President Trump delivered a crippling blow to his opponents during the State of the Union address, stressing national unity and a push for infrastructure and more job creation. He also announced several new initiatives, most interesting among them expanding non-university, vocational education and prison reform.
The speech was not typically Trumpian, and many supporters of the president took to Twitter with their concerns for his rhetoric on a “pathway to citizenship” for recipients of DACA. The State of Union address was not a fiery play to the president’s usual base, but a careful sales pitch to capture moderate Democrats and independents.
More than 45 million Americans watched the event on television according to a USA Today report, which does not include viewers on online streams. A CBS poll stated that 75 percent of voters approved of the speech, according to an article on TheHill.com.
This slight shift in tone, coupled with the real economic growth since the passage of the tax bill and tying immigration reform to national security, and creating viable domestic social initiatives means the GOP under Trump’s leadership finally has a winning agenda. The Democrats and other far-left opposition offer divisive, futile “resistance” organized around an increasingly fractured coalition of the fringes.
After a rocky, uphill battle during the first year of his presidency (while accomplishing in a year what a normal Republican president could only have dreamt of doing in four), Trump may have finally turned the corner on his opponents.
However, he must deal with the lingering malaise of the past three decades, and end the foolish charade that is the Russian collusion controversy.
The Mueller investigation of alleged collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia has produced nothing but bait for the hysterical anti-Trump media, who have nothing to show for their claims other than baseless speculation. A much more real, and pernicious scandal is the attempt by members of the FBI to depose President Trump, with texts from the agents involved discussing a “secret society” working against him.
Even for opponents of the president, such an event indicates a complete abdication of following the rule of law and Executive Branch authority by so-called “public servants.” This is only one more recent event in a much larger timeline.
What has slowly emerged over the past two years, and even prior, is the scope of corruption of the Clinton Foundation and Obama Administration, which went unprosecuted by the Eric Holder justice department. The true “Russian Collusion” was between the Clinton Foundation and Russian investors who purchased a controlling stake in the Uranium One corporation, giving Russia one-fifth of total US uranium production, according to an April 2015 New York Times story.
Bill Clinton and several Canadian mining magnates built up Uranium One and the State Department under Hillary Clinton approved the deal. The Uranium One scandal shows that the warmongering against Russia by Clintonite Democrats is a farce if they were willing to negotiate the sale of American strategic assets to a foreign power.
But even this logic presupposes that the threatening conflict with Russia, either conventional or proxy (as seen in the Ukraine during the Obama years) was ever about legitimate US security interests instead of enriching the Clinton criminal cabal.
Russia poses no serious threat to American interests, and played a significant role stabilizing Syria and preventing another failed state in the Middle East.
Supporters of the president have been calling for Hillary and Obama to be thrown in jail immediately, but this would undercut Trump’s attempts to restore the rule of law to the country. Immediately arresting the opposition or abusing executive privileges would merely be populist-conservative version of the Obama administration’s abuse of the executive branch.
Given the president’s comments about bringing the country together at the State of the Union, it is clear that he intends to respect both the rule of law, while also removing federal employees from the government who do not uphold the public trust.
With Trump surging for the foreseeable future, the Democratic coalition is in shambles, and the United States may be on the precipice of a major generational political realignment.
By SAMUEL STEVENS
Editor-in-Chief
Featured photo: President Trump delivers a hopeful State of the Union that won over public and political critics alike (The Washington Post image).