Versión Español
Spanish – It is rather typical that the big American media and the traditional politicians, especially on the Democratic side, shoot left and right against Donald Trump.
The current U.S. president has been accused of everything: being racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and even fascist. Before he was president, for example, they that it was crazy to put Trump behind the famous red button in the White House. The reason? They were always based on the attitude and rhetoric of the current president. That he is not liked, in many cases, but that doesn’t mean he is insane.
After the massive smear campaign against him, Trump achieved the unthinkable: he became president. From there, he has managed the economy positively, beating all possible records in terms of continuous growth and jobs.
The Republican also showed an innate ability, along with his administration, to resolve historical conflicts in the most difficult places in the world: the middle east, Korea, and the Balkans.
Despite these achievements, the mainstream media, which is sympathetic to the Democratic Party, attacks Trump, and his political opponents vociferously criticize him, which is logical because of the competition, but hasn’t he been one of the most criticized administrations of the time, even though he is one of the most successful? He is, which leads us to the simple question: Why?
A president outside the political class
Trump is not part of the traditional political class; he is not a Clinton, he is not a Bush; he is a successful businessman who is famously rebranded by many media as “anti-political.” We must not forget his presidential campaign, where he did not hold back anything his anti-establishment rhetoric. Did he resort to insults? Yes. Did he peddle bluffs? Also, yes. But he told many truths.
Hillary Clinton, for example, was unashamedly branded as corrupt. In a presidential debate, he told her that although her experience in politics was undeniable, that was precisely her fault: bad experience. Trump did not have it. He could say with authority what many Americans believed and still believe: there are many corrupt people in Washington within the traditional political class.
What has played in Trump’s favor, unlike the politicians? Authenticity. He moved away from the politically correct discourse, often pushing the boundaries, a necessary risk, and began working for his country. During his presidential term, the Republican has had to walk away from the business world, the result being that, in 2019 alone, he has lost over 600 million USD.
In short, since his campaign and during his administration, Trump has been very accurate in referring to traditional politicians. He has criticized their mistakes as well as their contradictions, including their media, which is why the communications war has not ceased since then. The mass media against Donald, but many fast-growing alternative media in favor of him.
That’s why you read articles in The Washington Post titled “the worst president in history,” referring to Trump. Beyond the eccentricities, and how controversial the Republican can be, are there arguments to make such a claim? A theoretically serious medium, such as the WaPo, should take a step back before issuing publications like this one.
CNN and the Times are not far behind. Their editorial lines can no longer even be defined as pro-Democratic, but directly anti-Trump. And this is something that has become recurrent in recent years. Did Trump contribute to this? Sure. The U.S. president, besides harshly criticizing traditional politics during his campaign, also hit the media; that’s why his campaign-style was based on direct communication with Americans through Twitter, a practice that he did not abandon once in office.
The businessman not only changed the way of doing politics but was also successful in defeating the establishment. Playing his cards and doing it his way. That is not something that the traditional political class can forgive.
Unveiling Obama’s failure
Many considered Barack Obama to be one of the best presidents of the modern American era. Among “his achievements,” analysts highlight that he left a robust economy with a low unemployment rate, with the exception that many jobs were of low quality. But when you take stock, the cons outweigh the pros of the Obama administration, both in domestic and foreign policy.
The Democratic Party’s Obama received an ailing economy after the crisis of 2009 and left it quite stable with the recovery of the stock market and the real estate market, in addition to the creation of 16 million jobs. But, on the other hand, the fiscal numbers he left behind were dire. So Barack himself was unable to improve the quality of life of workers in terms of taxes and income, something that Trump has achieved and in just one term.
Obama carried out very expensive social plans such as the famous Obamacare, a project that the current U.S. president has wanted to suspend and eliminate. The reality is that the Patient Protection and Accessible Health Care Act was and is a populist measure that surely helped many people with health care but, at the same time, contributed to unbalancing public spending accounts.
The U.S. fiscal deficit rose with the Democrat in White House, tax reform was never implemented, and not only subsidies but also bureaucracy increased. Trump did away with both during his term in office and also did much more prominent economic management than his predecessor.
The unrecognized man of peace
But the Obama administration’s mistakes were not only national but also international. The tragic nuclear deal and the strengthening of Iran in the Middle East thanks to Barack’s foreign policies, the counterproductive war in Afghanistan that never ended, the strengthening of socialist tyrannies in Latin America, and the growing influence of terrorism in the region were Obama’s legacies.
Perhaps the Democrat’s foreign policy is the point that taints his government the most. On the other hand, it is the arm that strengthens Trump the most. The current president managed to dissolve the nuclear agreements, brilliantly weakened Iran, and strengthened its allies in the Middle East. Additionally, he is saying he will get American troops out of Iraq. He ended the war in Afghanistan, and he also achieved historic peace agreements with the Taliban. Moreover, he achieved unprecedented peace agreements between Israel and the Arab Emirates, the two Koreas, and in the Balkans between Serbia and Kosovo.
Before Trump arrived at the White House, he was “the man not to put behind the red button.” Once there, through his power of deterrence and negotiation, he proved to be the man of peace that the free world needed.
The reduction of bureaucracy and regulations
If there is one thing that the traditional political class in any country does not forgive, it is messing with their public offices. Few have walked this path as the one who professes the motto “Make America great again. The Trump administration has, irrefutably, been the one that has most attacked and reduced bureaucracy in the United States.
