Trump’s Task: Restore and Grow America

The challenge facing the incoming Trump administration is not unlike the challenge facing a farmer whose arable farmland has been severely depleted by years of crops that have degraded the topsoil.

“Progressive” politics and the policies of the Biden administration over the past four years weakened the topsoil of the federal government so much that the national electorate refused to give Mr. Biden’s Democratic Party and his last-minute replacement on the ballot the historically traditional second four-year term.

A major part of this weakness was Mr. Biden himself. Already frail when elected in 2020 at age 78, his continued decline was largely kept hidden by his White House staff, Democratic Party leaders, and a biased establishment media until just before the election in a TV debate with his Republican opponent that exposed the deception unequivocally.

But the Democratic administration’s weakness was not due to Mr. Biden alone, nor his replacement on the ticket by his unpopular and unimpressive vice president, Kamala Harris.

Mr. Biden had won a controversial and narrow victory in 2020 by presenting himself as a moderate figure, the kind of Democrat like Bill Clinton in 1992 and especially 1996, who had by necessity governed from the political center in cooperation much of the time with Republicans led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

But from the outset in 2021, Mr. Biden veered to the progressive and radical left, appearing more like a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than a Bill Clinton. The Biden administration also encouraged an environment of identity politics, arbitrary redistribution of wealth, and political and verbal wokeism that depleted the economic and social topsoil of U.S. capital opportunity, education, free speech, and traditional values.

Democrats had been confident that voters would not return Donald Trump to the presidency, yet nontheless they employed a series of questionable criminal indictments and trials in a further attempt to undermine his chances in 2024. But the blunt transparency of their motives only made him a sympathetic figure and increased the likelihood of his successful political return.

Meanwhile, the credibility of U.S. economic and military power was deliberately diminished by continual progressive and radical policies and inept diplomacy during the Biden administration, causing the majority of voters, and not just Mr. Trump’s base, to vote for a new direction for their national government.

When farmers restore their land, they follow policies of letting the land replenish itself combined with planting crops which do not have such a negative impact on the topsoil.

For the incoming Trump administration, this means restoring a fragile economy with judicious tax cuts, and constructive reordering of public expenditures so that Americans at all economic levels will prosper and share in resulting economic growth. It means removing arbitrary restrictions and policies in education and language usage and restoring a fair playing field for commerce and competition. It means also reforming and strengthening our military — including our capabilities for land, sea, and air power —to restore our defense credibility and ensure our ability to promote peace over war, and deter conflicts like those in Ukraine and the Middle East which have sprung up under Biden’s watch.

The nation remains divided as the new administration takes power in Washington, D.C. In a republic such as ours, there will always be disagreements and political differences. But the voters spoke decisively for change in the election just concluded, and generally responded positively to the promises by the Trump-Vance campaign to cut taxes, reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy, restore the military, promote traditional values, remove arbitrary social restrictions, and to grow not only the economy, but the quality and fairness of our political system and its hallmarks of freedom, opportunity, and free discourse.

Fulfilling these promises won’t be without opposition, establishment media distortion, and rigorous debate. The voters said they want change and positive results. They were given a program for change, and the largest number said yes to it.

Mr. Trump and his colleagues have a limited time to deliver. As long as their opponents fail to understand why they lost in 2024, successful delivery should be ultimately fulfilled.

It’s time for the U.S. to be restored and grow again.

Barry Casselman is a contributor for AMAC Newsline.