The only thing I hate more than Donald Trump is an echo chamber. So, for the sake of diversifying the political discourse at IHS, I’ll put my personal views aside to give a legitimate case for why Donald Trump is the best candidate for president in this election. First, let me be clear on at least one thing: I’m not an idiot. I won’t waste my time trying to persuade IHS students that conservatism is the way to go (to anyone who wants to try, good luck). However, there are quite a few reasons why liberals should be thrilled to have Trump as POTUS.
Clinton and Trump are some of the least popular nominees in the history of their parties. Their approval ratings are abysmal, and both have been caught up in potentially career-ending scandals—take Clinton’s emails, or the fact that Trump is literally scheduled to sit trial for fraud immediately after the general election. In all likelihood, the president we elect will end up being a disappointment. This creates an inherent advantage for the losing party when it comes to the 2020 election. Essentially, if Trump becomes president, he’ll do a terrible job and severely tarnish the reputation of the GOP as a political organization. Just as George Bush’s failures paved the way for Obama in 2008, so too could Trump’s failures enable the election of a more extreme liberal in four years (we don’t know who that will be, but I plan on voting for Kanye West in 2020).
Meanwhile, if Clinton wins the election, she’ll almost certainly do a poor job representing the Democrats. Be it through overly moderate compromise that dissuades the Sanders-loving left or perhaps through involving the U.S. in more unsuccessful wars, a Clinton election will likely hand the presidency over to a more extreme conservative in 2020 (remember, Trump is a moderate in terms of policy by many measures). I suspect Ted Cruz knows this, and may very well have used his controversial RNC speech to give himself an edge in 2020.
This advantage should not be taken lightly. Washington Monthly is saying that the 2020 election will be “the most important election of our lifetimes,” speculating that the winner of said election “stands to nominate at least two Supreme Court nominees that will tip the balance of juridical decisions for the next several decades.” Jeff Cox, a political analyst for CNBC, goes further, speculating that “not only is the 2016 election not the most important election of our lifetime, it may in fact be the least important.” He predicts the next four years will go something like as follows:
“More fighting but nothing in the way of decisive maneuvers against radical Islamic terror; little economic growth in U.S., with a likely recession that will be countered with more zero interest rates and money printing; and most importantly, intensified levels of Washington gridlock where little if any meaningful legislation makes its way through Congress.”
In other words, winning this election can be a major loss in terms of party cred.
The question then becomes whether or not giving the election to Trump is a worthwhile sacrifice. Many are afraid that he will turn the U.S. into some sort of fascist state, that he will go through with his crazy policies and burn this country to the ground. I feel confident in saying that those people are just as crazy as they think Trump is. We all know that the whole wall thing is never going to happen, with former president of Mexico Vicente Fox going so far as to say “I’m not paying for that f-ing wall.” Banning all Muslims would never happen (the courts would never allow it), and the claim that Trump would somehow silence his media critics seems incredibly unlikely given how entrenched free press is in American culture, in addition to how much his critics love to make fun of him (I would imagine he loves the free publicity that the Daily Show and its ilk give him).
I would even go so far as to say that some of Trump’s policies are relatively agreeable. He supports funding Planned Parenthood, he has said that he’s “fine” with affirmative action, and supports legalizing marijuana for medical use nationwide (and would leave recreational use to the states). Clinton, on the other hand, is a war hawk who voted to get the U.S. involved in the same conflicts that created ISIS to begin with, and has consistently demonstrated compliance with big money in politics.
Specifically, Trump’s nationalism, while one of his most satirized talking points, is something that should resonate with all Americans. The fact that so many of our products are produced from the sweat, blood, and innocence of third-world children without so much as a thought given to them by American consumers may not be what first comes to mind when you hear “make America great again.” But the mockable quality of Trump’s talking points is not an excuse to ignore the serious problem of companies circumventing not just the law, but basic morality by simply leaving the U.S. Trump’s disdain for companies that escape taxes and give American jobs to foreigners is laudable. On that note, take his thoughts on foreign military intervention:
“I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’re blown up. We build another one, we get blown up. We rebuild it three times and yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn. We have no money for education because we can’t build in our own country. At what point do you say, ‘Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?’ So, I know the outer world exists and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities.”
It is very arguable that every single foreign military intervention we’ve ever taken part in has made things worse (before you say it, remember that World War II led directly to the Cold War, which could have meant the nuclear destruction of humanity as we know it had we not been so lucky). I feel very secure in knowing that Trump, unlike Clinton, who voted for the war in Iraq, might let us stop killing Muslims (odd wording, yes, but that’s how ISIS and other such groups see it, and that’s exactly the rhetoric they successfully use to recruit members to their cause. Take, for instance, the fact that American drone strikes on ISIS led to a massive surge in membership in the following months) and start helping our poor. My dream for our country, and it may be one that other liberals share, is that at least some of our massive defense budget can go to other branches that need it, like education, health care, and public works.
This November, consider voting for Trump. Birds may not land on his podium, but at least he’ll screw over the GOP and probably won’t spend more of your tax money murdering people in the Middle East or allowing companies to break the law by leaving the U.S. I truly believe he can help make America great again, even if that greatness only comes after 2020.