Time To Deliver
An Open Letter To President Donald Trump
Mr. President.
First, congratulations on winning a hard-fought election. I am proud to say I voted for you, and I count myself as one of your many supporters. You will be the 47th President of the United States. For the next four years, the Oval Office is your “bully pulpit”.
Well done, Mr. President. You earned it.
Yet I do wish to speak of the promises made by which you secured the votes and the support of millions of Americans such as myself. Promises which have been made are promises which must be kept. A successful term of office is measured in the promises which have been kept.
Your campaign rhetoric and rally speeches contain many commitments by you, all of which distill down to the twenty policy points highlighted by your campaign generally described as “Agenda 47”. These are the promises that have been made. These are the promises that must be kept.
America needs you to keep these promises. More than anything else that might cross the Resolute Desk, America needs you to remain focused on keeping these promises.
How will you keep those promises? Permit me to offer up some thoughts on them:
Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion
The Constitution’s Preamble declares the common defence to be one of its animating purposes. Article 2 establishes you as the Commander-In-Chief of the Military, and invests in your office all authority and responsibility for seeing that the laws of this nation be faithfully executed.
There is no need to request additional authority from Congress. You have the authority and the responsibility to enforce the laws already enacted by Congress, in particular the corpus of law under Title 8 of the US Code:
8 USC §1151 establishes numerical limits and guidelines on how many immigrants are to be allowed in each year.
8 USC 1227 requires that all immigrants present in the United States in violation of law be deported.
8 USC §§1325-1326 make it a crime to enter the United States by any but the established border crossings and checkpoints.
8 USC 1361 requires the immigrant alien to establish that he or she is eligible for an immigrant visa, and, failing to make that establishment, requires the immigrant alien be denied both visa and entry into the United States.
Securing the border is a conceptually simple task: simply enforce the laws of the United States as the Constitution obligates you to do.
I say this not to suggest that you might be slack in this regard, but to recommend a framing for your Administration’s policies in this area. What you are championing here is nothing more and nothing less than a President faithfully executing the office to which he has been elected.
I encourage you and your Administration to make this message the centerpiece of your border policies, that you are merely doing that which the law demands of you.
Carry out the largest deportation operation in american history
Again, 8 USC 1227 requires that all immigrants present in the United States in violation of law be deported. In this as with securing the border you are doing exactly what the office of President requires of you—what the Constitution requires of you.
The President must enforce the laws of the United States or the law itself ceases to have meaning.
And again, I mention these things not to suggest any possible lassitude on your part, but to highlight what should be the signature message of your Administration’s policies in this regard. Your role in immigration is to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed. Let that be the focus of your Administration, and let others debate the politics.
End inflation, and make America affordable again
We need to be clear on what the impact of consumer price inflation is, and what the impact of consumer price inflation is not.
Most of all, we need to understand that inflation creates problems through distortion. When prices rise faster than wages, Americans have to work more just to afford the food they already buy, the mortgage they already have, the gasoline they already use in their car.
We should not fear rising prices but for the fact that they rarely are accompanied by rising wages.
Which will be easier? To bring prices down in an absolute sense or to push wages up in absolute sense? I do not profess to know all the answers in this, but I encourage you to be open to the possibility that bringing wages up to match how prices have risen may prove more feasible and more economically enduring than attempting to force prices lower.
The way to achieve both will always be to have free and unfettered markets. Regulatory rollback will be by far the strongest thing you can do in this regard.
At the same time, it is imperative to recognize the role government spending has both in generating inflation and, by extension, in curbing it. I refer, of course, to levels of government spending.
We do not want, as a rule, deficits to so grotesquely outpace tax receipts, and we do not want taxes to consume an ever growing portion of our paychecks.
The challenge facing your Administration will be to make government at once more effective and yet more efficient, more disciplined, and more restrained. Deficits are how government generates inflation, and curbing deficits are essential in curbing inflation.
Make America the dominant energy producer in the world
In many respects, we already are. Our challenge will be both to effectively utilize our energy resources domestically while expanding overseas markets.
Yet while the US produces more oil than any other nation by far, we are in danger of losing significant refining capacity. Just recently Lyondell announced its plans for the closure of its Houston refinery, while Phillips 66 is proceeding with shuttering a refinery in California.
In addition to oil production, America needs to ensure plenty of refinery capacity. That will require an Administration focused on streamlining regulations to make new plant construction both affordable and attractive.
Stop outsourcing and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower
Here I offer only my unbridled support and enthusiasm. Yes, yes, and yes! We need to recognize there is a growing crisis of employment in this country—or, rather, a lack of employment.
At the same time, we are in crisis as well by the ongoing decline of American manufacturing. Corporate media has for too long gaslighted the American people on this point, and we absolutely must turn both this situation and the narrative around. I do not know on what planet corporate media spends most of its time, but it is past time for them to return their economic senses to the planet Earth, and to reality.
Do not dilute this part of your message in even the smallest degree. It is that important to the future of this country.
Large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips!
It is an endless debate among economists where on the Laffer Curve any government’s tax policies lie.
