In contrast to previous administrations who weakly pursued diplomacy with the stench of American apology, President Trump has put the international community on notice that he has no intention of apologizing for American exceptionalism and every intention of negotiating with an attitude of America first to secure for America the best deals possible that benefit America while also benefiting our international partners.
Ronald Reagan shocked the international community when he fired the striking air traffic controllers early in his administration. Members of the international community got the message that President Reagan was not a man to be trifled with as the international community recalibrated its posture towards America under President Reagan. Where President Carter showed ineptitude and weakness pursuing peace grounded in his religious convictions, Reagan set about strengthening America’s military and calling out the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire.” President Reagan initiated a plan to build out a 600-ship Navy to protect American interests across the world’s oceans along with a missile defense system intended to negate the Soviet arsenal of ICBMs aimed at America. Realizing the handwriting on the wall, Soviet Premier Gorbachev initiated the policies of glasnost and perestroika while admitting that the Soviet Union lacked the financial resources to compete militarily with the United States. Just a few short years later, the Iron Curtain fell and the Soviet Union disappeared into the dustbin of history.
The left never gave President Reagan the credit he deserved for initiating the fall of the Soviet Union and ending the Cold war which had threatened the planet with the specter of nuclear holocaust for over forty years. As he campaigned in 1980, the press referred to Reagan as a cowboy with an itchy trigger finger who would lead America into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union for daring to be aggressive with the Soviets. Americans weary of the Cold War and its threat of nuclear annihilation overwhelmingly chose Reagan over the weak and inept Jimmy Carter who allowed American hostages to languish in Iran for over a year while managing to get American soldiers killed in a poorly planned and executed rescue attempt.
With historical precedent familiar to current events, President Reagan initiated bold tax reform policies to get the moribund American economy jumpstarted after years of Carter’s economic malaise of Stagflation. Reagan put the international community on notice that they were now dealing with an American leader determined to put America first by aggressively protecting American interests around the globe. The response to Reagan’s policies was an unprecedented era of economic expansion coupled with a newfound diplomatic respect from the international community. Those leaders who wished to test President Reagan’s resolve such as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi found themselves staring at the point of the American spear as U.S. warplanes suddenly appeared to drive home the seriousness of Reagan’s resolve.
President Reagan’s aggressive diplomacy and economic reform enabled America to enjoy a time of peace and prosperity in the 1990s which resulted in Americans forgetting that the Peace Dividend achieved through Reagan’s policies was peace itself. Having learned nothing of history, opportunistic politicians sought to hollow out the defense budget and transfer its funding to domestic policies in a repetition of the historical lessons of American responses to previous conflicts. Since World War II, America has sought to turn from the hardships of war to rebuilding on the domestic front. The strengthened military which so recently secured our victory is downsized to unsustainable levels and sent home as if the final peace has been achieved and they will never be needed again. And, following these downsizings, the inevitable despot concludes that America has no appetite for conflict and seeks to expand his sphere of influence at our expense only to slowly rouse America back into another military conflict.
So it went once again in the 1990s as Democrat Bill Clinton sought to beat American swords into plowshares as he wasted the international gains secured by President Reagan. President Clinton repeatedly ignored the growing threat of Islamic terrorism to the point of covering up Islamic terrorist attacks and downplaying the ability of the Islamic terrorists to strike America. Clinton spent the last part of his tenure embroiled in scandal spending his political capital on preserving his administration instead of preparing America for the looming threat of Islamic terrorism. Clinton had campaigned on the theme of American isolationism long favored by the left unable to articulate any reason sufficient to initiate a war and contemptuous of American exceptionalism in the first place.
President George W. Bush campaigned as a compassionate conservative as if conservatism were so tarnished that it required an amplifying reminder that compassion was still a component. The weakness displayed by the Clinton administration in dealing with the rise of Islamic terrorism was soon visited on the Bush administration in the form of the 9/11 attacks which forced even radical lefty Democrats to admit required a military response from America. In a repeat of history, America was caught flatfooted by a surprise attack akin to that of the Japanese at Pearl Harbor as Islamic terrorists managed to infiltrate America, prepare their attacks by attending American flight schools, and launch their attacks undetected despite numerous red flags ignored by government officials busy abiding by rules instead of showing personal initiative.
The Bush administration overreacted in its response to the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks by passing the blatantly unconstitutional Patriot Act giving the government unprecedented ability to spy on Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment and creating the Department of Homeland Security which added additional bureaucratic layers to government agencies suddenly needing the ability to respond quickly and effectively to this new threat picture. The shortsightedness of these policies has been born out with the political spying scandal launched by the Obama administration against Candidate Trump, and the poor response to Hurricane Katrina as the Bush administration FEMA flailed about helplessly while thousands of Louisiana residents suffered needlessly because of its unpreparedness.