You have to go back to Reagan to find a U.S. government that has lowered regulations so much. But even so, Trump’s administration is far superior. Its main strengths are public policy on taxation, state reduction, and deregulation, although the White House still has spending problems, a debt that Trump must comply with.
An article for FEE by Daniel J. Mitchell cites a Washington Post story by a representative of the Trump administration:
“Over the past two years, federal agencies have reduced regulatory costs by 23 billion USD and eliminated hundreds of burdensome regulations, creating opportunities for economic growth and development. This represented a giant change in the direction of the administrative state. He mentions that this state has remained unchecked for decades and that the Obama administration imposed more than 245 billion USD in regulatory costs on American businesses and families during its first two years.”
Deregulation measures by the Trump administration, besides limiting the power of the state and stabbing bureaucracy, gave giant breathing space to the private sector, which had been affected by the great economic obstacles that had been implemented during the predecessor government. Of course, since the private sector was the main beneficiary, this translated into constant economic and employment growth. Businesses benefited, as did the middle and lower classes.
Mitchell, who is an economist specializing in tax issues, points out that Trump’s main strengths come in his tax and positive regulation policies. But the Republican’s ratings need to improve on spending, trade, and monetary policy.
Fiscal reform and tax policy
Some people mention that Trump is a liberal guy in the Latin American sense of the word, not a North American one, but the reality is that he is a conservative. But beyond that, the fact that Trump has earned respect among Latin American liberals is, in large part, due to his tax policies.
If there is one thing that Latinos have been asking their various governments for years, it is tax reforms that benefit small and medium-sized businesses along with the middle class. In short, give the private sector tools to serve as an economic engine. Ultimately, all this is linked to the limitations of the state and its rulers.
Trump implemented this in his country, pushing through one of the most ambitious tax reforms in history and reducing taxes on both “the rich” and “the working class.
At the time, Trump’s usual critics downplayed the reform because it supposedly benefited the rich better than anyone else. They were wrong. Not only did Trump’s reform directly affect the growth of the economy, but it also led to the massive generation of quality jobs and, before the pandemic, had the unemployment rate at its lowest. Unprecedented achievements of the Trump administration.
But, as usual, the large media that are sympathetic to the traditional political class found excuses to criticize the Republican. “Less money will be collected,” “it will not be possible to subsidize the social plans,” “the inequality gap will increase,” all of which was false. In the same year that the great Trump reform was implemented, the U.S. reached the largest surplus since April 2001, 214 billion USD.
There is an economic logic that many people have not yet understood, and that is that the lower the number of taxes, the higher the collection. The New York Times, for example, did not understand this in 2017 when an article was published called “Champion of the ‘Little Guy’? Trump’s Actions Tell Another Story.” In the piece, two journalists criticized Trump, among other things, for the tax reform.
The more income and profits taxpayers have, the more they can pay to the treasury. Fewer regulations and fewer types of tax burdens make tax collection more effective and cleaner. In the end, everyone wins, pure cooperation. Not for nothing have the working class and the “less privileged” been the main beneficiaries under the Republican government.
This business success is one of the things that most annoy the establishment, that a president has arrived from outside the political elite (beyond being a tycoon) and that he succeeds, denies, and unmasks his rhetoric. Many Americans have identified with Trump, and with good reason, have grown tired of the false discourse and policies that the current president calls “anti-American.” Thus, it is important to analyze the Republican’s rhetoric.
Strong discourse against progressivism affecting traditional politics
This publication has often denounced how the Democrats have turned dangerously to the more radical left. They have transformed themselves into a party that is moving away from American values and traditions to join the current progressives.
The Democrats hypocritically portray themselves as defenders of “the minorities” and the saviors and revolutionaries who will end the “systemic problems of American capitalism.” In that sense, they approached the progressive and also left movements in the U.S.
For example, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats openly support abortion- something Trump does not agree with. They adhere to the fight against “racism” (a curious fact since the Democratic party has historically been the party that has most infringed the Black race). Biden is presented as a different candidate who will manage to put an end to the problems of “social and racial inequalities, although he is one of the great faces of traditional politics par excellence.
Trump, regardless of whether they may agree or not, is a conservative who does not adhere to any new labels. He is not in favor of progress and does not pretend to be a populist by presenting himself as an ally of progress. In fact, he fights them because he believes that many of these movements go against the traditional American values that he defends.
That’s why Trump’s speech ends up being politically incorrect. Some criticize him and call him a populist and even a fascist (without any ideological knowledge, of course), but many also recognize him and even agree with him about the Democrats, who have completely blurred into an anti-American party.
And it’s also true that Trump has thousands of questionable and reprehensible actions. He has made unwelcome comments against foreigners, and his administration has made announcements amid a pandemic, such as taking away student visas from college students for not showing up for classes. And surely many more errors, but that, in the overall balance, does not cover up his administration or his great achievements that have been systematically overshadowed by his traditional enemies.
Trump, for example, deported far fewer people than Obama. The unemployment level for Latinos and African Americans (for all Americans, really) was at its lowest level under his administration, and he is called “misogynist,” though he has more women among his top advisors than any president in history.
Have you ever asked yourselves: Why do the big media and the traditional political class attack and discredit Trump so much? In addition to what has been explained in this essay about foreign and domestic management, plus his ways of doing politics, much has to do with the fact that Trump is a strong defender of Western values, capitalism, freedom, and also conservatism. And the enemies of these last four, besides being powerful, have the capacity to rewrite history by manipulating it. They have always done so and will continue to do so.
