by Patrick J. Byrne and Peter Westmore
In just over a month, Americans will go to the polls to elect the country’s president for the years 2021-24, in an election where the dividing line between the incumbent Republican, Donald Trump (pictured), and his Democrat challenger, Joe Biden, is extraordinarily wide. Trump vs. Biden shows us that this may be the most important presidential election in a generation.
The differences between the populist President and his challenger reflect the deep cleavages in American society.
These are seen in the divisions between social conservatism and left-wing radicalism; between the sentiments of “middle America” and the dominant left-wing media; pro-life and anti-life policies; and between American independence and U.S. dependence on the UN, the IPCC, the World Trade Organisation and other global agencies.
Despite his unpredictable character and excessive attachment to Twitter and other social media, for the past four years Donald Trump has recast American politics.
He has encouraged the development of American oil and gas resources, making the United States energy independent for the first time in 50 years.
He introduced tax cuts and encouraged the expansion of American industry, including the repatriation of businesses that had set up manufacturing plants abroad, creating increasing wealth for American workers and businesses.
INTERNATIONAL
Internationally, he signalled an end to American submissiveness to the UN and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by withdrawing from the IPCC, and ended the American Government’s endorsement of the international campaign to end the use of fossil fuels, including coal, petrol, diesel and gas.
President Trump also ended U.S. Government funding for population control programs and abortion in developing countries, including funding of International Planned Parenthood, a global abortion provider.
Within America, Trump repeatedly clashed with the left-liberal media networks that had lobbied for the Democrats in the 2016 election and sought to bring him down by alleging that he had stolen the 2016 election with Russian support.
The media also promoted the almost unprecedented impeachment of Donald Trump, a clear and anti-democratic attempt to subvert the will of the people, expressed in the last presidential election.
The Democratic Party showed its visceral hostility to Trump by pushing the impeachment motion through the House of Representatives, where they have a majority, before it was defeated in the Senate last February.
It should be said that Trump, on his election, sought to reset America’s sour relations with Russia after 2016, just as he tried to build better relations with China and North Korea.
But when evidence of Russian political interference in the United States and other countries mounted, Trump rightly put relations with Russia back into the freezer.
He did the same when China launched a range of actions designed to attack American interests in the South China Sea, employed anti-American trade policies and cyber-espionage on U.S. corporations, and attempted to interfere in U.S. politics by subverting U.S. businessmen and politicians.
Trump called out China, imposed unprecedented trade tariffs, and strengthened U.S. ties with traditional allies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and brokered peace treaties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
It is true that Trump’s response to the covid19 pandemic has been confused and confusing, but his actions have been mirrored in American states where Democrats are in control.
America’s poor response to the covid19 crisis has been adversely affected by extreme doctrines of individualism widely held by people on all sides of American politics, and the naive view that the impact would be least felt through so-called “herd immunity”.
Once it became clear that the epidemic was having disastrous consequences for America and its economy, Trump threw the weight of the U.S. Government behind efforts to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic, and billions into the development of covid19 vaccines.
If Trump wins, he will continue the rebuilding of America promised in his phrase, “Make America great again”.
Although Joe Biden has vast experience in government as a Senator and later as President Barack Obama’s Vice-President, he won the Democratic Party primaries only after securing the endorsement of the black caucus, the powerful radical feminist network, the left-wing media and the anti-life coalition backed by some of America’s richest men, including Bill Gates. Again we see here the vast difference when considering Trump vs. Biden.
If elected, Biden will be completely controlled by the forces that have backed him into the presidency. The stakes could not be higher.
Patrick J. Byrne is national president of the National Civic Council, and Peter Westmore is the immediate past president.
