OPINION:
America is sinking among the waves of incompetence, impotence and fiscal incontinence of President Biden. It is jarring to recall how much brighter things looked just 27 months ago, after four years of President Donald Trump’s triumphs, and before Mr. Biden arrived and wrecked everything.
From A to Z, here are 26 things that Mr. Trump got right:
Abraham Accords: Mr. Trump brokered four peace agreements among Israel and its neighbors — Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.
Border wall: Mr. Trump’s 458 miles of concrete and steel fortified the border and curbed illegal immigration before Mr. Biden obliterated our southern border.
Consular offices in Jerusalem were upgraded to a U.S. Embassy, thus enforcing the relevant statute that Presidents Clinton through Obama circumvented.
Deregulation: Mr. Trump promised to kill two old regulations for every new one imposed. American Action Forum counts 4.7 existing rules junked per new one implemented.
Energy production: Mr. Trump achieved the impossible dream of making the U.S. globally dominant as a net exporter of energy for the first time since 1952.
Freedom-of-speech protection: Per Mr. Trump’s executive order, it a prerequisite for colleges to receive federal funds.
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett joined the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, 223 other constitutionalists whom Mr. Trump nominated reached the federal bench.
Historically Black colleges and universities scored an advocacy office in the White House, a permanent stream of federal funds, and year-round Pell Grants, to aid their summer school students. HBCU presidents begged President Barack Obama in vain for these things. Mr. Trump invited them to the Oval Office in his fifth week in Washington, listened, and approved their requests.
Iran nuclear deal: killed.
Javelin anti-tank missiles that Mr. Trump provided have helped Ukraine stymie Russian invaders.
Keystone XL pipeline: Approved.
Little Rocket Man Kim Jong Un met three times with Mr. Trump. While North Korea did not scrap its nuclear weapons program, it conducted zero atomic tests after this odd couple first huddled in Singapore on June 12, 2018. Mr. Kim detonated four nukes under Obama-Biden.
Mexico, Canada and the U.S. signed a new trade deal that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement.
NATO’s finances soared, as Mr. Trump prodded U.S. allies to boost Western collective defense by $400 billion through 2024.
Opportunity zones incentivized $78 billion in private capital to 8,768 largely low-income, minority communities.
Poverty fell to a rate of 10.5%, the lowest since 1959, when federal figures started being kept. Before COVID-19 unleashed hell on Earth, the strongest economy in 60 years drove Black poverty to 18.8%, a record low.
Qasem Soleimani, Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief, was droned to smithereens on Mr. Trump’s order. Tehran’s ayatollahs promptly learned some manners.
Right to try legislation freed terminally ill patients to use promising cures that awaited FDA approval.
Space Force: Mr. Trump’s out-of-this-world promise became reality as the Pentagon’s newest armed service.
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: This $1.9 trillion tax reduction unleashed massive economic growth that most benefited lower-income Americans.
Unemployment hit all-time lows for Blacks and Hispanics and triggered the least female unemployment since September 1953.
Veterans secured broader medical freedoms through VA Choice and swift punishment for abusive VA employees.
Washington, D.C.’s school-voucher program was reauthorized with a $45 million appropriation.
Xi Jinping and other Chinese Communist Party members restrained themselves when Mr. Trump deployed his Peace through Strength strategy. Under Mr. Biden, China does whatever it wants, from an unprecedented mock blockade of Taiwan to spy balloons vacuuming intelligence over America to U.S.-based CCP “police stations” that terrorize dissidents.
Yes votes for the First Step Act totaled 358 in the House (including 176 Democrats) and 87 in the Senate (among them, 47 Democrats). This overwhelmingly bipartisan criminal justice reform measure let nonviolent prisoners, many of them Black, return to their communities.
Zero American wars began under Mr. Trump. The dovish consequences of his hawkish command were exactly opposite the “Push the nuclear button NOW!” belligerence that his deranged critics forecast.
Wouldn’t four more years of Mr. Trump be better than four years of Mr. Biden?
• Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
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