While hundreds in the media and politics were freaking out, I was chuckling and praying for the day Trump would get into the White House, call every single one of his cabinet secretaries into the office and, right in front of the TV cameras rolling live, give each one seven minutes to defend the vital purpose of their department. After seven minutes, the failed secretaries would stand before the Resolute Desk and see President Donald Trump jab his finger their way and say, “You’re fired!” Their entire departments would be eliminated right there, live on national television. Audiences would love it! The ratings would be higher than The Apprentice and all the Survivors combined!
The lucky few cabinet secretaries who made the cut and survived would be called back to the Oval Office in the following weeks. Live, on national television, each would be given a stark ultimatum: cut 25 percent out of your department. Each would have one week. Or President Trump would do it for them, perhaps even allowing the American people to vote from home on how best to eliminate 25 percent out of the budget of each remaining cabinet department.
After all, American voters back home have a whole lot more experience budgeting within their means than anybody in Washington.
Now, obviously, these daydreams on my part were a bit fantastical. There was a pretty good chance that President Trump would not, in fact, turn the federal government into an Apprentice/Survivor game show on national television. And, in fact, he has not done that.
But, still, there was a solid 10 percent chance that he might do it. At the very least, it would have been the “worst-case scenario” in the minds of all the Never Trumpers freaking out about his candidacy. And still, it was a better idea than what any of them had ever come up with to tame the federal government. In any event, there might have been only a 10 percent chance that Donald Trump would launch such a circus of firing, but there was a negative percent chance that Jeb Bush or any of the rest of the so-called conservatives running for president would.
In the early 2000s, long before voters sicced Donald Trump on Washington, Republicans were doing swimmingly well, at least in terms of political power inside the Beltway. They held the White House and both chambers of Congress. So, what did Republicans have to show for their years of conservative reign? I am sure there are some victories they could point to. Chief among them would be the tax cuts. But otherwise the big picture was pretty bleak. Especially in terms of fiscal issues.
During Republican control of the House of Representatives between 1994 and 2006, federal debt nearly doubled to $8.5 trillion, from $4.7 trillion. By the time President Bush left office in 2008, that debt had jumped to over $10 trillion.
In terms of policy, conservatives had little to crow about. One of the very first initiatives President Bush embraced after winning the White House in 2000 was to extend an olive branch to Senator Ted Kennedy. Together they hatched a huge new federal program that gave federal bureaucrats all sorts of new ways to meddle with public education around the country: it was called “No Child Left Behind.” It was a running joke back then about which children of these vaunted political dynasties was kept from being left behind by this bill. Was it the Bushes or the Kennedys?
Either way, the program proved to be as big a bipartisan disaster as it was a bipartisan “success” when they passed it. By 2015, the whole thing was scrapped and its duties turned over to state educators.
The other big “success” of that period came in 2003, just in time for President Bush to get reelected. To be fair, he had pushed valiantly for privatizing Social Security. At the very least it would keep the kleptocrats in Congress from raiding the retirement accounts of innocent American taxpayers.
Democrats, dishonest as ever, slimed it as some kind of sop to Wall Street. I had a standard question of Democrat lawmakers back then as well. Since they were so opposed to regular Americans getting to privatize their government-mandated retirement program, I wondered, how many of them planned on retiring without a private retirement program of their own?
Needless to say, I never found a single Democrat who intended to rely entirely on Social Security in their golden years. Because, of course, they knew exactly what kind of Ponzi scheme they had turned the program into.
Republicans had better success, however, with their signature achievement that year known as Medicare Part D, a program for paying for medication for seniors. It has long been an initiative pushed by Democrats.
Popular as it may be to give away free medicine, the federal government has an atrocious record of running such entitlement programs efficiently or even honestly. By 2008, this new program—piled on top of entitlement programs already headed for insolvency—was costing tax payers nearly $50 billion annually. It was the single largest expansion of any entitlement program up to that date. (This was before Obamacare and the socialist takeover of the Democrat Party.)
At the time they passed the Democrat proposal, Republicans on Capitol Hill vacillated between saying they had to pass it if they wanted to get reelected in 2004 and lamely promising that the program would save lots of money in the long run. Either way, there was hardly anything “conservative” about it. Little wonder, really, that the Tea Party revolution that hit a few short years later would devour the Republican Party from the inside.
The record of Republican control in Washington—the so-called conservative party—was enough by itself to justify why Republican voters were so eager to run into the arms of Donald Trump. Voters had paid their dues, fallen in line, and held their noses long enough. It was time for a fresh new style and an honest path forward.
Truth is, Donald Trump has set ambitious goals and has significant accomplishments to show for it. But you cannot dispute the fact that he is still up against an increasingly socialist Democrat Party dead set to destroy him at every turn. And he is up against lingering forces of a Republican establishment in Washington that is also eager to destroy him at every turn.
