Trump was a great President

Although he may have been a reprehensible person

Liberals in Canada and Democrats in United States can’t help themselves from attacking Donald Trump and the mainstream media and late night comics made a fortune making fun of him. For good reason, his demeanour was a long way from Presidential. But in retrospect, he was a far better President than Obama or Biden and makes our Prime Minister look silly by comparison.

People conflate Trump’s personality with his policies. There is plenty to criticize in his personality but his polices were robust. In many ways, Trump’s image is the reverse of Justin Trudeau’s. Trudeau is an attractive young man, speaks well, reeks empathy and is entirely out of his depth when it comes to policy. Trump is a vile, narcissistic, self-indulged reprobate but when it comes to policy, he strengthened United States materially.

Let’s review the bidding on major items:

Climate Change - Trudeau spouts this toxic rhetoric on daily basis, gripped with a specious belief that CO2 causes climate change which it demonstably does not. His policies attacked Canada’s most important industry and helped create the global energy shortage this is pulverizing the economies of Europe and the United Kingdom. Trump rejected the “climate change” nonsense out of hand (correctly) and spurred expansion of the U.S. energy industry making America energy independent. Biden is squandering that advance with stupid “transition” to “renewables” policies that are destined for total failure.

COVID - Trudeau enacted policies that damaged Canada promoting masking and social distancing policies since found useless and mandating vaccines even for people with little risk of either infection or a seriously adverse outcome. He flailed at the problem preferring smarmy speeches to effective action. Trump led the Operation Warpspeed program that produced a vaccine in months, not years, saving millions of lives worldwide. Biden rode the coattails of Trump’s achievement trying his best to take the credit for the vaccination programs he was handed.

NATO - Trump strengthened NATO and compelled allies to ante up their share of the costs. Trudeau let the Canadian military languish in a underfunded state and never led Canada to carrying its share of the NATO burden. Canada is ineffectual in having any ability to support Ukraine during Russia’s invasion.

Immigration - Trump enacted policies to control immigration. Trudeau let immigration into Canada outpace housing stock growth driving housing to unaffordable levels. Biden opened the Southern border so that millions of undocumented aliens have entered U.S. with thousands more coming every day.

Trade - Trump renegotiated trade deals, curbed the inroads by Huawei and ZTE into U.S. telecommunications and renegotiated NAFTA. Trudeau did squat but corss his legs and sign the deal.

Taxes - Trump lowered taxes across the board and, importantly, lowered corporate taxes which are in fact a tax on corporations’ customers, not paid by the corporations but passed through. Biden enacted a corporate “minimum tax” punishing those least able to afford the higher costs.

Foreign Policy - Trump correctly saw China and Russia as the real enemies of Democracy and negotiated an orderly withdrawal from the endless war in Afghanistan. Obama had fiddled around with Afghanistan and Biden clumsily executed a disorganized withdrawal leaving many Americans and allies at the mercy of the Taliban.

Trump’s list of accomplishments is substantial:

• 7 million new jobs created

• Middle class income up about $6,000

• Unemployment down to 3.5%

• Jobless claims at a 50 year low

• 160 million Americans employed

• Deregulation, reducing compliance costs by $50 billion a year

• Removed 25,000 pages from the Federal register (Obama had added 16,000)

• Reduced approval times for infrastructure from 10 years to 2 years

• Removed the costly and useless fuel economy mandates

• Withdrew from the nonsensical Paris Climate Agreement

• Negotiated USMCA to replace NAFTA

• Negotiated freer trade with Japan

• Approved Keystone XL (later stopped by Biden, but wouldn’t America like that pipeline today with gasoline prices going nowhere but up).

• Doubled the child tax credit to $2,000 from $1,000

And, many many more positive accomplishments.

I am always impressed by the propensity of Canadian and American voters to confuse form with substance. Obama was a terrible President but a nice person. Trudeau is presentable but inept. Biden is useless. Trump was a despicable person who was a great President.

The world is now entering the phase where the stupidity of left wing voters will bite back. The “climate change” fueled global energy shortage is growing deeper. The rampant and reckless government spending which was little more than throwing money at COVID set the stage for surging inflation and rising fossil fuel prices are pouring gasoline on that fire. Many world economies are on the verge of collapse, and Biden enacts an “Inflation Reduction Act” which will add to inflation. Trudeau has gone to ground vacationing in Costa Rica (possibly where his offshore donations from the WE scandal have landed?) and appointing climate extremists like Steven Guilbault to Cabinet where they can do real damage not only to Canada but to developing economies worldwide.

If we have a cold winter, the energy shortage will kill millions and impoverish many more. Watch this space for further articles on the damage the left wing is doing to democracies everywhere.