April 27, 2017

Trump’s Biggest Achievement in His First 100 Days? Stopping the Left

Measure Trump’s first 100 days not just by looking at what he has or has not accomplished. Look at what America would have experienced under the alternative: Hillary Clinton.

President Donald Trump’s biggest achievement in his first 100 days? Easy. He stopped the Left.

Measure Trump’s first 100 days not just by looking at what he has or has not accomplished. Look at what America would have experienced under the alternative: Hillary Clinton.

Under Clinton, the debate would not be on how to replace Obamacare but how quickly can the Left realize its ultimate ambition, a Canadian-style, single-payer system. Under Clinton, the issue would not be how steep the tax cuts but how many “rich” people, also known as job creators, would experience yet another growth-restricting tax hike.

Under Clinton, the $100 billion-plus annually in new regulations imposed by President Barack Obama — much of it to fight “climate change” — would continue to rise. This has stopped. President Trump signed an executive order that requires an elimination of two regulations for every new regulation proposed by an executive department or agency in 2017, with a zero-dollar net increase in the cost of regulations.

Under Clinton, newly confirmed conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch would’ve been another Ruth Bader Ginsburg/Sonia Sotomayor/Elena Kagan clone. Four left-wing SCOTUS justices, in the Heller case, ruled that there is not an individual right to keep and bear arms. Spare us a fifth one.

Trump, too, has put the left-wing media on notice. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Through WikiLeaks, we found that John Harwood, a debate moderator, emailed a letter to Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, bragging about a question he had put to Donald Trump. He also emailed advice on dealing with the challenge posed by Dr. Ben Carson. Staffers for newsmen Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer of CNN contacted the Democratic National Committee to seek questions they might put to Republican presidential candidates. There were many other examples of flat-out collusion, well beyond the liberal bias we’ve come to expect.

President Trump also changed eight years of Obama’s “leading from behind” foreign policy by using our largest non-nuclear bomb on ISIS in Afghanistan and bombing Syria for its use of chemical weapons. Under Obama, we pulled out all the troops from Iraq, despite the objections of his foreign policy and national security and defense teams. One of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now-retired Army Gen. Ray Odierno, said: “I go back to the work we did in 2007 (through) 2010, and we got into a place that was really good. Violence was low, the economy was growing, politics looked like it was heading in the right direction. … We thought we had it going exactly in the right direction, but now we watch it fall apart. It’s frustrating. … I think, maybe, if we had stayed a little more engaged, I think maybe it might have prevented it.”

Under Obama, we bombed Libya, a mission that the Obama administration admitted was done for humanitarian reasons. Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had paid reparations for the terrorist explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. And following the American-led invasion of Iraq, Gadhafi had surrendered his weapons of mass destruction to the U.S. Yet under President Obama, America joined the French and British in bombing Libya to rid the country of Gadhafi. Incredibly, after criticizing President George W. Bush for not thinking through the invasion of Iraq, when Obama was asked what he thought was the “biggest mistake” of his presidency, Obama said, “Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”

For the most part, President Trump has delivered on his promises, or has attempted to deliver on them.

Take immigration. While the wall construction has not begun, nor has Trump been able to figure out a way to get Mexico to pay for it, a psychological wall has already gone up. Border-crossing apprehensions were down more than 60 percent from January to March, after Trump made it clear the welcome mat for illegal entry has been rolled up.

As for the so-called “failure” to repeal and replace Obamacare, business people nevertheless have confidence that whatever emerges will be less expensive, less onerous and less intrusive than what they would have faced under a President Hillary Clinton.

Ultimately, Trump will likely be judged on one thing — the economy. If he manages a 4 percent GDP growth, as promised during the campaign, few will care about his nocturnal tweets.

After 100 days of Trump, the earth did not open up and swallow America. His critics can crawl out from under the bed. The stock market has hit record highs; small-business and consumer confidence polls show optimism in levels not seen anywhere from 10 to nearly 40 years, depending upon the poll. Something is happening.

When Ronald Reagan died, George Will wrote: “Today Americans gratefully recall that at a turbulent moment in their national epic, Reagan became the great reassurer, the steadying captain of our clipper ship. He calmed the passengers — and the sea.”

It’s not too soon to wonder whether someday something similar might be said of President Trump.

COPYRIGHT 2017 LAURENCE A. ELDER

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.