Take the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, a promise Republicans in Washington had been making for years—long before Donald Trump ever announced for president. When he got elected president, he was ready and willing to sign anything Republicans in Congress sent him that repealed and replaced Obamacare. They choked. Or, as President Trump once memorably tweeted: they “chocked.”
That had absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump, except perhaps to underscore how he beat every other Republican for the nomination. Republicans in Washington had been lying to voters, playing empty politics and lazily refusing to do the hard work of actually backing up their promises. And then when Donald Trump got elected—something that establishment Republicans in Washington did not think could happen—they got caught flat-footed on their single biggest promise of the previous two elections.
Despite President Trump’s weak partners in Washington Republicans, he has racked up a significant record of success. Much of that has been accomplishments entirely on his own.
For example, moving our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem was no small feat. Nor was it something that particularly improves the everyday lives of regular Americans. The real importance of that move was more symbolic. It was proof to the world that President Trump was willing to do something all of his predecessors were afraid to do. It was proof he really did believe all the things he said during his campaign and he really did intend to make good on those promises. As shocking as that notion is among Washington politicians, it was a welcome relief for actual voters.
Similarly, Trump’s withdrawal from the bogus nuclear deal with Iran was not something that affected most Americans in their everyday lives. But it sent a powerful message about his willingness to tread where others feared to go. It also sent shock waves through foreign capitals that President Trump was no longer going to go along with the rest of the world to appease the wishes of the global elite. He intended to usher in a new era of putting America’s interest ahead of all others.
That is not to say President Trump intended to foist America on foreign countries. He was not envisio
ning “regime change” or “nation building” in foreign rat holes like Iraq or Syria. No, while he gladly embraces an “America first” agenda around the world, President Trump has no interest in wasting the money in some fantasy effort to make the whole rest of the world just like us.
So, he did not bomb or invade North Korea, which has developed into a terrifying threat to not only the Korean Peninsula and its immediate neighborhood, but now the entire world. Most of North Korea’s “progress” has come during the past two administrations—since North Korea was declared part of the global “Axis of Evil.” Instead, President Trump has sought the most robust and high-profile denuclearization talks in history.
Pie in the sky? Perhaps. Naive? Not nearly as naive as thinking you can effect “regime change” and “nation building” around the world without spending massive amounts of money and losing a tragic number of great Americans in the process. And it sure beats the hell out of some nonpeace deal under Obama that gave Iran billions of dollars—hundreds of millions in pallets of cash—in exchange for allowing Iran to keep their nuclear program.
If any doubts remained about President Trump’s willingness to rip up global accords and put America first, they vanished when he pulled the United States out of the Paris agreement aimed at combatting global warming.
As with all of these globalist climate-change boondoggles, they are designed to punish the most productive countries on the planet. They are the most devastating to developed countries like the United States that are not only productive but also believe in laws and abiding by agreed-upon rules. It was little wonder that President Obama entered into the agreement in the final months of his administration. He would be long gone by the time the punishing effects of the agreement took a full bite into the American economy and the quality of life of average Americans.
The greatest assault on private property during the Obama administration was the arbitrary rule set by the Environmental Protection Agency that made it possible for federal bureaucrats, with the flick of a pen, to pretty much place land anywhere under the jurisdiction of federal regulators.
Called the Waters of the United States (WOTUS), the 2015 land grab determined that the EPA had control over any backyard ditch, drainage area, or ravine where water gathered during rains. It took control of that property away from landowners and farmers and gave it to federal bureaucrats.
Never in modern times has the federal government—by fiat—attempted a more brazen or widespread invasion of property rights. It was the sort of thing you would see during the Cuban Revolution or under Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
The EPA ruling got hung up in court, which is often little solace to innocent landowners. Once the case got diverted to the federal courts, President Trump’s EPA dropped the whole matter by reversing the kleptocratic regulation.
President Trump’s greatest triumph over the federal bureaucracy was not overturning the EPA’s WOTUS land grab. The greatest triumph was clearing the way for Alaska to finally allow drilling for oil underneath the Arctic Ocean. For decades now, so-called environmentalists—the vast majority of whom have never been to Alaska—had successfully blocked efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This despite extensive scientific and industry advancements that allowed such drilling to be done safely and cleanly.
The late Ted Stevens spent forty-one years in the United States Senate and four years before that in the House of Representatives fighting for the right of Alaskans to tap into this vital natural resource. For years, Stevens would fight the environmental lobby on the Senate floor wearing his Incredible Hulk tie, a symbol for how angry he and his fellow Alaskans were to get pushed around by a bunch of environmental lobbyists who had never even set foot in Alaska.
Year after year, decade after decade, Ted Stevens was thwarted. Once, in 2005, it looked like Stevens might finally make good on his promise to open drilling in ANWR, only to be thwarted yet again at the last minute.
