We are days away from having had a full year under the leadership of President Trump. The left promised us the economy would crash. It’s at an all-time high in every conceivable way it can be measured. They promised us world-ending global conflict. We’re actively involved in fewer engagements that when he started, and ISIS has been beaten back almost completely. They told us the earth would melt and the environment would be destroyed. We’re experiencing the coldest winter in 50 years, and the U.S. is the only developed nation that actually reduced carbon emissions and other pollutants in 2017. The wins are clear and abundant, so with that in mind, let’s see how the first year of Trump compares to the presidency of Barack Obama.
Economy
The most obviously pronounced difference between Obama and Trump is in economic policy. Obama was handed an economy that was at rock bottom. It had nowhere to go but up, and the trends even showed that before he took office. While huge losses were sustained in 2007, by the end of 2008 everything was growing rapidly. It was Obama’s fierce adherence to overregulation that kept recovery from ever truly working. The economy ultimately grew, and there were even a few promising quarters, but Obama never saw a full year with three percent GDP growth. After a few days short of a year of slashing excessive regulations, Trump is already seeing that three percent mark.
Jobs are an equally telling story. Obama bragged about his fight against unemployment (and still does). Despite his claims, minority unemployment never dropped below eight percent on his watch.
Underemployment was also rampant. Once again, Trump attacked both of these problems in a single year. Minority unemployment is now at an all-time low, and underemployment is quickly falling. A resurgence in American manufacturing is due most of the credit — the manufacturing Obama and his cronies assured us could never return.
Foreign Policy
This is a frustrating conversation to have with Obama loyalists. They love to talk about his Nobel Peace Prize and anti-war policy. These comments are in stark contrast with his actual foreign policy. Obama started more conflicts than any other president in the history of America. He is also the only two-term president to keep U.S. armed forces in a state of war for his entire tenure. The peace-loving anti-interventionist started new military campaigns in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Syria. Those are just the ones he admitted.
By contrast, Trump has closed two fronts in a single year, and our military efforts in Afghanistan and Syria have dramatically diminished. He did this without reneging on our commitments to allies, but instead by enabling the best military in the world to do its job. ISIS was one of the largest territory holders in the Middle East a year ago. Now, they hold no territory at all. This is the same group that Obama said would “take a generation to resolve.” Trump did it in less than a year.
Borders
Finally, we come to the issue where word battles were fought. Obama never masked his desire to open American borders. He deliberately weakened our immigration regulation and border security. The result was the largest influx of illegal immigration we have ever seen. Trump made a simple change. He allowed ICE to obey the law. The result has been a massive reduction in illegal immigration, and it is now at a 20-year low. Even without the wall, Trump is succeeding. With it, we can see numbers improve further.
Immigration isn’t an isolated issue, though. Obama was handed a country with all-time low levels of violence. Crime rates had been dropping for at least 10 years before he took office. Violent crime grew steadily over the last five years of Obama’s reign, and we now know that the bulk of that influx was brought to us by illegal immigrants.
With Trump’s efforts in border security, violent crime has dropped in tandem with illegal immigration. The official numbers won’t be available for a few months, but early reports show us that 2017 saw a drop in violent crime rates for the first time in 5 years, and the current rates are near all-time lows.
We could continue this discussion across every lesser metric available. In terms of personal freedom, opportunity, negotiation, general security and any other facet of political leadership, Trump continues to outshine Obama. This isn’t a matter of right vs left either. It’s raw, numerical superiority.
Trump’s presidency is doing all the things Obama promised were impossible, and it was in remarkably short order. With huge chunks of Obama’s errors now corrected, we can only begin to anticipate how much greater Trump can make America with his remaining years in office.
~ American Liberty Report
