Things We Don't Deserve

Some Reflections Upon the Trump Presidency

There have been some interesting words written at year's end on the Trump presidency.  Douglas Wilson has reminded us all that he strenuously opposed Trump's candidacy and election to the White House.  

As I said earlier, I did not support Trump, and did not vote for him once. . . .  I actively wrote against him, and was as critical as I know how to be. Which is pretty critical.

At the same time, after the election I was surprised at how relieved I was at the prospect of having the Clintons out of our hair, and from the beginning of this administration I was also surprised at how much Trump was like the son in the parable.

Remember the two sons? One said that he stood firmly on the Republican Party platform, in all its particulars, and then didn’t do much of anything? Once elected, that boy was confronted with Washington realities, and went sort of native, and grew into a strange new respectability. And the other son said that he was too busy sleeping with some of the top women in the world to bother about any of that stuff, but who then in one year has accomplished more than I would have hoped for from a true blue conservative with impeccable credentials and sterling character. I mean things like conservative judges getting appointed at a record clip, an investigation of Planned Parenthood opened, a massive tax cut signed into law, regulations being deep-sixed like nobody’s business, the EPA being radically restrained, the UN getting its ears pinned back, the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem, and I could go on.

And so here is my theory. It is not that Donald Trump is a conservative, but rather that God is giving us a bunch of conservative outcomes that we manifestly do not deserve. And He is doing it in such a way as to make it apparent that it is all sheer grace, and this is being done in a manner such that no one can boast.
If a principled conservative had done all these things, we would have been elbowing our way to the front in order to take credit for it. We would have been clamoring to be associated with it. But as it is, we are simply receiving the gift, and none of those who would normally be tempted by such a spotlight want to get into that spotlight with him. And so it is a double score—wonderful policy accomplishments and a minimal amount of glory hounds.

I say nothing about Trump’s personal intentions in this, because I do not know. Some deep state conservatives are just slinking back into the swamp. Some real conservatives might want to acknowledge all of this, but say that Trump is just uncommonly lucky. According to them, he is just Inspector Clouseau cracking another case, a bumbling Pink Panther President. But others are starting to wonder if he really is playing chess in four dimensions, and everything is unfolding according to his plan. What that plan might be is anybody’s guess. We should be more interested in what God appears to be giving us. And we need to remember that God knows how to draw straight with crooked lines.

It is time to acknowledge that more actual damage has been done to the agenda of the socialist progs in the last twelve months than in the decades preceding.   It will be the work of two minutes to twist what I am saying, for people to say that I am clambering onto the Trump Train, so I would simply ask all people of good will to discount for that, and make the basic distinction I am seeking to make.  ["Peasants, Pitchforks, and Pink Panthers", Blog & Mablog]

And here is a piece from Mark Thiessen, writing in The Washington Post, and republished in the NZ Herald.

As we approach the end of President Trump's first year in office, the list of extraordinary things he has done — for both good and ill — is nothing short of remarkable.  Trump inspires such deep emotions in his critics and supporters that many have struggled to objectively assess his presidency.

Some are so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they refuse to acknowledge the good he has done, while others are so blinded by devotion that they overlook almost any transgression.  In my columns, I've tried to give Trump the credit he deserves when he does the right thing, while calling him out when he does the wrong thing.

So, here is my list of the 10 best things Trump has done in his first 11 months. (Later this week, I will give you my list of the 10 worst.)

10. He enforced President Barack Obama's red line against Syria's use of chemical weapons. When the regime of Bashar al-Assad used a toxic nerve agent on innocent men, women and children, Trump didn't wring his hands. He acted quickly and decisively, restoring America's credibility on the world stage that Obama had squandered.

9. He has taken a surprisingly tough line with Russia. Trump approved a $47 million arms package for Ukraine, sent troops to Poland's border with Russia and imposed new sanctions on Moscow for violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

8. He recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Four American presidents promised to do it, but only one actually did. This is why the American people elected Trump. He does what he promises to do, for better or for worse — in this case, definitely for the better. Even Jeb Bush tweeted his approval.

7. He withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. After George W. Bush pulled out of the disastrous Kyoto treaty, U.S. emissions went down faster than much of Europe. The same will be true for Trump's departure from the Paris accord. Combined with his approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploration, Trump is helping usher in a new age of American energy development.

6. He got NATO allies to kick in $12 billion more toward our collective security. Decades of pleading by the Bush and Obama administrations failed to get NATO allies to meet their financial commitments to the alliance, but Trump's tough talk and reticence to affirm America's Article V commitment did the trick. NATO is stronger as a result.

5. He has virtually eliminated the Islamic State's physical caliphate. Trump removed the constraints Obama placed on our military and let it drive the terrorists from their strongholds.

4. He admitted he was wrong on Afghanistan and reversed Obama's disastrous withdrawal. In a rare admission, Trump declared: "My original instinct was to pull out . . . But all my life, I've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office . . . A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum for terrorists."

3. He enacted historic tax and regulatory reform that has unleashed economic growth. Trump signed the first comprehensive tax reform in three decades and removed the wet blanket of Obama-era regulations smothering our economy. We are now heading into our third consecutive quarter of above 3 percent growth.

2. He is installing conservative judges who will preside for decades. With his appointment of Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and he is moving at record pace to fill the federal appeals courts with young conservative judges.

1. He, not Hillary Clinton, was inaugurated as president. Trump delivered the coup de grace that ended the Clinton political machine.

There are many other significant achievements that did not make the top 10.

Trump has taken a clear, strong stand against the narco-dictatorship in Venezuela, and he renamed the "Asia-Pacific" the "Indo-Pacific" to include India in the larger task of preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia.

Trump has made clear that he is willing to use force to stop North Korea from deploying nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of destroying U.S. cities — which has prompted China to finally put real pressure on Pyongyang.
We'll see if it works.

The record of achievement suggests that, despite the noxious tweets and self-inflicted wounds emanating from the White House, Trump has the potential to become one of the most consequential conservative presidents in modern American history.

The question is: Does all this good outweigh the bad?

Marc Thiessen writes a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush