The case for re-electing Donald Trump - The Centre for Independent Studies

But Biden’s basement campaign for the White House is unravelling. His chaotic syntax, unreliable memory, and confusion about even the name of his opponent – is it “George” or “Trump”? – do nothing to shore up confidence that he is up to the job of being president.

And in the last week of the campaign, the race has tightened. The soft hiss you now hear is the sound of gaseous confidence escaping from pundits who were certain until just the other day that the election was a done duck, and that Trump was gone for good.

But this week’s strong American GDP figures, alone, are accelerating doubts about that. The third quarter saw the US economy lift at a record pace – 7.4 per cent over the prior quarter and at a 33.1 per cent annual rate – reclaiming about two-thirds of the loss wiped out by the pandemic.

Trump is still behind in most polls; but then he was consistently behind in polls during the 2016 campaign. The numbers are different this time, and some of the states Trump took last time are still in play – with some trending towards Biden who, of course, is not Hillary Clinton.

But since recovering from COVID-19 and engaging in the final presidential debate, Trump has hit the road and campaigned hard in all the states where he needs to make up ground if he is to win. In doing so, he has also shown a steel determination to uphold the American spirit.

And he has campaigned well at numerous rallies – sometimes three a day – across those swing states. With fizzing energy and unwavering voice, Trump reminds the tens of thousands who turn out in all weather for the rallies just what is at stake in this election.

Joe Biden has only two planks to his platform: first, he reminds voters he is not Donald Trump; and second, he says he would have handled the coronavirus differently. But other than locking the country down again, Biden doesn’t say precisely what he would have done. Frankly, it’s not much to go on.

The case for re-electing Trump depends, crucially, on not taking him literally but on taking him seriously. In his first term, he has been serious about tackling all the issues on which he campaigned so effectively last time. Trump voters now know just what they must defend.

Trump has been serious about bringing jobs back to the USA; serious, too, about stopping illegal immigration; about clamping down on terrorism; about capping energy costs; about cutting taxes; and about resisting the tyranny of identity politics.

Back in 2016, Trump came to office promising to restore faith in a judiciary that had succumbed to cultural fashions, using law to invent new rights that hamstrung the police, prioritised the wellbeing of violent criminals, and endorsed the existence of so-called “systemic racism”.

Trump-haters said he was too stupid to engage in diplomacy. But since 2016, Trump has faced up to the China challenge; pulled the plug on Obama’s disastrous deal with Iran; stood firm on the Middle East, and brokered a peace between Israel and some of its neighbours.

COVID-19 has caused a major setback to the American economy. But while Biden and his protectors in the media peddle the untruth that Trump is personally responsible for every single job lost and for every single death, Trump himself embodies hope for recovery.

The case for re-electing Trump also depends on realising that result is precisely what the political establishment and the usual associated suspects do not want. Trump must go, they say, and they are using every trick in the book to try and ensure that he does.

But Trump will prevail – just as he prevailed against efforts to prove he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. There was no evidence to show that he did. And he prevailed against an unjustified attempt to impeach him for making a phone call to a foreign leader.

In the final debate, Biden pledged to transition away from the oil and gas industries, and then flatly denied ever having supported a ban on fracking even though he is on record as having done just that many times. Is that the kind of dignity he will bring to the Oval Office?

Biden has made the case against Trump personal. But the key to understanding Trump’s bid for re-election is that his case against Biden is institutional. And it is a case that strikes home with the voters Trump has successfully attracted in the last days of the campaign.

Biden has made the campaign all about Trump. But this election is not about liking or hating the president: it is about securing Trump’s policy achievements and about defending the USA and its allies against the damage a Biden-Harris presidency would inflict.

Trump knows what is at stake; and he knows his supporters know it, too. They see past – and even enjoy – his so-called “truthful hyperbole”, because they know that Trump has truly committed to Make America Great Again; and to make them part of that greatness.