OPINION:
In this first month of the Trump presidency, we are witnessing something truly unusual in American politics. It’s more than the breakneck pace of the administration’s actions or our reacquaintance with having an actual president.
We are witnessing a presidency at the height of its political power and unencumbered by the shadow of reelection. That rare combination is producing freedom for President Trump to lead with uncommon daring and clarity.
Second-term presidents usually careen into lame-duck status as their approval ratings dip, and the party quickly moves on with the business of the next election. Not with the 47th presidency.
Adding to the audacity and drive of the new administration is the simple fact that Mr. Trump doesn’t care whether people criticize him over something he said or some out-of-the-box idea. It is truly a rarity in American politics.
Democrats are in full-on freak-out mode as a result of this phenomenon, coupled with their refusal to recognize his strategic thinking.
Remember during the campaign when Mr. Trump came up with what seemed like the whacky idea of having a presidential debate in July? Historians said, “It’s never been done before.” Mr. Trump bet that once the American people saw President Biden unfiltered and unscripted, the sitting president would be exposed for lacking the mental fitness to serve while the media and Democrats would be exposed for covering up his obvious decline for years. It was a risky bet, but Mr. Trump’s instincts were right.
It was the end of Mr. Biden’s career. Mr. Trump had changed the entire trajectory of the campaign.
Also driving Democrats nuts are the tariff threats against Canada and Mexico. The left claims he is damaging our economy and our relationships with key allies. Mr. Trump vowed to do something about the border and the fentanyl crisis that is claiming more than 300 lives in this country every day.
The Biden administration couldn’t have cared less about the chaos, crime and death. Canada and Mexico were never pressured to step up operations on the border and work to interdict terrorist groups, cartels and the flow of drugs.
Mr. Trump needed leverage, and he bet the tariff threat would be enough to force a change in response from Mexico and Canada. He was right. Now, he’s taking a similar approach regarding the long-standing duties placed on American exports. What the media are framing as dangerous is likely to yield results again.
Last week, the president floated another one of his take-me-seriously-but-perhaps-not-literally ideas: turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.
Boom. Instant universal condemnation of his plan. Does he care? No. Does he really think Gaza will end up being tony shops, hotels and golf courses? Probably not.
It’s far more likely that Mr. Trump is sending a strong message to the Arab countries who refused for decades to take Palestinian refugees that the status quo of allowing Iran and its proxy groups to terrorize the region is over. Gaza, as the new Monaco, is really about forcing other Arab nations to isolate Iran and participate in a solution to the conflict.
Either publicly or privately, Mr. Trump will likely again get Arab nations to help chart a new course for Palestinians and the region that is more inclusive of Israel.
President Reagan’s speechwriter Tony Dolan once recalled for The Wall Street Journal how forcefully the State Department would resist the 40th president’s bold and direct rhetoric, whether it was calling the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” or challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
There were and still are so many among the foreign policy cognoscenti, the press and the Democratic Party who are too timid to see America’s threats for who and what they are or lack the vision to offer bold solutions to chronic challenges that plague our goals of peace and freedom.
They don’t like Mr. Trump’s style because they don’t want to be bold in the face of threats to freedom. What to them often seems crazy and dangerous has yielded results.
Many of the same people who blast Mr. Trump’s rhetoric are cut from the same cloth as those who abandoned Chiang Kai-shek to Mao Zedong and claimed Reagan’s “We win, they lose” posture toward the Soviets would get us into World War III. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.
Mr. Trump is sitting behind the Resolute desk again because he has been right more often than wrong. The historical record is increasingly clear that while his style makes the denizens of Washington and foreign capitals uncomfortable, his rhetoric is backed by a deeper strategy.
Mr. Trump’s view of the American presidency as a force for change is driven not from behind the thick granite walls of government cloisters but with rhetoric that challenges others in leadership to participate in transformative ideas.
It is poised to ensure we reclaim our role in guiding the future of the free world.
• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax TV and a columnist with The Washington Times.
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