By Engr. Edgar Mana-ay
150 million Americans will decide if Pres. Donald Trump deserves a second term. Although advance mail voting is ongoing and nearly a half have voted, tomorrow November 3 is the day when the majority of Americans will cast their vote.
Donald Trump is among the few U.S. presidents who have accomplished so much in his first term and yet trailing his opponent Joe Biden by as much as 8 points a month before the election, closing the gap to only 2 points on the eve of election day.
It is because Trump is also one of the most bitterly despised presidents ever to serve the U.S. Haters rarely talk about his policies and accomplishments but focus on his personal style like his outsized ego, thin-skinned and braggadocio, his penchant for bending facts in his direction and his propensity on bashing back bitterly against those who attacked him first.
Unlike our DU30 whose personality endears himself to the masses, Trump’s personality and style trigger contempt, disdain and scorn among some Americans.
The election tomorrow is the most important US election since 1850 because the future of America’s representative democracy is at stake. The Democrats plan to change fundamental policies that will cripple earnings and economic vitality of the country. It is planning to change the rules that have governed America since 1789 because their sole purpose is to achieve permanent power.
Are the American voters intelligent enough (as perceived worldwide) NOT TO MAKE THE NOVEMBER 3 ELECTION A REFERENDUM ON THE PERSONALITY OF TRUMP BUT A REFERENDUM ON HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND WHAT MORE HE CAN DO IN HIS SECOND TERM COMPARING TO WHAT BIDEN AND HIS DEMOCRAT COHORTS PROMISES TO DO. On this eve of the election, Pres. Donald Trump is in danger of losing his re-election bid despite his colossal accomplishments.
Aided by his gutsy, forceful and very strong personality plus his successes in the business world, no president in the past, on the first term, had engineered the following enormous accomplishments that will last and be remembered in the years to come.
The tariff war against China. Trump is the only US president who is brave enough to confront China on its one-sided trade arrangement with the U.S. Detractors predicted it would spark a worldwide trade war and diminish the economy. Instead, US growth accelerated and the tariff offered Trump a self-created cudgel to force China to sit down and re-negotiate decades of unfair trade practices that cost several millions of US jobs. By standing up to bully China (Trump is the stronger bully!), it has benefited the Philippines in its South China Sea dispute with China. China cannot now bully its way in the SCS with the regular patrol of a US naval flotilla.
Negotiation for peace in the Middle East. Obama’s Secretary of State and Iran lapdog John Kerry insisted that any peace agreement is not possible without including the Palestinian issue at the center of everything. Trump brokered a peace agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain by-passing the Palestinian West Bank problem. Many believed that no peace treaty can be achieved without FIRST the creation of an independent Palestinian state but Trump did just that!
Getting tough on Iran. The media and Democrats were aghast when Trump pulled out of the 2015 Obama-negotiated, much-cheated Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA gave Iran sanctions relief and access to $150 billion of its frozen cash (delivered upon order of Obama to Iran by plane) which in turn Iran used mostly to finance Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias and terrorist groups. Trump re-imposed punishing sanctions which have devastated Iran’s economy. Last December they predicted a third world war when Trump ordered the liquidation of Iran Chief Terrorist Suliemani at Baghdad airport. Instead, last September 20, the Iranian government offered a full prisoner exchange with the U.S. and its nuclear bomb program has been set back by two years.
Pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. To this writer, this was a masterpiece move despite the insistence of Democrats that this move would set the world on fire. As his opponent Joe Biden previously and accurately argued, the U.S. represents only a minor and shrinking share of global emission, hence should not be tied up by the Paris accord to “save” the world from its perceived global warming. Recent records show that the US carbon emission fell to low levels last seen in 1985, despite 35 years of rapid industrial developments. The green Democrat program of net-zero carbon emission and phasing out of the oil industry by 2050 is stupid and impossible to attain.
Boosting the US economy. Democrats are bragging that the 8 years Obama period economic growth was the new normal at 2%-at-best GDP growth. In the first 3 years of the Trump era, GDP growth was 50% faster. Half a million jobs done overseas returned, and more are on the way. Unemployment rate hit an all-time low for Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Women. Personal income rose by almost 7%, the highest increase in record keeping. My daughter can attest to this, as she is in the Plumbing Contracting business.
Fulfilling his campaign promise of “Make America Great Again” and “Draining the Swamp”, Trump cut taxes and an outstanding amount of red tape, stimulating immediate economic growth. Pre-COVID employment was at a record high which outpaced the 8-years of Obama sluggish growth.
Making America ENERGY INDEPENDENT AND NET EXPORTER for the first time in history. The US is now the top producer in the entire world for both oil and natural gas at 18 million barrels per day (mbd) bigger than Saudi Arabia and Russia. About 2/3 of that energy is produced through Fracking (refer to my Feb. 3 and March 16 TDG column on fracking). The terror green platform of Biden forcibly pushed down his throat by the green mafia of Bernie Sanders and Ocasio Cortes is to totally ban fracking and eliminate the oil industry by 2035 which both Biden and Harris concurred on tape but denied in the 2nd debate. The effect of energy independence on American national and foreign policy cannot be overstated. This is quite a record for any administration, no matter how distasteful the president is.
In 2016 all surveys until the eve of the election predicted an overwhelming victory for Hillary but Trump made the greatest upset by winning the electoral college vote (304 to 227) while losing in the direct voting (62,984,828 to 65,863,514). Who made the difference at that time? It was the silent majority, the Americans who love America! These are the people who believed in a President that will build and maintain a strong economy and will keep America safe. This is the enthusiasm metric, (the attraction of a bold, decisive and strong leader despite its haughty personality), seldom used by pollsters which puts Trump at 56% ahead of Biden 46%. It would be for the good of all Filipinos including the entire family of this writer living in the US that Pres. Trump is given a second mandate to continue his program. My fearless forecast: Trump will lose the popular vote by a slim margin of one million but will win 280 electoral college votes to propel him for a second term.
