{"id":1798,"date":"2018-01-04T21:44:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T02:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2018-01-04T21:44:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T02:44:58","slug":"year-one-t-trump-american-president-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/01\/year-one-t-trump-american-president-born.html","title":{"rendered":"Year One A.T. (After Trump): An American President is Born"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is over a year now since Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency of the United States. Anyone who still doubts that our 45th<\/sup> President is anything less than a world-historic figure, a truly unique individual, and a president unprecedented for his effectiveness is not to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s chronic critics, the anti-Trumpers and NeverTrumpers, are delusional, dishonest, and, importantly, arrogant, for the New York billionaire who never held a political office has proven them epically wrong repeatedly, a painful fact with which they are unwilling to reckon.<\/p>\n

Trump was one of 17 GOP presidential candidates in what amounted to among the most crowded and competitive of presidential fields to date.\u00a0 Practically overnight, the man who \u201cconservative\u201d and \u201cliberal\u201d commentators alike dismissed as a clown rose like a phoenix to clear the field, clobbering the Republican Party\u2019s and the conservative movement\u2019s brightest stars.<\/p>\n

With nothing but his army of Deplorables behind him, the man who up until the night of the Election all of the smart and respectable folks assured the country had virtually no chance of winning, smashed into the ranks of the has-beens America\u2019s political dynasties and some of the most influential movers and shakers in the world.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas over whom Trump prevailed; he defeated as well the Democratic and <\/em>Republican Party Establishment(s); the Deep State; a hostile, dishonest media; the entertainment industry; academia; George Soros and his street-vermin thugs; and even Pope Francis, who attempted to alter the outcome of an American election by suggesting that Trump was not a Christian for wanting to construct a border wall.<\/p>\n

Trump, the David to his enemies\u2019 Goliath, beat them all.<\/p>\n

One year later, in the face of a relentless onslaught of overwhelmingly negative, outrageously dishonest criticism by most of the media, the President continues to double down, pursuing with tunnel vision his agenda to Make America Great Again.<\/p>\n

Whether one likes or dislikes Trump, only the willfully blind or the apathetic will refuse to admit that the man is cut from exceptionally rare cloth.\u00a0 Few people in human history possess Trump\u2019s fortitude, his guts, and his raw determination. \u00a0No public figure today could weather the constant attacks to which both Trump and his family<\/em> are routinely subjected.<\/p>\n

Even former President Jimmy Carter conceded that Trump\u2019s nemeses in the media have besieged him in ways unfamiliar to all of Trump\u2019s predecessors.\u00a0 He told Maureen Dowd of The New York Times: <\/em>\u201cI think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I\u2019ve known about.\u201d Carter even implicitly acknowledges that at least some of this is Fake News.\u00a0 \u201cI think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Media Research Center has found that in the months of September and October of 2017, the coverage of the President supplied by ABC, NBC, and CBS was 90% negative.<\/p>\n

Much less are there any public figures that would be able to weather these attacks while barreling full steam ahead <\/em>in fulfilling his promises.<\/p>\n

And this brings us to the next point:<\/p>\n

One needn\u2019t be a die-hard Trump fan to admit that the President has indeed had a remarkable first year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although such smart people like Paul Krugman assured us that Trump\u2019s presidency would break the economy, just the opposite, in fact, has occurred.<\/p>\n

The stock market reached record highs 70 times and, for the first time ever, rose 5,000 points. As I write this, the Dow Jones reached 25,000 points\u2014a historical first.<\/p>\n

An estimated 42,000 new jobs promise to be created thanks to the President\u2019s efforts to create energy-independence via the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.<\/p>\n

Unemployment is 4.1%, and the number of people collecting unemployment benefits is the lowest that it\u2019s been in 44 years. Black unemployment is the lowest it has been in 17 years and Hispanic unemployment is at a record low.<\/p>\n

Shortly before leaving office, former President Barack Obama, under whose watch 16,000 Americans lost their manufacturing jobs in 2016 alone, mocked then-candidate Trump\u2019s pledge to return these jobs (and more) to the United States. \u201cWell how exactly are you going to do that? What are you going to do?\u201d Obama asked Trump: \u201cWhat magic wand do you have?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, one year later, 171,000 manufacturing jobs have been created and manufacturing unemployment, standing at 2.6%, is the lowest that it has ever been.<\/p>\n

Consumer confidence reached its highest level since 2000, and housing sales are higher than they have been in well over a decade.<\/p>\n

Obama was POTUS for eight years.\u00a0 He enjoys the dubious distinction of being the only President in American history whose economy never saw a full year of 3% GDP growth. The average annual growth rate of the GDP during his tenure never exceeded 1.48%, making his economic recovery the weakest period of expansion since the 1940\u2019s.<\/p>\n

In glaring contrast, despite a couple of natural disasters, one right after the other a few months back, GDP growth under Trump has managed to exceed 3% in the last two quarters of 2017.<\/p>\n

