I had no problem with the slogan from which the term MAGA
was derived. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to “Make America Great
Again”? The problem, of course, is the way the president wanted to do that. At
least during his second term.
His first term was, in part, what gave him his second term.
The economy was doing quite well under Trump until COVID-19. If not for that,
he probably would have won a second term right away. Be that as it may, voters
understood that Trump’s policies during his first term had indeed given
Americans a better economy than they had under his successor, Joe Biden.
Trump’s second term has been a disaster, to put it mildly.
Instead of lowering prices, one of the first acts of his second term was to implement
tariffs on goods produced in foreign countries. His goal was to restore the
American jobs lost to foreign competition. Foreign companies were able to
produce goods more cheaply than American workers, thereby allowing American
companies to charge less for their products because they were being made more
cheaply in foreign countries.
Tariffs changed all that. Now, buying the same foreign goods
meant having a surcharge tacked onto the purchase price of foreign goods
because of the tariffs the president imposed. Long story short, prices of just
about everything went up. That is not what the electorate voted for.
That was strike one.
His crackdown on illegal immigration was another policy that
backfired on him. While most people liked closing the borders to illegal
immigrants, no one appreciated the draconian way immigrants already here were
treated. In essence, all recent immigrants (even legal immigrants in some
cases) were terrified that they would be deported at a moment’s notice. As many
of them were.
It was, by far, the most inhumane treatment of the immigrant
community in American history. Innocent people were killed by ICE agents in
pursuit of that policy! All of which turned a formerly very pro-Trump Hispanic
electorate almost entirely against him.
Then there was the Iran war. Even though there are very good
reasons for initiating the war against Iran, Trump did a terrible job
explaining it. The cost of living went from bad to worse because of Iran’s
ability to control the flow of oil through the strait of Hormuz.
From the very start of his second term, prosecuting his
political enemies seemed to be his primary agenda. And rewarding criminals who
supported his contention that the 2020 election was rigged by pardoning all
those who stormed the Capitol on January 6th on his behalf. Egged
on, if not directly urged, to do so. He pardoned them all, including the
violent ones and the white supremacists among them.
People who disagreed with him didn’t stand a chance of
surviving in his administration.
Then there was the perception that the president was more
interested in enriching himself than in serving his country.
And finally there is Trump’s demeanor as president. No one
who behaves anywhere near the way Trump does should ever sit in the Oval
Office. Because of his oversized ego, Trump seemed to be more focused on
placing his stamp on Washington DC at every turn than on actually making
America great again. His name was placed everywhere.
In short, it was the president himself that destroyed MAGA.
I should add that in spite of all that, I do not regret supporting certain aspects of his agenda. He stands alone as the most pro-Israel president in American history. His attitude with respect to radical Islam is the right one. His antisemitism polices are truly appreciated. As is his support of religious values over the values of moral relativism of the left. That has given us a conservative supreme court that is far more friendly to a God centered life than was the case under the formerly liberal supreme court.
The biggest loser of the Democratic tsunami is J.D. Vance.…
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