In an effort to demonstrate American resolve in confronting the stateless Islamic terrorists, the Bush administration embarked upon a war against Afghanistan from which the Islamic terrorists under Osama bin Laden had trained and launched the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban government quickly folded and fled the country unable to respond to the technologically superior American military, and America installed Hamid Karzai as Afghan president as it settled into the role of Afghan occupier which had proven so destructive to the Soviet Union back in the 1980s. The Afghan defeat failed to properly satisfy America’s appetite for revenge, so the Bush administration settled on invading Iraq to finally depose perennial sore spot Saddam Hussein and gain a footprint in the Mideast.
The misadventures of the Bush administration in seeking to demonstrate American military power and resolve against an enemy having no state and no fear of dying provided an opening exploited by the left to convince Americans that the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were ill-conceived and unnecessary as Osama bin Laden was the real enemy which the Bush administration had neglected to focus upon due to its distractions in nation building and colonialism. Americans opted to turn from the poorly articulated and prosecuted Mideast wars launched by the Bush administration to Barack Obama and his promises to end these wars to focus on the domestic front.
The Obama administration promptly demonstrated why Democrats are so inept at foreign policy and military matters as President Obama launched his American Apology tour of the Mideast bowing and groveling to regional despots. Obama left American exceptionalism in tatters while sending the unmistakable message that America would be weak and ineffective under his administration. Obama later made the colossal military mistake of announcing a timetable for American withdrawal from Afghanistan on which the grateful Taliban promptly based its strategy of lying low until we departed to relaunch its conquest of Afghanistan. The international community fell upon America to take full advantage of the weakness displayed by the Obama administration. Obama’s infamous “Red Line in the Sand” declaration threatening Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad with retaliation for the use of chemical weapons went unfulfilled as Assad promptly gassed his own people while Obama dithered and did nothing. Obama entered into negotiations with the Iranians under the premise that he would achieve a deal at all costs as the Iranians took advantage of his inability to negotiate to extract billions of dollars of hard currency from America while giving itself every advantage to be able to continue development of its nuclear weapons and delivery programs.
Candidate Trump campaigned on a promise to restore American exceptionalism and respect around the world while also promising to tear up flawed trade deals and international agreements negotiated by prior administrations which put America at a disadvantage to the international community. Americans, including large segments of voters who traditionally supported Democrats, responded by choosing Trump over scandal-ridden Democrat Hillary Clinton in a repeat of the 1980 campaign which saw Reagan enthusiastically extol that America’s best days lay ahead in contrast to the sour countenance and despair of President Carter. Candidate Trump promised to Make America Great Again and millions of Americans instinctively knew exactly what he was talking about while Hillary promoted divisiveness in extolling women and minorities as dispossessed groups requiring special rights. Trump saw great things for America while Hillary only saw more of the same Democrat negativity pitting Americans against each other.
Like Reagan, Candidate Trump was portrayed by the lefty media as a cowboy with an itchy trigger finger who would get us into another war. Trump was depicted as the most evil demon in world history as the biased media attempted to paint him in the most unflattering terms they could imagine. Media savvy Trump outed the media for its biased fake news attacking him and turned Americans against the media in collusion with the Democrats. Their attempts to negatively portray Trump only reinforced the belief by his supporters that he was the right man for the job. Despite being wrong at every turn and despite the numerous accomplishments President Trump has achieved to reignite the economy and bring respect to America on the international front, the left continues to mercilessly attack Trump as Americans flee from their bias in droves. Blinded by their bias, the media elite are incapable of recognizing their ineffectiveness or readjusting their focus, and so President Trump continues his effective march towards a second term while the Democrat Party implodes with its drastic turn to a radical far left agenda overwhelmingly rejected by mainstream America.
Internationally, President Trump has forced a defiant Mexico to the bargaining table in an attempt to preserve its access to the American market. Mexico has agreed to renegotiate the flawed NAFTA deal which saw American jobs and prosperity flow to Mexico as millions of Mexicans illegally flowed across our borders to compete with American workers and drive down wages. Congressional Democrats continue to obstruct President Trump’s promise to build the border wall as Mexico defiantly swears it will never pay for that wall while Trump continues to insist the wall will be built and Mexico will end up paying for it. As Mexico humbles itself to preserve some form of the NAFTA deal, it’s looking more like President Trump will end up being correct on the border wall.
Upon taking office, President Trump promptly pulled America out of the flawed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration. This horrible trade deal would have further solidified China’s economic dominance of Asia at America’s expense and provided the foundation from which China could challenge the United States for world economic dominance. Chinese threats have been met with a firm resolve to protect America and American interests by the Trump administration. China may appear to be an economic giant poised to challenge America, but this is an illusion masking China’s overwhelming debt incurred to keep Chinese unemployment low for fear of hordes of starving Chinese from rioting against the Chinese leadership. Without access to American markets and the lust of American manufacturers for cheap Chinese labor, China’s economy would collapse in short order as the Chinese know full well. The Chinese threats issued against the Trump administration come from a frightened leadership desperate to preserve the status quo.
