I recently posted the following on Facebook:
Unemployment is lower than it has been in 50 years according to the labor department. More women, Hispanics, and blacks are working than ever before. 90% of the middle class (including us) paid less in federal income tax this year. The armed forces have been able to replace old equipment. ISIS has been defeated as a Caliphate. There are about 30,000 fewer regulations to complicate our lives. Our carbon emissions were lowered more than in any country who stayed in the Paris Climate Accord. New trade deals with the EU, Mexico, and Canada are helping U.S. workers and trade talks with China are going well. North Korea is no longer shooting missiles ovhiser Japan and threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on Guam or San Francisco. Relations with Israel, our best ally in the Middle East, are improved. The U.S. Embassy was moved to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem and the U.S. has now recognized that the Golan Heights belongs to Israel which has occupied that territory since 1967. But hey, let’s get rid of this president because he is destroying America!
I was spurred do write this because I honestly cannot understand why so many people can ignore the vastly improved life we are living in America now since President Trump took office. I do not understand their insane hatred for him. I know much of it is fueled by a liberal media whose coverage of the president has been 92% negative since his election. Most of the good things that he has done are never mentioned on any televised news source except FOX, so huge numbers of people probably have no idea of the good things that he has accomplished.
I know also that his comments about the Charlottesville, Virginia conflict between those who didn’t want Confederate statues taken down (which included some white supremacists as well as ordinary Virginians) and a group composed of Black Lives Matter and Antifa (Antifa is itself a violent, radical leftist group) were taken out of context by the media to give them something they could call proof of his racist fascism. This has become a common ploy of the media as they regularly take his words out of context or twist them to fit their own agenda.
So, millions of Americans are told daily that their president is a racist who is, as one Democrat recently put it, “dangerous to America.” Despite the fact that 69 to 80 percent (depending upon which source you read) of ALL Americans paid lower income taxes this year, the Democrats did such a good job lying to people that only 17% of the Democrats who paid lower taxes actually believe that they paid lower taxes. The rest staunchly believe that the Middle Class has been harmed by the tax bill, which has in reality, lowered the taxes of 90% of the Middle Class. And they are not told about the president’s wins internationally, or that his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord did not prevent us from outdoing all the members of the Accord in reducing our carbon emissions. They only know he withdrew and is therefore dangerous to the continued existence of the earth! I might point out here, that even if that blessed oracle of the left, freshman House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is correct that the world will be destroyed by global warming in 12 years if we don’t get rid of airplanes, retrofit all our houses to be green, and kill off all farting cows (thus living the rest of our lives on almond milk and tofu), the rest of the world, especially China and India will go on burning coal, worshiping live farting cows, and flying where ever they want, and the result of our massive life-changing sacrifice will have resulted in a negligible change that might keep the earth going another day or two at best.
So, I shared some of his wins on Facebook, hoping to reach some Democrats (although by now they no doubt all ignore my postings if they are still my friends at all!). Then one reader complained about the things that he has not accomplished. She complained that ISIS was not defeated, that we are still releasing illegals into the country and supporting them through SNAP, subsidized housing, Medicaid and educating their children. She also brought up drug testing those who are on any kind of public assistance, and questioned what would happen if the president closed our borders.
My answers to her were these (in somewhat shorter form):
First, Donald J. Trump, regardless of what the mainstream media would have you believe, is not a dictator nor does he operate outside of the law. He has a White House Counsel who discusses with him what measures he may take that are within the bounds of his office and he does not cross those lines. He is the President, who must wait upon Congress to change laws. Whether or not the governmental departments that regulate public assistance could demand drug testing without support from Congress, I do not know. But with a Democratic House, the backlash would be swift and harsh. Better for a Republican House and Senate to make such changes if they have the stomach for it. Regardless, President Trump can likely NOT make such a move.
Yes, remnants of ISIS continue to exist, but they exist as small, scattered cells that no longer have the psychological pull of a Caliphate, a “country” where Islam will be practiced as they believe that it should be and according to Sharia law. . . where husbands regularly beat their wives, where wives and children can be murdered by male relatives for “dishonoring” the family, where wives cannot drive, go outside the home unless they are covered in black from ground to head and with a net shielding their eyes and are escorted by a male relative. The lure of the Caliphate and the videos on television of lines of trucks and tanks flying the black ISIS flag along with the televised beheadings of Christians was a strong pull for some deluded young people around the world. But that, that has been destroyed. Now, ISIS is just another radical Islamic group of terrorists who are wiped out as they are discovered. That change is immense.
As for the illegals, the president is doing what he can given the law that requires the release of a “family” with children after a short period of time. Again it is Congress that must change the law, and a Democratic House would rather shoot themselves than make such a move. In the meantime, he is having the wall built, section by section, as he promised to do, and I frankly don’t care who pays for it! In fact, the money is being reallocated mostly from defense funds which is both logical, since it is to defend the citizens of this country against the invasion of unvetted and often dangerous individuals, and which is within his right as president to do (and as Obama did repeatedly during his administration).
Closing the southern border is a possibility, and one that I would like to see happen soon. Would that mean higher prices for goods shipped from Mexico and more expense for companies shipping goods to Mexico? Of course. But I would rather pay a bit more for goods from Mexico until Mexican president Obrador decides it is in his best interest to close HIS southern border, than have more illegals flooding into our country daily including murderers, rapists, gang members, drugs dealers, and human traffickers along with the poor whom we will be supporting for the rest of their lives.
I am not anti-immigrant. It would be difficult for me to be so since I am the descendant of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants myself. I still have cousins in Sweden. But I AM anti-illegal immigrant. My ancestors came here legally and farmed and prospered and assimilated. They became Americans. I wish that for everyone who comes here.
My second argument to this individual was that the president has only been in office for two years and two and a half months. Given the ridiculous Mueller investigation which we always knew was the witch hunt that the president called it, all of the push back from the Democrats, and the negativity of the media (remember that Rachel Maddow of MSNBC almost cried on camera when the Mueller report said it found no collusion or obstruction of justice), it is a wonder that this president has gotten anything done. And yet, he has. President Trump has fulfilled more campaign promises to Americans than any other president in the same amount of time. The two Supreme Court Justices that he has appointed have turned the Court conservative for perhaps decades and 30 judges had been confirmed to lower courts during his first two years in office alone, more than under any other president during the same time period.
If we, the voters, give him another four years and a Republican House and Senate, who knows what he can accomplish! I think the sky is the limit!