President Donald Trump may be one of the most divisive presidents in American history. That statement should not be controversial.
Tens of millions of Americans consider themselves supporters of the President. Attending a Trump rally would show you just how many people ardently backed him and his policies. It was his personal voting base—“Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement—that carried a businessman/media celebrity all the way to the White House in 2016.
On the flip side, President Trump has been highly disliked by a large portion of the American populace. His presidential approval ratings have hovered barely over 40% for most of his presidency. Moreover, Trump is the only the 5th incumbent president in the last 100 years—and the first since 1992—to have lost his reelection.
Clearly, many people love and hate President Trump. With that being said, I hope to analyze the accomplishments and shortcomings of the Trump Presidency from a conservative perspective. Just to point out, I am personally a huge supporter of the president. Nevertheless, this blog post will seek to discuss the policies of the Trump presidency in a fairly objective manner. Let’s begin.
The Accomplishments
1. The Economy (pre-Coronavirus Pandemic)
Under the Trump Presidency, the United States economy averaged annual GDP growth of near 3%. For context, the US Economy did not have 3% annual GDP growth since 2003. Based on GDP growth, the US economy had its strongest (between 2017-2019) since the turn of the 21st century.
American wage growth grew considerably during Trump’s time in office. Adjusted for inflation, the median American weekly wage grew at $6.90 per quarter. This figure is significantly higher than the average weekly wage growth of $4 per quarter—which has been the average for the past few decades. Clearly, American wages increased significantly under the Trump administration. That’s been a huge win for American workers. Not only have wages increased, but plenty of American jobs were created. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, over six million jobs were added between 2017 and 2019.
Record low unemployment for the US economy has been one of the biggest achievements of the Trump presidency (pre-COVID). Hispanic, Asian, and African American unemployment rates have all reached record lows under Trump. The overall US unemployment rate was just above 3%–the lowest in 50 years.
To close out Trump’s economic record, The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the America’s most significant tax reform since the Reagan administration. For starters, the TCJA made the US economy more competitive with other developed economies with a lower corporate tax rate. The US had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world before the TCJA. Additionally, this tax reform bill decreased the tax burden for individual taxpayers through an increased standard deduction, a larger child tax credit, and lower marginal tax rates. This legislation will surely benefit the US economy until these tax cuts expire in 2025.
2. Foreign Policy
For starters, President Trump did not start a foreign war or military intervention during his presidency. That’s been a pretty rare sight in the United States in the last few decades. Ending the “Forever Wars” was one of Trump’s big campaign promises when he ran in 2016. Even though the US Military still holds troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Trump has removed almost all of our forces in the Middle East—with only a few thousands left there.
On a similar note, President Trump brought about the end of the ISIS caliphate in 2018.
Pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords was another solid policy win. The economic damage from the Paris Climate Accords would have been pretty severe. The US economy would have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in addition to a 2 Trillion dollar+ GDP loss if the United States had not withdrawn from this agreement.
Another terrible deal that the United States pulled out of was the Iranian nuclear deal. By calling it quits, the United States resumed economics sanctions on Iran—a major funder of Islamic terrorist groups.
As a final point, Trump brokered a historic peace deal (the Abraham Accord) between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The countries now have normalized diplomatic relations. This deal is a major first step in the legitimization of Israel in the eyes of its Muslim-majority neighbors.
3. The US Judiciary
The likely longest-lasting legacy of President Trump will be his impact on the US judiciary. Trump appointed hundreds of conservative, originalist judges to federal judiciary in his times as president. Many of these federal justices will serve decades on the federal bench and uphold Constitution for years to come. Of course, we would be remiss to forget that Trump appointed THREE Supreme Court Justices in four years. The last four US Presidents—three of which served two terms—only appointed two justices each to the Supreme Court.
4. Trade
Trump ended the NAFTA trade deal and replaced it with the USMCA. Unfair trade deals such as TPP and NAFTA decimated American manufacturing; since the passage of USMCA, manufacturing has made a comeback in the USA. Prior trade deals cost the United States millions of of manufacturing jobs to China. President Trump broke conservative orthodoxy by championing “fair trade deals” to the American worker.
