Originally posted November 11, 2020
https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/3466-what-america-lost-and-what-it-gained
At the time of this writing, there is no certified winner of the 2020 presidential election. Do not inform the Democrats, the media, or Big Tech, however, as they are inappropriately referring to Joe Biden as “President-Elect” while there is pending legal action in multiple states. If President Trump should end his tenure after one term, it will be the most accomplished term in decades, and truly shows what America would lose with him out of the White House.
Trump’s foreign policy has been the highlight of his presidency. He signed new trade deals, stopped aggression from North Korea and Russia, and pushed allies to contribute more to NATO. He withdrew from the UN Human Rights Watch, defunded Palestinian terror, and put new sanctions on Iran. He facilitated the greatest peace in the Middle East in a quarter century. Trump-haters will point to polling of Trump among the residents of America’s allies, but that bears no relevance to his accomplishments around the world.
Compare that to what will most likely come from a Biden-Harris administration. Joe Biden has been wrong on every matter of foreign policy for four decades, so there is little hope that he will get it right now. Harris already said that the Palestinian Authority will be funded, despite the fact that they pay terrorists to murder Israelis. Any further signees to the Abraham Accords will certainly balk at the prospect of joining the stage with Joe Biden. North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia will all be emboldened. NATO will continue to take advantage of the United States because they know that Biden will not have the spine to enforce their promises. It’s the same with the Paris Accords, which Biden will certainly rejoin, despite the fact that there is no enforcement mechanism to the greatest climate polluters on the planet.
Trump also had a knack to facilitate economic growth by cutting regulations in the executive branch. These cut regulations allowed business to thrive without the burden of compliance. That is no longer a given, as Biden was part of the administration that added tens of thousands of pages of regulations annually. This will hurt business and stunt the economic growth needed after the pandemic.
There is good news for anyone fearing a Biden-Harris administration, though, which is that they will not have the legislative backing they needed to accomplish their most extreme predilections, like packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster and so on. Currently, the Republicans have a 50-48 Senate lead with two runoff elections in Georgia on the way, and the House differential is razor thin, only a few votes. The Democrats will have a hard time holding together a coalition of the deep-blue radical Left (like the “Squad”) and the purple district moderates. If Pelosi retains the Speakership of the House, she will have a hard time bridging that divide.
Then there are the State Houses, which netted Republicans over 100 seats around the country. This is vital in 2020, as it is a census year. Now Republicans in many states will be in control of redistricting (although not in New York, where Republican members of the State Senate and Assembly may have new constituents to appeal to), so those states may stay reliably Red for a decade.
This should be a source of solace for those dismayed by the results in the Presidential election, although that is still undecided. The election is not over. It took five weeks to decide the election of 2000, and the issues in this election, especially with mail-in votes, makes that election look like child’s play.
The stories of voter irregularities are overwhelming the Trump legal team, who are mounting a strong case to contest the results in multiple states. It is a difficult and confusing road, as each state has its own issues. For example, in Antrim County, Michigan, a glitch in the software used to count ballots counted 6,000 Trump votes for Biden. This glitch was discovered, and the ballots switched – but this same software has been used in 47 of Michigan’s 83 counties. An investigation is underway to determine if other counties’ numbers are incorrect.
In Pennsylvania, it is required by law for all mail-in ballots to be inspected before opening; however, there is evidence to suggest that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, were not inspected. If the court rules that those must be rejected, and many of those votes were for Biden, the state could flip to Trump.
No Trump voter should be overly optimistic that this election will be overturned, but they also shouldn’t give up, either. Choosing your battles is important in politics – as in life – and this battle is one that must be fought. Five states have a vote difference of less than one percent. Win or lose, the 70 million Americans who voted for President Trump deserve a free and fair election, one beyond question. Every American deserves that.
If you think 2020 can’t get any crazier, consider this: If Biden gets Georgia, and Trump gets Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, there is a 269-269 tie. Buckle up: The year isn’t over yet.
