Thank You, 45
By Jayme Chandler
The 45th President, Donald J. Trump, will go down as one of the most consequential and controversial Presidents in US history. That’s exactly the way he wants it; after all, a friend to everyone is a friend to no one. For four years, the media, the Democrats, and now big tech have scrutinized his every move and challenged his every victory. Now barred from virtually all social media, President Trump embarks for Florida a free citizen again, but his guiding mission remains. Though he has a laundry list of policy victories to show for it, four years after his stunning victory, Trump’s greatest accomplishment is the very thing that brought him to power in the first place: his base.
Trump often touted himself as the “fighter for the American worker,” and for good reason. Before the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession, President Trump oversaw a breakneck economic expansion that delivered cash in both the pockets and the 401k’s of everyday Americans. President Trump forged an economy that lifted 7 million Americans off of food stamps and delivered the lowest unemployment rates for minorities in the history of the United States. The Democrats and establishment Republicans said manufacturing jobs that the US had lost to China and Mexico “weren’t coming back”— Donald Trump brought 1.2 million of them back. In light of the COVID-19 induced recession, these stats seem like the nostalgic rays of a sun long set. However, Trump and his populist “Maganomics” did more than deliver; they completely changed the narrative of American economics. For four years, President Trump faced global ridicule at his “America First” protectionist trade policies. Yet, even Joe Biden grafted several of Trump’s key positions from manufacturing critical supply chains in the US, to requiring the US government to procure US manufactured products. Trump’s record-low tax rates may end with his Presidency, but his presence in the economic minds of the American voter will long remain.
Trump’s foreign policy was arguably his most shocking strength. Apart from not starting any new wars and significantly reducing American ground forces in the Middle East, Trump forged the first agreements for continued economic and political stability in the region. In 2020, after more than 60 years of conflict and diplomatic stalemate, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco agreed to reopen and normalize diplomatic and economic ties. The Abraham Accords presented a diplomatic milestone that laid the foundation for a working and lasting peace. A peace that goes beyond the pleasantries of document signing but fully engages the two countries as economic collaborators. However, the Abraham Accords weren’t built on the conventional wisdom of Arab appeasement but rather on the back of Israeli strength. When President Trump pulled out of the Iran Deal and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he drew the ire and condemnation of foreign policy analysts worldwide. People thought the moves would provoke the Palestinians and start a war with Iran. Yet, the move solidified the adoration of the Israeli people and cemented the critical respect of Arab leaders. Though damaging to US industry in the short term, his trade war with China completely reshaped the nature of Sino-American trade relations and firmly outlined US demands to China. As Joe Biden begins his term, he has a foreign policy choice. Go back to the Obama era of pleasantries, “lines in the sand,” and inaction— or build on Trump’s legacy of foreign policy hardlines. Ultimately, Trump’s foreign policy made him many enemies within the establishment of DC politics, but it fed to his America First vision, and it endeared him to his base.
However, President Trump’s legacy won’t stand on the merits of his economic and foreign policy achievements. It’ll rest in his reshaping of the Republican voter demographic and his continued influence on American politics in his post-Presidential years. This fact terrifies Republican leadership. Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and the rest of the RNC have always been afraid of Trump, not because they’re worried about his policy or his ability to turn out voters, but because he’s uncontrollable and because his base answers to him and him alone. In his ascendance to the Republican nomination in 2016 and eventually the Presidency, Trump did what no other Republican had done since Reagan: he appealed to the working class and the downtrodden. Trump exchanged the suburban voter for the blue-collar worker. In a brilliant spectacle, Donald Trump, the billionaire TV star and real estate mogul from New York, found his calling among the miners of West Virginia and the steelworkers of Pittsburgh. The days of the country club Mitt Romney Republicans are over, replaced by the frenzied MAGA rally crowd. Mr. Trump, whether he understands it fully or not, untapped the political potential of a sleeping giant.
Trump’s MAGA rally coalition of rural folks from flyover states, rust belt manufacturers, and the highest turnout among Black, Latino, and Asian voters since 2004 doesn’t point to a singular race, religion, or region, but to a singular condition. He appeals to those disaffected by the US economy’s rapid growth and change over the last 40 years. He appeals to those who feel left behind, from the religious, to the elderly, to the people whose communities have shriveled as factories closed and mines shut down. Donald Trump will be remembered for many things, but his memory will shine brightest among those who saw him as their champion. The Biden administration will try to reverse several of his policies, and the mainstream media would rather die than grant Trump the fame and notoriety of other past Presidents. With nowhere to Tweet, Trump’s endeared legacy will live on in the hearts of the people who saw him go to work for them every morning and came to love him for the person he was.
The Left has spent thousands of hours and hundreds of Washington Post and New York Times articles trying to decipher the psyche of the Trump voter and the appeal of Trump as a person. Yet, the answer to the question of his likability has been in front of them the whole time: Trump is everything the Left isn’t. In many ways, Trump shouldn’t be likable— he admittedly doesn’t pay his taxes, he’s had several wives, he’s vain, and he’s petty. But he’s not fake. His entire political persona isn’t a political persona at all; it’s just him. He may not say the right thing, but you know what he says is what he’s thinking. He isn’t careful with his words, he never wrote speeches, and he fired from the hip whenever possible. Trump would have fared better off politically with a couple of fewer tweets and a couple more apologies. It was arguably his downfall, but at the end of the day, his base respected him for it. Unlike every other politician, Trump stayed true to who he was, was transparent in his beliefs, and refused to let anyone tell him otherwise. While half the country despised him for it, the other half was inspired by and related to it.
With his legacy firmly residing in the hearts of the 74 million Americans who voted for him, if there was one piece of advice TC could dispense to the President, it would be to separate the movement the President has so masterfully crafted from the man himself. Historians will remember Trump’s tweets when they should remember his voter. A politician like Trump does not just appear. A brazen anti-establishment message like “drain the swamp” does not land a punch without disaffection, and the civil division in this country did not start with Trump, nor will it, or should it, end with him. Even if he himself goes down, Trump owes it to his supporters and to our very democracy to keep the energy of his base alive, albeit peacefully and civilly. The Trump vote will be a critical counterbalance at the state and local level and a natural expression of advocacy for those our economic and social systems forget.
We all know the annals of history won’t record 2016 through 2020 from an analytical perspective. The question won’t be “Why was Trump elected?” or “How did Donald Trump change American politics.” Instead, Trump will reside in the history books next to a DNC-approved statement denouncing him for his “divisiveness.” This President does not deserve that. He made mistakes, as every President does, and he’s paying for those mistakes with a singular term. No, Donald Trump deserves to be remembered for his policies, his permanent alteration of the American political scene and the Republican party, his force of nature personality, and a political mastery that even he himself could not fully harness.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Photo via @whitehouse