On a similar note, the Trump administration successfully challenged unfair Chinese trade practices. After entering the World Trade Organization in 2001, China broken WTO trade rules with impunity. Finally, we have President who has taken a tougher stance on China. He dealt with China’s common practice of stealing intellectual property from American business. Moreover, the US protected domestic steel and aluminum industries from Chinese trade practices by imposing tariffs. Overall, Trump has a taken an America-first approach to trade deals and against China.
In 2019, the US became “energy independent”—making us less dependent on foreign energy from countries that despise us (i.e. OPEC). The US has not been energy independent since the 1950s. Anyone who lived through the energy crisis of the 1970s should be happy to know that we won’t have to live through another one—unless AOC implements the Green New Deal. We also won’t have to keep fighting in the Middle East because we aren’t depend on oil from the Middle East anymore. Can I get two cheers for energy independence?!
5. Domestic Programs
This article is getting pretty long, so I’m just going to briefly explain some of Trump’s best domestic polices:
-Education—Expanding School Choice (i.e. encouraging charter schools/school vouchers)
-First Steps Forward—Criminal Justice reform
-Opioid Epidemic—took steps to fight the opioid epidemic.
-Opportunity Zones—giving greater economic opportunity to American inner cities
-The Border Wall—over 400 miles of the US-Mexico border wall was completed in November 2020.
The Shortcomings
Even a fervent Trump supporter like myself should look to see where President Trump feel short in his presidency. When evaluating a President, it’s important to note that no President can fix every single problem in the country. Presidents have to choose what issues that they want to focus on as president. That being said, here are some the major shortcomings of the Trump presidency policy-wise:
1. The Federal Deficit/Entitlement Reform
Now, this shortcoming is not completely Trump’s fault. Congress is the governing body that plans the Federal Government’s Budget every year. Additionally, much of the Federal Government’s deficit is tied to Entitlement spending—which is quite growing rapidly. That being said, the US National Debt has reached over $27 Trillion. That’s a truly staggering amount. The US will eventually need to address entitlement reforms and the growing National Debt. We’re not yet in crisis mode when it comes to the National debt, but the US could get there relatively soon if no action is taken in the coming decades.
2. Tech Censorship
The Conservative purge on social media has gotten pretty nasty in the past few weeks. Major Tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google have abused their status as Section 230 platforms by deciding to ban President Trump and other conservative voices on their platforms. At this point, some Americans (e.g. Tucker Carlson) see social media companies as having more power than the government. Unfortunately, the threat of Big Tech Censorship was not dealt with in the last four years. Personally, I think failing to deal with Tech Censorship has been the biggest shortcoming of the Trump administration.
3. Ending Obamacare
In late 2017, the Senate failed to repeal Obamacare in a 49-51 vote. Health care costs have skyrocketed since the inception of the Affordable Care Act. Not getting rid of Obamacare hurt the conservative movement in the sense that socialist/government-run healthcare has become more of the norm now. Side note, John McCain is probably the most petty human being to have ever lived. McCain was the deciding vote in repealing Obamacare in 2017. Unfortunately, he voted against the repeal. The only reason that he voted this way was just to spite Trump. He is so petty. He put a personal beef ahead of what was good for the American people.
Suffice to say, I am so glad that the GOP has moved away from guys like Mitt Romney and John McCain.
The Verdict
This blog post looked at the policy accomplishments and shortcomings of the Trump presidency. I could not cover every single point of policy in a post of reasonable length. Although President Trump pushed back on some principles of conservative orthodoxy (of which I do appreciate), President Trump made numerous strides to improving the United States and supporting the American conservative movement. In my personal opinion, I believe that Trump has been the best Republican and American president in the post-World War II era. That take might not be popular with many Never-Trumpers and Reagan fans (I still love Reagan). But, I truly believe that Trump achieved more to “Make America Great Again” in his four years than any other president has in the last half-century years. Not bad for the first ever US President who held no political or military office before becoming president.
“Stay classy, my friends”
-The Tin Can Conservative