By Allan Wall, January 19, 2021
On June 16, 2015, Donald J. Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower and announced his campaign for President. That was five and a half years ago, and Trump has dominated the media and political discourse unto this day. You might love Trump, you might hate him, but you can’t ignore him.
Now Trump’s term of presidency, beginning in 2017, is at an end, to be replaced by Joseph R. Biden.
What comes next for Trump is uncertain, but something tells me he’ll still be in the news for a time.
Trump campaigned as a fighter, unlike so many Republicans who easily surrender and allow the leftist media to set the agenda.
Instead, Trump came out swinging, taking on the Republican establishment, the media and the Democrats, and eventually winning the presidency in 2016.
Trump often spoke in a crude way, and he sometimes should have planned his words more carefully, but the bottom line was that he was a fighter who eschewed the politically-correct paradigms limiting what one is allowed to discuss in present-day political discourse. Many of us saw in Trump a man who might improve what we see as a harmful immigration system – mass illegal immigration and a high level of legal immigration. Trump even brought up our insane birthright citizenship policy which grants automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.
The opposition to Trump was massive. The Republican establishment, the Democrats, and the Mainstream Media pulled out all the stops to impede Trump’s candidacy. But Trump won.
As president, the opposition continued. They never gave Trump a chance. The Russia charges, the impeachments, etc. To the very end they are trying to destroy Trump, and along with him, his America First movement.
Trump’s administration was plagued by enemies within his administration and the federal bureaucracy. Personnel is policy. If the people working for you don’t share your agenda, you may not accomplish much.
There was infighting in the administration, there were leaks, a revolving door, “tell-all” books, etc.
Sometimes Trump himself seemed erratic and distracted, and sometimes he did things some of his supporters disagreed with or didn’t do things they wanted him to do. But they considered the alternative, a Democratic administration, and continued to support Trump.
Given all the opposition from within and without, it is rather amazing that Trump accomplished all he did.
The economy was doing great, with rising wages, until the era of COVID-19 kicked in. That virus, and the way it was portrayed and handled, played a part in bringing Trump down.
Trump was able to put three justices on the Supreme Court, besides naming many judges to lower courts.
On trade, Trump fought for American interests, even with China. On foreign policy, he didn’t get the United States into a war.
On immigration, Trump and America faced a continental flow of immigration passing up from Central America, through Mexico and to the U.S. border. It was a humanitarian disaster and a big problem for our country.
But Trump found a solution, by thinking outside the box and utilizing his foreign policy authority.
By means of a tariff threat, Trump pressured the government of Mexico into cracking down on its own border with Guatemala, thereby drastically reducing the quantity of illegal aliens arriving to the U.S. border. It was a great solution, and, actually, also helped Mexico.
Trump went on from there to make deals with Central American countries.
After years of Latin American governments cynically using the United States as a human dumping ground, an American President was, finally, calling them to account.
Trump altered the way our refugee/asylum system was being gamed and abused, forcing would-be-asylees to wait outside the United States for their cases to be decided, rather than just letting them in and releasing them on U.S. soil.
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump got the border mostly closed, even to legal immigration.
Trump presided over the construction of hundreds of miles of barrier on our southern border with Mexico.
Trump deserves much credit for improving our immigration system and resurrecting the rule of law in the face of great opposition.
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