By Mark Anderson
Brace yourselves for the ramifications of a Joe Biden presidency. The good thing is, when and if that happens, Biden would most certainly have to continue certain popular populist Trumpian policies so as not to alienate those tens of millions of voters who learned about, began to appreciate, and benefitted from the president’s America-first policies.
For example, former Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh recently noted on the “Real Clear Politics” website that Biden’s “Build Back Better” promises will almost have to mean, as Biden has noted, a policy to buy American steel as part of an innovative construction and industrial resurgence plan for the United States. The Biden camp has also gone on record saying that, under a Biden administration, a policy of “Made in All of America” with all American workers is a top priority. Biden may be kissing up to Trump voters here, but he would be foolhardy to do otherwise, given the profound manufacturing, wage, and stock market upticks that Trump achieved—and which help many of the traditionally Democratic union workers who stuck with Biden.
Yet Trump’s legacy extends far beyond that. Consider that he:
- created the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade pact and nixed the noxious NAFTA accord that the globalists used to economically gore American workers for over 25 years;
- made the Republican party into a more populist- conservative organization that has won over significant portions of the working class to support a party whose reputation was previously that of pandering to Wall Street, the creditor/banking class, and “big business” in general;
- whittled down Middle Eastern troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan to record lows, apparently en route to a total withdrawal to effectively end a large part of the post-9/11 “war on terror” launched by the neoconservative wing of the GOP that Trump has effectively neutered. In fact, many of them have fled the GOP to take refuge under the Democrat banner;
- and, among other things, Trump achieved historic peace accords between Israel and several of its longtime Arab critics. Some analysts believe that Israel will now be obligated to define its borders, which, in turn, might quell Israeli expansionist tendencies and contribute to a more lasting Middle Eastern peace. Time will tell.
In addition, “Under the Trump administration the church enjoys a safe space in which to carry out her mission,” says Michael Voris, director of the Michigan-based Catholic media outlet “The Church Militant,” referring to Trump’s moves to open doors that enable traditional Catholic moral imperatives to protect the unborn to flourish. Case in point: Trump’s multi-faceted domestic and foreign policy legacy includes a September 2020 executive order to protect the lives of babies who survive abortion and those born prematurely or with disabilities.
That move by Trump supplements his earlier moves as president to do away with the requirement on Catholic and other religious institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraception and other “reproductive health” coverage to their employees—coverage that ran against the moral code of those institutions. And Trump early on also loosened the restrictions on churches becoming more politically involved, a clear First Amendment victory.
So, if Trump, a non-Catholic, must step aside for the presidency of Biden, who’s technically a Catholic, the question is: Just how far would Biden dare go—given the many pro-Democrat Catholics who supported him despite his support for abortion—to repeal these particular Trumpian changes?
Would a Biden White House want to repeal Trump’s other legacy-level changes, such as his more recent announcement that the United States will begin to manufacture many more of its own medicines (instead of importing such products from China and elsewhere) and obtain a most-favored-nation status enabling the U.S. to purchase prescription drugs at the highly reduced prices enjoyed by Europeans? Nor should we forget that Trump adjusted the ground rules so if a person goes to the pharmacy, the pharmacist is now free to openly suggest a generic drug alternative that saves consumers money, whereas previously pharmacists were forbidden to mention generic options.
AFP would be remiss not to mention the granddaddy legacy item of all: Trump’s almost singlehanded calling out of just how fake the mass media really is.
Thanks to Donald Trump, “Deep State” and “Fake News” are household terms (as is the word “tariff”) acquainting the average America with the deeper realities of power politics, which AFP and other alternative media have been laboring to expose for decades. Someone with a bully pulpit and the right brand of courage was needed to drive such points home: That someone was Donald J. Trump.
Such a broad legacy is no easy thing to modify or overturn. Sure, Biden will do the safe stuff, promoted by his internationalist overlords, to return the U.S. to the Paris Climate Agreement and perhaps re-invent the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump shunned. And, yes, Joe will meddle here and there to tinker with Trump’s policy advancements, most notably on the domestic side.
But it is doubtful that Biden would be able to convince the majority of the voting public that Trump is wrong and America really does need tens of millions more immigrants—plus the possibly 20 million illegal aliens a Biden administration would like to legalize—at a time when unemployment levels are still historically high. Don’t expect Biden to rubber stamp any more border wall construction, however.
Walking back many aspects of Trump’s America-first legacy wouldn’t just be difficult, it would be politically unwise and could be the Democrat Party’s undoing should they ignore the massive populist, America-first resurgence that has taken place the last four years—all of it inspired by Donald J. Trump.
Mark Anderson is AFP’s roving editor. Email him at [email protected].