Americans have been horrified by the details which have subsequently leaked out concerning the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration. Americans instinctively know that Iranian access to nuclear weapons will lead to nuclear blackmail and their potential for use against America by the terrorist groups sponsored by the Iranian leadership. Since the Iranian revolution which saw American hostages brutally treated by the Iranian theocracy and the numerous threats issued by Iranian leaders against America as the “Great Satan” with chants of “Death to America,” Americans have not once been presented with any evidence which would redeem the Iranian theocracy or lead Americans in any way to suddenly trust this brutal regime. The thought of Iranians gaining nuclear weapons horrifies Americans who see the Iranian regime sponsoring brutal terrorist groups dedicated to the destruction of our regional ally Israel and America itself.
Americans were rightly disgusted to learn after the fact that the Obama administration secretly delivered a planeload of cash to the Iranian regime as part of the terms of the Iranian Nuclear Deal. This massive cash infusion allowed the Iranian regime to continue funding its terrorist front groups operating in Syria to oppose Israel and Sunni Arabs as it seeks to establish a crescent of influence across the Mideast. The suspension of trade sanctions which had effectively brought Iran to its knees has allowed Iran to embark on an economic recovery its leaders had hoped would placate internal factions rioting across the country from the economic hardships suffered because of the Iranian regime’s insistence on acquiring nuclear weapons at the expense of its people. The reestablishment of these severe economic sanctions has led to an increase of internal instability as protests continue sweeping across Iran from a frustrated populace.
The Iranian regime has issued threats of pulling out of the deal themselves to continue their uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons program, and President Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing America from the flawed deal was initially met with the same threat followed by an announcement that Iran would remain in the deal. These Iranian threats are the hollow rants of a regime with more to fear from its own people than the rest of the world, and the realization that it has no cards left to play in this game. The biased media liberals were shocked to discover universal praise for President Trump coming from Mideast countries happy to have an American president exerting a strong hand in the region to curb the influence of the Iranian theocracy hated throughout the region.
Various administrations have allowed the Korean peninsula to remain in a stalemate of war suspended by an armistice negotiated some seventy years ago. The Kim dynasty which has ruled North Korea during this time has been allowed by progressively weaker administrations to develop nuclear weapons which have dramatically increased regional instability and threatened South Korea with nuclear annihilation. The Kim international playbook, handed down from generation to generation, has called for North Korean threats to reignite war which have been predictably followed by western pleas for peace followed by massive cash infusions to placate the North Korean leadership. This playbook worked well under Kim Il-sung and even better under his son Kim Jong-il whose nuclear weapons development program finally initiated North Korea into the nuclear club, but grandson Kim Jong-un has met his match in President Trump who is in no mood to take any more crap from a belligerent North Korea. Kim Jong-un’s attempts to use the family plan for international diplomacy has failed spectacularly as President Trump has outclassed Kim’s rhetoric while instructing Defense Secretary James Mattis to prepare a military response to negate North Korea as a source of regional instability.
The liberal media, the Never Trumper establishment Republicans, and the lefty Democrats have all screamed to the rafters that President Trump risked unnecessarily antagonizing Kim stuck as they are with their myopic establishment responses and fear of thinking outside the establishment box. To his credit, President Trump has ignored their clamor and followed his own instincts which have again proven remarkably prescient to the situation. As President Trump failed to respond as predicted by the Kim family playbook, the reigning Kim began to doubt the veracity of the family guidebook and has sought to deescalate both his rhetoric towards the west and his aggressive stance towards the region. President Trump’s actions have sent the message loud and clear that he does not intend to allow Kim to blackmail him into providing either a cash infusion or sanctions relief. President Trump is aided in this response by a compliant China cognizant of its economic weakness and how the closure of American markets as threatened by President Trump could exacerbate its own internal strife. China is providing leverage against North Korea to protect its own interests that reinforces the message that the world has changed for North Korea.
The respect accorded to America by the international community has come because of the aggressive leadership displayed by President Trump. The liberal media and the establishment Republicans can deny this all they want, but it remains a fact still. The American people are rejoicing at having a president who keeps his promises, improves America domestically with tax and regulatory reform, restores American prestige abroad, and does all of this at an unprecedented rate never experienced by this generation of Americans. President Trump’s accomplishments have left his detractors with egg on their face as he succeeds despite their predictions, and left Democrats without the ability to respond using their tired old playbook of racial and class animosity to divide Americans against one another. Liberal media predictions of a midterm blue wave are nothing more than fake news to be ignored by President Trump’s supporters, while his accomplishments continue to win over doubters seeing for themselves the effectiveness of his administration.
Independent Conservative 