{"id":1802,"date":"2018-01-05T19:30:23","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T00:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1802"},"modified":"2018-01-05T19:30:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-06T00:30:23","slug":"1-t-trump-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2018\/01\/1-t-trump-culture.html","title":{"rendered":"1 A.T. (After Trump): The Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a previous article<\/a>, I showed that Donald Trump\u2019s first year as President has been marked by a series of exceptional economic achievements.<\/p>\n

Yet it isn\u2019t only with respect to the economy that our 45th<\/sup> President deserves much gratitude from self-proclaimed patriots, traditional garden-variety Americans who\u2019ve expressed abhorrence of the country\u2019s lurch toward radical leftism.<\/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Trump has rescinded, through Executive Order, the obscene Obamacare contraceptive mandate, which forced private employers to provide contraceptive and abortion services through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

According to Lifesite<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Operation Rescue gave the following reasons for bestowing upon Trump the Malachi Award:<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump appointed conservative, pro-life Justice Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/em><\/p>\n

He has effectively denied public money to those who commit and promote abortions around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Trump Administration Department of Justice has launched a formal investigation into Planned Parenthood\u2019s illegal baby parts trafficking scheme. <\/em><\/p>\n

He has actively supported pro-life legislation, such as the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

He supports legislation to defund Planned Parenthood in the U.S., and removed an Obama-era mandate that forced states to continue funding Planned Parenthood.<\/em><\/p>\n

He has worked to fill his administration with pro-life people and put them in places where they can do the most good.<\/em><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s administration has taken active steps with the Health and Human Services and other agencies to establish pro-life policies that protect the pre-born.<\/em><\/p>\n

He has provided protections for those of religious and moral convictions from paying for abortifacient drugs through Obamacare, and continues to work to repeal and replace it.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Operation Rescue\u2019s President concluded: \u201cWe are proud of President Trump and his bold willingness to advance the cause of life. \u00a0There are more battles ahead,\u201d he conceded, \u201cbut under the Trump administration, we can now finally see progress within our government toward restoring the sanctity of life and the protection of personhood to the pre-born.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Trump has also been supportive of Christians throughout the Middle East<\/em>.\u00a0 As 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

(As an aside, it is worth noting that neither Pope Francis<\/a>, who implied during the presidential campaign that Trump was not a genuine Christian for wanting to construct a border wall, nor any Christian ((like Glenn Beck<\/a>)) who insisted that it was somehow un-Christian to vote for Trump, has yet to credit Trump for labors for the cause of life).<\/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.<\/p>\n

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

In September, the President rescinded his predecessor\u2019s executive order that essentially extended amnesty to the so-called \u201cdreamers.\u201d\u00a0 Congress must now do its job and address DACA legislatively.<\/p>\n

American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle decided to travel through Central Asia in the fall of 2012.\u00a0 They were abducted by the Taliban.\u00a0 While in captivity, in Afghanistan, they had three children. \u00a0According to The Washington Post<\/a>, <\/em>while \u201cU.S. or Canadian officials got close to negotiating the family\u2019s release a couple of times, each attempt was scuttled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine months after his inauguration, in October of 2017, President Trump managed to secure the family\u2019s release. He thanked Pakistan for their help.<\/p>\n

Some months earlier <\/em>in his new presidency, beginning in April, Trump secured the release of, first, Aya Hijazi, an American had been providing humanitarian aid in Egypt before she was captured and imprisoned for three years in an Egyptian prison.\u00a0 In May he brought home Sandy Phan-Gillis from her two year captivity in China, and in June, Otto Warmbier was released and returned to America from a North Korean prison.<\/p>\n

Presidents Bill Clinton George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama\u2014all of whom, mind you, served eight year terms\u2014promised while on the campaign trail<\/em> 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

Trump reasserted American sovereignty by emancipating Americans from supra-national, counter-productive sham compacts like the Paris Climate Accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.<\/p>\n

Even the United Nations will now be receiving less American dollars than it previously received.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump has been POTUS only one year.\u00a0 In many (though, admittedly, not all) critical respects, his presidency has been nothing less than the incarnation of the rhetoric that \u201cconservative\u201d and GOP NeverTrumpers in D.C. and the \u201cconservative media\u201d have been peddling to their constituents for decades.<\/p>\n

The difference between President Trump and his detractors is that while they walked the walk, the Donald is talking the talk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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