Trump Deserves a Final, Fair Look at His Presidency

A hundred years hence, historians will recall President Donald J. Trump for his two impeachments and detail the deadly U.S. Capitol riots that he is accused of fomenting.

In 2121, however, a fair-minded assessment of Trump’s presidency would recognize his abundant domestic and international accomplishments.

•The $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a globally competitive 21% corporate tax rate, and eight regulations junked for every new one inflicted helped generate the most robust economy in U.S. history.

Total employment (peaking at 158,803,000 working Americans in December 2019) never was higher. Black and Hispanic unemployment sank to their lowest levels ever, with female unemployment the lowest since Eisenhower. Median household income in 2019 hit a record-high $68,703 — up 6.8% from 2018. America’s poverty rate reached 10.5 percent, a record low.

•Trump’s approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, oil exploration in Alaska’s ANWR, greenlighted fracking projects, and other initiatives have made America energy independent.

•Trump and the GOP Senate placed 231 constitutionalist jurists on the federal bench: Three Supreme Court justices, 54 appellate judges, and 174 trial-court appointees.

•The president pushed school choice, extended educational savings accounts to K-12 students, re-authorized the DC Voucher Program with $85 million in funds, stabilized assistance to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, conditioned federal assistance to colleges on their defense of campus free speech, and restored due process for college students (mainly men) often falsely accused of sexual harassment.

•Trump vastly improved VA hospitals, launched veterans medical choice, strengthened Health Savings Accounts, required medical-price transparency, and secured for terminally ill patients the Right to Try experimental drugs.

•President Trump fought for a southern border wall, to stop entry by illegal aliens, gang members, drug smugglers, terrorists, and others who break into America without permission. On Tuesday, he celebrated 452 miles of steel and concrete wall. This distance roughly connects San Diego and San Francisco. Consequently, federal southern-border apprehensions and encounters have plunged from 977,509 in Fiscal Year 2019 to 458,088 in FY 2020 — down 53.1%.

•Trump flushed Obama-Biden’s asphyxiating rules of engagement and sicced U.S. and friendly forces on ISIS in early 2017. By year’s end, the bloodthirsty, primitive, Islamic-extremist caliphate — which Obama-Biden let swell to the size of two New Jerseys — was blasted clean off the map.

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(President Trump and leaders from Bahrain, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates sign the Abraham Accords peace treaty on Sept. 15, which Sudan and Morocco soon joined. Official White House photo: Tia Dufour)

•Under Trump’s guidance, Israel signed the Abraham Accords — four peace agreements (and the first since 1996) between Jerusalem and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.

•The president confronted China. He applied trade sanctions for its cheating and intellectual property theft, locked up its spy-choked Houston consulate, slapped travel bans on top officials, and more.

•The president harangued America’s NATO allies to keep their word and spend at least 2 percent of GDP on common defense. While four nations complied in 2016, today 10 pay their fair share. Through 2024, an extra $400 billion will fund NATO, not at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

In short, like FedEx on steroids, President Trump delivered on the Right’s economic, cultural, and national security agendas.

•Of course, the Chinese virus arrived a year ago and ruined everything.

Even as Trump ordered hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles and erected pop-up hospitals across America, he pressed government and industry to produce ventilators, masks, gowns, and other medical gear. Incredibly, Operation Warp Speed yielded two COVID-19 vaccines within nine months — another record.

•Thanks to these triumphs, countless promises made and promises kept, and a parade of late-campaign rallies with at least 25,000 people each, President Trump scored 75 million votes, the most for an incumbent president seeking re-election. He boosted his black vote from 8 percent in 2016 to 12 percent last year — the most for a Republican since 1960. His share of Hispanic votes rose from 29 to 32 percent.

Alas, by hook or crook, Basement Joe Biden won 80 million votes and, crucially, 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.

The rest is history.

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