrigue and the president’s Twitter feed. It’s exhausting — and also largely beside the point.

Also conspicuous were the dogs that didn’t bark. These are the predictions of imminent calamity certain to accompany a Trump presidency that have failed to materialize. Nuclear war did not break out. Nor did the president sell the country down the river to Russian President Vladimir Putin, ignore court orders, shut down the free press, fire special counsel Robert Mueller. So what did Trump accomplish? For one thing, he appointed an allstar Cabinet that has been quietly and dutifully implementing the president’s agenda even as their boss runs interference for them, taking the slings and arrows of a hostile media. He has appointed more judges to the federal bench in his first year than any president ever, including Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. And they are constitutionalists. This alone will represents a signal triumph that will resound for the next few generations.

There’s more. Under Trump, construction has begun on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines even as the United States will soon achieve oil production of 10 million barrels a day, will become a net oil exporter in a decade, and is set to rival Russia as the world’s largest oil producer by 2019.

Add to that low unemployment, rising wages, a booming stock market and a tax cut that will put more money in middle-class pockets starting next month, and you have the makings of a very successful presidency. Did I mention that Obamacare’s noxious individual mandate has been consigned to history’s dustbin as well?

And there’s more.

At the border, illegal crossings are down as much as 60%, showing that a willingness to enforce the law and end incentives to enter the country illegally will change behavior.

Likewise, Trump has overseen a change in national security policy from the globalist moral imperialism of his recent predecessors to the interests based in realism that he calls America First. For all the talk of Russian conspiracies, Trump has taken a tough stance with Putin — willing to work with him where it advances U.S. interests but also arming Ukraine in its ongoing fight with Russia.

In the Middle East, ISIS has gone from a burgeoning caliphate stretching from the Atlantic to the Levant to a failed pseudo-state, while Trump has revitalized our decades-old alliance with Saudi Arabia and its new, reformist crown prince.

Back in Washington, Trump’s appointees are quietly cutting regulations pursuant to one of his first executive orders, which instructs them to cut two regulations for every new one they put in place.

There is much yet to be done. There is a wall that the president has promised to build and infrastructure he has promised to rebuild. There are yet more judges to be appointed and, perhaps most difficult, a swamp yet to be drained.

To Trump’s critics I say, go ahead, keep talking. While you’re doing that, Trump will be governing.