And, of course, we can\u2019t forget the huge tax plan package\u2014the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act\u2014that the Republicans (only) passed in December.\u00a0 As even the Trump-haters in the media had to finally concede, middle and working-class households will be keeping thousands more of their dollars next year as the standard deductions for individuals and married couples have now doubled.<\/p>\n

Because the corporate tax rate has been reduced from 35% to 21%, immediately upon its passage several corporations gave larger bonuses to and raised wages for their employees.<\/p>\n

The tax plan makes it possible to drill for oil in the Arctic, thereby moving us but another step closer to energy-independence and, importantly, it extinguishes the cornerstone of Obamacare, the so-called \u201cindividual mandate.\u201d\u00a0 The Republicans failed to formally appeal Obamacare last year.\u00a0 Yet through this law, it has, in effect, been defanged. It hangs in the air, its foundation obliterated.<\/p>\n

There is much more that the President has accomplished within his first 12 months in office.<\/p>\n

He has eliminated dozens (at least 67) of his predecessor\u2019s regulations, adding only three of his own.<\/p>\n

Trump has rescinded, through Executive Order, the obscene Obamacare contraceptive mandate, which forced private employers to provide contraceptive and abortion services through the health insurance plans they offered their employees. In his very first week in office, the President also eradicated $9 billion in foreign aid that was used to finance abortions.<\/p>\n

Recently, Operation Rescue, one of the largest pro-life organizations in the country, named Trump as their \u201cPro-Life Person of the Year.\u201d The group\u2019s president, Troy Newman, released a statement upon presenting Trump with their Malachi Award. It commended Trump for his \u201ccourage\u201d to \u201ckeep promises made during the campaign\u201d to \u201cprovide greater protections for the pre-born and deny Federal funds from those who commit abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman praised Trump, saying that he \u201chas proven to be the most pro-life president we have had in modern history and has backed up his pro-life rhetoric with action like no other before him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has also been supportive of Christians throughout the Middle East<\/em>. \u00a0As Vice-President Pence told<\/a> Middle Eastern Christians at this past year\u2019s annual In Defense of Christians Summit, no longer would America funnel humanitarian aid to persecuted religious minorities through multi-national organizations like the United Nations.\u00a0 The Trump administration, he assured them, is committed to giving aid directly <\/em>to those who need it.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Trump lent significant assistance to persecuted Christians (and others) in defeating some of their biggest persecutors in the Middle East: the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

Even NeverTrumpers like The New York Times\u2019 <\/em>Ross Douthat confess<\/a> that the President fulfilled a campaign pledge by, incredibly, defeating ISIS<\/em>. \u00a0The Islamic State emerged and metastasized under Obama.\u00a0 Within a year of assuming the presidency, Trump changed the rules of military engagement and ISIS has been virtually crushed in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n

On the homeland security front, Trump has fought and won his battle to prevent people from seven terrorist-sponsor states from entering the United States. Furthermore, Trump added two other hostile states to his Executive Order (the misnamed \u201ctravel ban\u201d): North Korea and Venezuela. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the case against it.<\/p>\n

Critical to homeland security is, of course, immigration.\u00a0 Earlier in the year, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly asserted that immigration from Central America was down a whopping 64%<\/em> from the previous year. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen an absolutely amazing drop in the number of immigrants coming out of Central America.\u201d He added: \u201cIn particular we have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of families, the number of children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decrease in apprehensions is no accident,\u201d Kelly insisted.<\/p>\n

The last two presidents, George W. Bush and Obama\u2014each of whom, mind you, served for eight years\u2014both promised while campaigning to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\u00a0 Trump made the same promise.<\/p>\n

And within his first year, he kept it.<\/p>\n

People, even Trump\u2019s supporters, needn\u2019t agree with every move of the President\u2019s that I listed here. I don\u2019t necessarily agree with every achievement of Trump\u2019s that I listed here, and there are several other decisions of his to which I object, sometimes fiercely.<\/p>\n

The point here, though, is that while there remain other accomplishments and mistakes that Trump has made during his short time in office, there can be no denying that, as a leftist colleague of mine acknowledged privately to me, Trump most definitely is<\/em> \u201ca man of action.\u201d He has accomplished much.<\/p>\n

There is, however, another point.\u00a0 Trump is doing everything in which his \u201cconservative\u201d detractors have told us for years they believe.<\/p>\n

The big difference, of course, is that while these conservative movement politicians, think tank-types, and journalists talked much talk, eliciting donations in fundraising from gullible voters, the President is actually walking the walk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is over a year now since Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency of the United States. Anyone who still doubts that our 45th President is anything less than a world-historic figure, a truly unique individual, and a president unprecedented for his effectiveness is not to be taken seriously. Trump\u2019s chronic critics, the anti-Trumpers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nYear One A.T. 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