NEW YORK — 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, a globally competitive 21
percent 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 percent 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, green-lighted 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 percent.
•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 ObamaBiden let swell to the size of two New Jerseys — was blasted clean off the
map.
Arab Emirates sign the Abraham Accords peace treaty on September
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.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a
contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with
the London Center for Policy Research. Bucknell University’s Michael
Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.
