By Jay Fleitman, Massachusetts Republican State Committeeman

The decision to reelect Pres. Trump is an easy one simply based on the accomplishments of his administration.

I can start with the two major issues of the 2016 presidential election. The first was that of confronting the Isis caliphate which seemed destined to be an expanding malevolent presence in the Middle East. The caliphate has been erased and Isis has been reduced to a minor presence during the Trump presidency. The second major issue was that of illegal immigration, about which we hear very little these days. Trump did get 400 miles of his wall built, but what brought this issue under control was Trump’s ability to leverage Mexico into reestablishing the integrity of its southern border. Mexico had allowed and encouraged the use of its territory as a conduit for illegal immigrants from Central America crossing into the U.S.. Recognizing that the United States government expected that immigrants seeking sanctuary could legitimately find it within Mexico, the Mexican government opted to control its southern border with Central America.

There were numerous economic achievements: the most robust economic growth in memory (Pre-Covid) leading to the increase in the incomes of the middle class, African-Americans, and Hispanics in decades, as well as record low unemployment all due to a combination of regulatory cuts with tax cuts for businesses and working Americans. The reduction in corporate income taxes from being the highest in the world to a more median level encouraged the repatriation of trillions of dollars into the U.S. from American and foreign countries investing domestically.

For the first time in memory, we’ve achieved energy independence through the use of advanced technologies in fossil fuels as well as solar and wind. The elimination of NAFTA and renegotiation into the USMCA trade agreement improved the positioning of American workers and companies relative to two of our largest trading partners

In the sphere of international relations, Trump has been effective. He is the first president to seriously challenge China’s predatory trade and economic policies. He has dedicated the U.S. to ending the prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bringing home our troops.

He has made it clear to our NATO allies that the United States cannot in perpetuity finance on the backs of American taxpayers the defense of the rich nations of Western Europe, without their equal financial and military commitment.   The idea that the United States spends billions supporting NATO defense primarily against Russia while Germany spends billions buying Russian national gas rather than that of the U.S. did not fly with this president.

The Trump administration was able to broker landmark peace deals between Israel with the UAE and Israel with Bahrain and Israel with Sudan, and as well as negotiating a peace deal between Serbia and Kosovo. The Trump administration has earned derision from the left by “coddling” dictators, but to me it seems wise to at least try and attempt communications and negotiations with adversaries such as North Korea and Russia.

The Trump administration stepped out of the Iran nuclear deal because it only postponed the inevitable of an Iranian nuclear weapon and did nothing to temper Iran’s state sponsored terrorism in the Middle East including the targeting of American troops. The Trump administration’s elimination of super terrorists Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimaini demonstrates a welcome boldness in taking on mortal enemies.

With reference to actually achieving for racial minorities, Trump has a record to run on. He built an economy strong enough to achieve record low unemployment for the African-American and Hispanic communities. He and the Republicans passed The First Step Act, which was a criminal justice reform bill that reduces sentences for minor crimes, had 91% of its beneficiaries being black Americans . Trump established ongoing federal financing for black colleges and universities. He and Sen. Tim Scott established enterprise zones for encouraging investment into poor and predominately black communities The Trump administration has been fighting for school choice and charter schools which would allow low income parents with children in failing school systems to have some choice in their education.

The Trump administration has taken its biggest hits from the left and the mainstream media on the managing of the Covid epidemic. The current trope from his critics that the United States has had a disproportionate level of deaths is simply a political lie. If you correct for the difference in population and use the number of deaths per million population,   the United States is right in the middle of levels as compared to the developed nations of Western Europe . Many of the developing nations have much younger populations that tolerate this infection much more readily, and so their mortality rates are lower. We certainly can’t trust the numbers coming out of China.

I think this administration has handled the endemic well: closing the borders with China and Europe early. When it looked like our healthcare system would be overwhelmed, he established a wartime footing getting major American businesses to convert into the manufacture of ventilators and protective gear as our stockpiles had previously been left depleted. His administration pushed Operation Warp Speed which seeded money into the development of a vaccine and therapeutics. The results have been the extraordinarily rapid development on both of these fronts. His negotiations with pharmaceutical firms relative to the development of vaccines have been clever, in that in exchange for federal funding, the companies in the forefront of development are required to produce the vaccine at an industrial scale for distribution prior to approval, so that if there vaccines are determined to be clinically safe and effective they are ready to be deployed rapidly. The protocols for distribution using the military have already been established.

This president has been able to achieve these accomplishments while besieged with an onslaught of attempts to undermine his presidency, including the farcical Russia collusion scandal and then the malicious Pelosi faux impeachment, as well as with the ongoing and unmitigated hostility from most of the media outlets that are suffering from the Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I suppose in order to attain some credibility here I am supposed to qualify my comments relative to Trump’s style and personality, but I’m not. This is a binary vote, and if I need to choose between one candidate who has accomplished the above in a short four years and the other who has little to show for a 47 year political career, then the choice is easy. I do not apologize at all for voting for Donald Trump, and I do so enthusiastically.