America Should Choose on Substance, Not Superficiality

President Donald Trump addresses a crowd during a campaign rally in Lumberton, N.C., on Oct. 24, 2020. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

Commentary

What has been widely and accurately portrayed as the most important election in modern American history is at hand.

It’s generally acknowledged to be a very tight race, although it’s undoubtedly true that the incumbent president, Donald Trump, has had one of the most successful first terms in the history of the country, surpassed only by those of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon, and perhaps rivaled by James K. Polk.

Through and despite the unprecedented clamor of the election, voters would do the responsible thing if they recalled just how much this president has achieved, and in spite of being encumbered by an unfounded investigation of allegedly treasonable activity by him, followed by an utterly spurious impeachment process, the whole accompanied at all times by a barrage of media hostility not seen since the last presidential days of Richard Nixon, and with much less reason.

In his first term, Trump resolved the greatest failure of American government of the past 30 years: the bipartisan acquiescence in the illegal entry into the United States of as many as 20 million Latin Americans, the great majority being unskilled, and a number of them, violent criminals.

He eliminated unemployment after reducing the taxes of 83 percent of U.S. taxpayers and all taxpaying corporations. The combination of ending illegal immigration and creating full employment caused for the first time recorded, the income of the lowest fifth of the income scale to grow in percentage terms more quickly than the top tenth.

It was a beginning of a solution to the income-disparity problem that afflicts all advanced countries.

He renegotiated trade deals successfully, identified the China threat accurately but without incivility or bombast, and spared the country the Green Terror—trillions of dollars spent on energy boondoggles, while the entire petroleum industry was attacked as an immense source of environmental crimes.

Trump has shaped up NATO, destroyed ISIS and the chief Islamic terrorists, rebuilt America’s national defense, resurrected the doctrine of nuclear non-proliferation in reference to Iran and North Korea, and made the greatest progress toward peace in the Middle East since Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978.

In the pandemic, while there have been a number of public relations blunders, he’s led the world in seeking a vaccine, which is the only possible resolution of the crisis, and in refusing to be reduced entirely to a fearful, furtive species skulking about in its homes in a state of increasingly depressive solitude and penury.

Biden Over Sanders

Trump had a won election prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March. At that point, the Democrats, concerned by the likely elevation of self-defined socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as nominee, picked up Joe Biden, who had come fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire and was generally considered to have bombed out of the race, dusted him off, and carried him across the goal line.

But then, Biden and Sanders agreed on an extensive policy platform that as both men commented is the most socialistic (“progressive”) in the country’s history. It commits the country to most of the hideously expensive and draconian Green New Deal, elimination of fossil fuel use by 2035 with massive transition to electric automobiles as electricity is made much more expensive by shutting down gas-fueled electricity generation, comprehensive tax increases, recommitment to the Iran nuclear agreement, which approves of Iran becoming a fully competent nuclear military power in January 2025, thorough discouragement of any alternative education system except unionized public schools, and socialized medicine for all those not already on public or private plans.

The Democrats officially believe in the existence of “systemic racism” and the “existential” threat of global warming. They are tainted by indulgence of anti-white urban terrorist guerrillas that wracked the country with riots, arson, and vandalism throughout the summer.

But, in practice, the national political media who have conducted the campaign on behalf of the Democrats aren’t paying much attention to the fine points of policy. The whole campaign has been the allegation of incompetent COVID-19 management by a president who is a monster, an ogre, a horned and cloven-footed freakish denizen of the White House who must be chased out like a pest.

They have attempted to magnify the anomalies and foibles of the president’s personality to pretend that he is a sort of political Frankenstein’s monster and that the election is really a referendum on the monster.

The Democrats would have the country believe that Trump is responsible for the deaths of countless thousands of people who would otherwise have survived the coronavirus or not contracted it, and that he’s solely responsible for the comparative chaos that produced widespread rioting all summer and an extremely contentious public atmosphere throughout the Trump term.

Trump the Issue

In a sense, this is entirely consistent, because since Trump ran against the entire political system shaped and represented by both parties, and set out to “drain the swamp,” and the Democrats have attracted the adherence of a number of disaffected Republicans such as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and many former Bush administration officials such as Gen. Colin Powell, Trump is the issue.

But it isn’t just a referendum about him, it is, more importantly, a policy choice regarding all the principal areas of government, and an evaluation of Trump’s performance in his first term.

While Trump promised to clean house in Washington, his opponents, starting many months before he arrived, have represented him as irreconcilable with any civilized notion of government. From the very beginning, the “Resistance” announced its intention to eliminate him, and it was taken and held to be self-evident that he was a racist, sexist, a goon, incompetent, and crook.

Large demonstrations took place all over the world on the day of and immediately after his inauguration, accusing him of attitudes and opinions that he didn’t hold and imputing to him motives that he does not have. After nearly a full term it is clear the Trump is not in any respect a racist, a misogynist, or someone who wishes to alter the Constitution to magnify his own authority.

To some extent, the intelligence agencies and the FBI were complicit in attempting to alter the result of an election both before and after Election Day. What occurred was the greatest breach of the U.S. Constitution in its history.

The Saul Alinsky formula has been followed by the Democrats: They (Hillary Clinton) engaged Russians to confect a comprehensive smear against Trump, which was then falsely presented as legitimate intelligence and therefore, worthy of publication by the media without further research. They (the Bidens) engaged in questionable business practices in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

Joe Biden is obviously not up to the job he seeks. The national political media have disgraced themselves and must not be rewarded with intimations of omnipotence and insuperability. The issue is substance, not superficiality; Trump deserves to be reelected.

Conrad Black has been one of Canada’s most prominent financiers for 40 years, and was one of the leading newspaper publishers in the world. He’s the author of authoritative biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, and, most recently, “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other,” which is about to be republished in updated form.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author. As a nonpartisan public charity, The Epoch Times does not endorse these statements and takes no position on political candidates.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.