Americans are hurting. Inflation from wasteful spending has made it harder than ever for families to put food on the table. It doesn’t help them that reckless trade policies have evaporated the abundant, well-paying manufacturing jobs that once undergirded the American workforce. Many are also forced to divert their stagnating wages toward skyrocketing housing prices, worsened by the unfettered flow of migrants through the open Southern Border, straining resources even in the country’s biggest cities. Too many Americans are unable to work in the first place, impeded by drug addictions stemming from the free flow of narcotics across our excessively cartel-controlled border. Kamala Harris has had four years to fix the problems plaguing American families. She has failed.
Before the catastrophe of the Biden-Harris administration, Trump’s policies had built an economy that worked for all Americans, featuring record-low unemployment for a bevy of marginalized communities. A hallmark of his first-term policy agenda, and revived for this election, is his embrace of tariffs to protect American workers and shore up high-paying jobs that the billionaire ownership class—Harris’ mega-donors—shipped to China and elsewhere. Prices may rise in the short-term (which isn’t certain considering the robust tariffs in the first Trump administration spawned negligible inflation) but would be dwarfed by a renewed sense of dignity among the American working class. Aside from the psychological and social benefits of a revived middle class, revitalizing key manufacturing jobs is a national security imperative considering the increasing likelihood of armed conflict with China. How can it serve American interests to rely heavily on a bellicose dictatorship to build our domestic military arsenal or manufacture our prescription drugs? Comparable products made in America tend to emit less greenhouse gasses than those made in China—tariffs could even help in the struggle against climate change.
Though Trump’s rhetoric on immigration is often far too extreme, he understands the importance of protecting workers from competing migrant labor. Harvard economist George Borjas, called “America’s leading immigration economist,” maintains that large-scale, low-skilled immigration decreases the wages of native-born citizens with similar skills. The victims of this artificial competition in the labor market tend to be the nation’s most vulnerable, i.e., low-income and minority citizens.
Critics allege that Trump is a threat to democracy, often citing January 6th as the prime example. Trump certainly holds some share of the blame for his repeated claims of a stolen election. Nonetheless, he willingly left office on January 20th, as has every American President in history. Additionally, many of his policy positions reflect an embrace of democratic norms, including his promise to delegate decisions regarding reproductive rights to the states, and his pledge to reassert the will of the people over the unelected bureaucracy through civil service reform. Working-class Americans are upset with what feels like elite domination of Washington politics, either through unaccountable bureaucracy or big-money donors. A member of the coastal elite class himself, though an avowed political outsider, Trump offers a different vision than the current status quo in Washington that resurrects a sense of accountability in America’s politics.
Many find his rhetoric too bombastic and offensive, unbecoming of a president. Only selective memory can uphold this criticism since successive Presidents have, in their unique ways, defiled the Oval Office through their own sex scandals, political corruption, and forsaking of America’s best interest in the name of pleasing billionaire donors. None of this should minimize or excuse Trump’s, or any president’s, reprehensible behavior. Still, to act as if Trump is an aberration amidst a slew of righteous Chief Executives is absurd. Trump is unwilling to continue the status quo of American politics, instead satirizing the farcical and theatrical nature of a political system typified by false personas and sterile ideas.
The American people have suffered far too long under the yoke of a distant political class with stale policies and disconnected donors. Harris, a deeply entrenched Democrat party elite, would reinforce these pernicious forces that have brought such profound suffering to the lives of average Americans. Unfettered trade, open border policies, and questionable foreign policy have kickstarted America’s decline; Harris will only accelerate this trend. Trump is the final impediment to America’s elite-driven demise—he deserves our vote.
Photo by Gage Skidmore (March 19th 2016)