This article is part of a series in which we have asked our contributors to imagine that populist movements continue to gain influence in the coming years. Here Chris considers what America looks like after a second Trump term.
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Exhausted. Exhilarated. Thankful. And ready to get back to work. Those are some of my feelings after watching President Kobach take the oath of office this morning. But more than anything else, today is a day of contented reflection. The past decade has been one of constant activity. Since the day Donald Trump descended his eponymous tower to announce his candidacy in June 2015, to the election of former Kansas Governor Kris Kobach – a strong, pro-Trump conservative whose 2017 leadership of Trump’s anti-voter fraud commission made him anathema to the Left – to what many are calling Trump’s third term last November. It’s been a decade of sharp conflict, some serious losses, but ultimately, one of victories that have re-established the foundations of the American republic.
What’s more, the concerted efforts of friendly governments across Europe as well as a few around the Pacific Rim, have made the world safer, more peaceful and more prosperous. Brexit was a resounding success for Britain. Once again, she led a coalition of European countries in a fight to retain their national sovereignty and the liberty and prerogatives of their people. And it’s led to an economic boom across Europe that has even seen a modest uptick in the continental birthrates.
Following President Trump’s lead these countries also presented a united front against Chinese economic warfare and its aggression in the South China Sea. What tipped the balance was the collapse of the Chinese currency brought about by robust economic growth from her major trading partners, especially the United States. Under such duress, she could no longer afford to keep North Korea as a vassal. Kim Jong Un made a deal to keep his head, handing power to a military council of colonels that has aligned the country with the West. South Korea is leading the reconstruction of the North while Kim resides in the Philippines where he started a professional basketball league in partnership with longtime friend Dennis Rodman.
Interestingly, an America that under Trump forsook the moral imperialism of the Bush-Clinton-Obama triumvirate (the incessant utopian meddling in the affairs of other peoples and nations), saw its moral authority increase. The wisdom of President John Quincy Adams has rarely been more evident: “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”
Perhaps the most important thing President Trump did in his first term was breaking the ban on free thought. His own transgressive personality paved the way. This has been nowhere more important than on college campuses where legislation tying eligibility for federal student loans to free speech codes liberated students from the stifling orthodoxy of progressive-left thought that has dominated for generations.
President Trump’s achievements on the domestic front marked a new birth of freedom and the definitive beginning of a new American century: reducing the size and scope of the state, appointing constitutionalist judges, and ending the illegal immigration crisis. It’s easy to point to his construction of the border wall as his administration’s signal achievement – especially since it was completed in just three years and under budget. And this in spite of a hail of nuisance lawsuits filed by every leftist lobby group possible. They were all summarily rejected by the Supreme Court in a series of decisions affirming the President’s right to protect the border.
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