President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania head to the Inaugural Parade reviewing stand from the White House in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2017. Trump was sworn-in as the 45th president of the United States earlier in the day. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
Conrad Black certainly thinks so. Mr. Black, among Canada’s most prominent financiers, was one of the world’s leading newspaper publishers. Mr. Black has written biographies on FDR, Richard Nixon and Donald J. Trump (A President Like No Other). As a member of the British House of Lords, he is also known as Lord Black of Crossharbour.
Trump’s Solid Achievements
Unlike Jimmy Carter, Trump is not going to be running as an unsuccessful president. Nor is Trump going to run as a marginally successful president (the Bushes and Obama). Regardless of any criticisms (often self-inflicted) that can be cast at the President, Mr. Black reminds readers in American Greatness, Trump has solid achievements.
- He has delivered tax cuts and reform and great prosperity, as Reagan did.
- He is the first president to deal seriously with illegal immigration and oil imports and nuclear proliferation to rogue states (Iran and North Korea), since those crises arose.
- He has refused to be stampeded by the eco-Marxists while doing nothing to backpedal on the environment itself.
- He has partially delivered on trade imbalances and will almost certainly reach a much improved trade arrangement with China.
Contrary to the assessments of Trump-haters who supposedly know something about the economy, such as Paul Krugman and the Economist magazine (which on the subject of Trump is as drivelingly hostile but not as amusing as Vanity Fair or the Daily Beast), this economy is not going to cool out appreciably in the next 18 months.
For 2020, Democratic rhetoric and the conventional wisdom relentlessly inflicted on the country by the anti-Trump media claque holds that Trump should be easy to defeat, because his polls have never risen above 50 percent. This is meaningless chatter because it neglects to remember that Trump in 2016 was running against the Republicans as much as the Democrats. As someone who changed his party registration seven times in 13 years, Trump had no call on party loyalty. In the first six months of his presidency, the congressional Republicans sat on their hands and were not entirely averse to the voluminous musings about impeachment. In the only sensible sentence I ever heard from former Arizona senator and ardent NeverTrumper Jeff Flake, “It’s the president’s party now.”
In 2020 there won’t be a split such as that caused by Ross Perot to defeat the senior Bush in 1992 and probably Robert Dole in 1996; and Trump’s record seems certain to be much more successful that Carter’s, who had 20 percent interest rates, high inflation, unemployment, and taxes to deal with in 1980.
Whatever happens with the current southern border state of emergency, Trump is putting a border in place and has won that argument. The country wants a border, without government shutdowns. Trump has worked the “Mexico will pay for it” nonsense into the facts of more favorable trade arrangements and has kept faith with his followers, unlike the Bush “No new taxes” pledge in 1988.
Democrats Playing Russian Roulette
Democrats are like a suicide case contemplating Russian roulette with all chambers loaded, and they are the ones loading in the cartridges:
- open borders
- a top personal income tax rate of around 70 percent
- nationalized health care
- legalized infanticide
- a green policy that bans cars, airplanes, oil, coal, and bovine flatulence
- reparations for African-Americans, and perhaps, says Senator Elizabeth Warren (0.5 percent American Indian), for the native people
Unless a sensible person … gets hold of that party, the Democrats will self-inflict mortal wounds and give Trump the greatest plurality in history, (breaking Richard Nixon’s record of 18 million in 1972).
Finally, as Conrad Black mentioned in a column last week, the Democrats are going to pay heavily for the disgraceful Russian-collusion red herring.
Read more from Conrad Black here.
Originally posted on March 4, 2019.
