‘America First’ vs. American carnage

OPINION:

The case for former President Donald Trump has never been clearer.

American voters have been saddled with historic high gas prices and record inflation at home since he left office. War and ridicule abroad. An invasion at the border. 

No matter how hard this White House tries spinning it, America is in a recession.

All of this misery is a direct result of the policies of President Biden and Democrats in Congress. They have not been in charge for even two years now.

The former president has a clear and recent record of handling all of these challenges to the great satisfaction of a majority of Americans. And now voters know that all the crazy accusations Democrats and the political media leveled against Mr. Trump to foist him out of office were lies.

But, as always, Mr. Trump is most vivid when he talks about the security of Americans — especially the security of traditional Democrat voters living in cities that have been run by Democrat politicians for more than a half-century.

“Many of our once great cities — from New York to Chicago to L.A., where the middle class used to flock to live the American Dream — are now war zones. Literal war zones,” Mr. Trump said in a speech this week, highlighting the “stabbings, rapes, murders and violent assaults of every kind imaginable.”

Mr. Trump’s imagery is shocking — but not nearly as shocking as the reality of the crimes.

Republican politicians, meanwhile, are content to ignore the savagery of the crime wave because the victims are usually not their voters. Democrats — in a brazen effort to escape blame for the catastrophe — busy themselves with blaming the carnage on “racism,” “greedy capitalists” and “global warming.” 

Only Mr. Trump is different. He sees these cities as American gems and values the victims of these crimes as Americans.

“We are living in such a different country for one primary reason: There is no longer respect for law and order,” Mr. Trump said. “Our country is now a cesspool of crime.”

Always with the colorful language.

“We have blood, death and suffering on the scale once unthinkable because of the Democrat Party’s effort to destroy and dismantle all enforcement all throughout America,” he said. “It has to stop. And it has to stop now.”

Mr. Trump was speaking this week at a gathering of the America First Policy Institute, a group of Mr. Trump’s best and brightest policy minds who are working to keep Mr. Trump’s “America First” vision alive. It is Mr. Trump’s vision that so many Republicans running for election this November hope to win on.

“There is time for us to bring America back from the brink,” Mr. Trump told the enthusiastic crowd of supporters.

“We gather today on the verge of a historic midterm election. The American people are poised to reject the failed reign of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the radical left in a momentous landslide.”

“This November, the people are going to vote to stop the destruction of our country and they’re going to vote to rescue America’s future,” he said. There is “no higher priority than cleaning up our streets, controlling our border, stopping the drugs from pouring in and quickly restoring law and order in America.”

“America First,” Mr. Trump noted, “must mean ‘safety.’”

“We owe it to the victims,” he said. “We owe it to our families. And we owe it to our country to do the right thing in the Make America Great Again movement.”

“We believe that every citizen of every background should be able to walk anywhere in this nation at any hour of the day without even a thought of being victimized by violent crime,” Mr. Trump said.

What a vision. What a promise.

No wonder the professional politicians in Washington hate him so much.

• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.