“‘This has been the saddest day of my life,’ said Mr. Stevens, 82, as he watched victory slip away again in his 25-year crusade for drilling in the refuge,” reported the New York Times at the time.
As improbable as it seems, it would be another eleven years before a Republican would come along and manage to open ANWR to drilling in Alaska. President Trump included a provision to allow drilling in the Republican’s 2017 tax overhaul. At first, President Trump was not even aware what a big deal it was until a friend of his in the energy business called him up and told him what a huge victory that would be.
“Are you kidding? That’s the biggest thing all by itself!” the friend told Trump, probably during “executive time” in the Oval Office. “Every president since Ronald Reagan has tried to get drilling in ANWR approved.”
Buoyed by this, President Trump called his negotiators and told them that whatever they did on the tax overhaul, don’t give up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sadly, former Alaska senator Ted Stevens had died seven years before in a plane crash and never got to see his dream come true.
CHAPTER THREE
President Trump announces his groundbreaking 5G internet plan from the White House (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
THE LEAST RACIST PERSON IN AMERICA
When the Obama campaign kicked me off their plane for writing what the spokesman called “the most insulting” column ever about Barack Obama, I was the Washington Bureau Chief for the New York Post. To this day, I would argue that our newspaper was giving a fair shake to Obama and his acolytes. Their dramatic reaction to this particular column was far more of a measure of the thinness of their skin than of the harshness of my column. But that incident and the flash of insight into the real character of the Obama campaign was a harbinger of things to come.
From my ringside seat for the Democrat primary match-up between Obama and Hillary Clinton, it was particularly satisfying to see Hillary’s dynastic entitlement machine get utterly torched—for the first time. That her crown was getting smacked off her head by an upstart Democrat out of nowhere with a Muslim name made it all the more delicious. And nothing was more satisfying than watching the red-faced rage building in former president Bill Clinton, who for some elusive reason fancied himself as “America’s first black president.”
One of the most revealing moments about the Clintons came in South Carolina after Obama eviscerated Hillary by thirty points. Bill Clinton, the fornicator in chief, responded the way Democrats so often do when their backs are against the wall. He pulled out the race card and played it as vigorously as he could.
Attempting to marginalize and racialize Barack Obama and his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, Bubba invoked another failed politician—who just happened to also be black. “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88,” he sniffed to reporters in Columbia. “Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign.”
It was as condescending as it was despicable. It was so bad that my editor and I wondered to each other whether Clinton was intentionally sabotaging his wife’s campaign. As a buddy of mine at the time noted, if Hillary were elected president, she would go down in history as America’s first woman president. Bubba would be left as a footnote, known as a lecherous ex-president who boffed an intern in the Oval Office. Intentional or not, watching the Clintons blow themselves up and get destroyed in the Democrat primary made it very hard for me to not like Barack Obama.
Now to be clear, a liberal Democrat from Illinois was never going to be a candidate that I would vote for. But going back to Obama’s speech at the 2004 convention, he was singing a different tune—a very fundamentally pro-America tune. He spoke of the importance of parents and families and how the government cannot read to children at night. That was a breath of fresh air from a Democrat. He offered a very unifying and patriotic vision. Again, we are talking about 2004, when Obama was still peddling “hope” everywhere he went. Also helping him was that he had zero record. While I was cautiously skeptical, everything
I knew about him sure beat the hell out of the Clintons. And it is certainly true that his being black had everything to do with his soaring success, or, as Bill Clinton would later call it, the “biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
Anyway, we at the New York Post gave Obama a fair shake.
And then along came the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Wright had been the Obamas’ pastor at Chicago’s politically connected Trinity United Church of Christ for the better part of thirty years. He officiated at the Obamas’ wedding and baptized both of their daughters. He was a firebrand.
Excerpts of some of Wright’s incendiary sermons leaked to the press in early spring of 2008.
He talked about America’s chickens coming home to roost, called America the “No. 1 killer in the world.” He said we deserved the 9/11 attacks and harangued about “white folks’ greed.” Wright also talked about “them Jews” controlling everything and warned of “white racist DNA” running through people’s brains. In one memorable sermon, he hollered: “U.S. of KKK A!”
It was as if he were running for racist in chief.
All of it was, shall we say, a wee bit off script from the sunny, positive, hopeful campaign Barack Obama had meticulously crafted. To be sure, Wright’s comments were incredibly racially prejudiced and divisive, fairly dripping with hatred, not to mention the jubilant espousal of reckless and irresponsible conspiracy theories about AIDS and Jews and the like.
Furthermore, politically speaking, it certainly was no way forward for America in terms of continuing the extraordinary strides toward equality we have enjoyed over the past fifty years.
“White folk done took this country,” Wright fumed in one sermon. “You’re in their home and they’re gonna let you know it. You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk and if you do not realize that you are in serious trouble.”
Still Winning : Our Last Hope to Be Great Again (9781546085287) Page 6
