Opinion by
Oct. 6, 2020 at 5:52 p.m. CDT
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 from China on Jan. 31, as the pandemic that spread from Wuhan 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 you were 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 now much better equipped. (You might 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 the Middle 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 Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, are now dead. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recently signed major 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 from Wuhan. Trump has also shown how the World Health Organization’s ties to Beijing worsened the crisis.
Trump has made America’s NATO allies pay more 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 percent 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 from the 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 know that long-overdue maintenance and improvements to the parks have been made 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 are moving hard left, ready to wreck health insurance, again, with Medicare-for-all, and the energy industry with their disastrous Green New Deal. The left wing of the party, if Democrats control Congress and the White House next year, will push for expanding the Supreme Court so a liberal majority 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 pass most legislation in the Senate — and when that happens, watch out. The left-wing 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 percent of the media 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 one-party state — and to vote for a second Trump term.