Still, as a basic principle of governance, the smaller the portion of a worker’s paycheck the government takes in taxes, the better off both the worker and the government will be. Allowing the worker to also be the consumer by spending his or her own hard-earned dollars is always the single best way for government to stimulate the economy; government makes its most important contribution to the nation’s economy chiefly by getting out of the way.
So in this I offer nothing but encouragement. The more you get government out of the way of the American consumer and the American worker (recognizing that they are one and the same), the better the economy will be for everyone.
Defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms
Above all else, this is the most sacred duty of any President. This is the oath you swear upon inauguration, and with good reason. The Constitution is the supreme law of this land, and no law nor political posturing may supersede it.
As John Marshall wrote so eloquently in Marbury v Madison, “an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.” You, the Congress, and indeed all Americans should understand that it is a legal impossibility for the Congress to enact a law that is, as Marshall put it, “repugnant to the Constitution.” All such laws are, despite a vote by the Congress, despite even your signature, null and void from the outset, with no legal force or validity.
While it is the role of the courts, to again use Marshall’s phrasing, “to say what the law is.”, it is for the Congress and, by extension, the American people to say what the law will be, and that includes saying what the law is not.
A President’s best defense of the Constitution is to ensure that the laws be faithfully executed. Yet we should be mindful that, because unconstitutional laws have no legal validity, a law which is unconstitutional must not be enforced. Rather, it must be challenged, its unconstitutionality declared and made manifest, that Congress might amend its ways and not step beyond its Constitutional parameters in the future.
Likewise, the very best defense for the freedom of speech is to always articulate and defend the principle that Free Speech is a moral imperative. It is not a matter of convenience, nor is it ever some sort of abdication of other moral duty.
Free Speech is what gifts us a Free Society, and makes us a Free People. My hope and my prayer is that you will continue to be steadfast in championing this message throughout your Presidency.
As regards the right to keep and bear arms, your Administration need only articulate a simple principle: The Congress has no authority to regulate this right in the slightest regard. The Constitution is explicit that the right is not to be infringed, and it is silent in any mechanism by which the Congress (and, by extension, all government) may in any capacity regulate—i.e., infringe—the right.
Merely challenge any gun control proponent to build an argument on Constitutional grounds, incorporating the text of the Constitution. That should end the debate.
Prevent world war three, restore peace in europe and in the middle east, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country -- all made in america
I should like to recall what your predecessor, President John F. Kennedy said in 1963:
So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
Within this country we are all Americans. We are one people, and we are one nation. Yet on this good Earth we are all human beings—and we are again one people, even as we are many nations.
I urge you to remember that among people and among nations, peace is always a choice, just as war is always a choice.
For there to be peace in Ukraine, both Russians and Ukrainians must choose peace, and must embrace peace.
For there to be peace in the Middle East, Iran and its Arab proxies in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon along with Israel must choose peace, and must embrace peace.
Yet peace is not surrender, although peace does not require victory.
Peace requires merely that all parties to a conflict choose peace and choose to work towards peace. Just as the Protestant and Catholics in Northern Ireland were able after decades of The Troubles to work towards the Good Friday Agreement, and then to work at sustaining the Good Friday Agreement, so must Iranian, Arab, and Israeli choose to work towards peace. So must Russia and Ukraine choose to work towards peace.
What shape will peace take between Russia and Ukraine, or Iran and Israel? That is something they must determine for themselves. The role of the United States, and indeed of all other nations, is merely to facilitate the dialog and the discussion necessary for the parties to any conflict to work the shape of peace out for themselves.
My hope and my prayer is that the US under your leadership will be a constructive facilitator for dialog and discussion, that all the nations of the world may choose peace and may embrace peace.
End the weaponization of government against the American people
There is no doubt but that the many lawfare persecutions leveled against you pesonally have done great damage to the rule of law in this country.
A great challenge lies before you in that to restore the rule of law, you must be ruled by the law, and be seen to be ruled by the law.
Where investigations can be warranted by facts and evidence, you must be diligent in pursuing such investigations and, if crime can be established, pressing the resulting prosecutions.
But where evidence is lacking, or where an articulable statutory offense is lacking, it is imperative you not pursue, after the fashion of the infamous Lavrontiy Beria, whose guiding principle was “show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
The rule of law means that prosecutions are based on the adjudication of evidence, not narrative. The rule of law means also that the rights of due process and equal protection guaranteed under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments are kept sacrosanct at all times. Even against those who pressed illegal lawfare prosecutions against you and others, any prosecutiorial efforts in kind must be guided by evidence and by a clear statement of both the crime and the applicable law.
No one must made above the law, but it is equally important that no one be put below it either.
Stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders
As I have already stated, ensuring that the laws of this land are faithfully executed is a central duty of the office of President.
Migrant crime ultimately is a question of immigration enforcement. The immigration laws must be enforced, and let it up to the Congress to alter those laws if it sees fit.
Likewise, the transnational criminal gangs must be deported. They violated the law in coming into the country, and the law mandates their removal.
Beyond that, we must always remember that tackling crime is always going to be an issue for local police more than anyone else. Local police will always be the agency with the best understanding of where the criminal enterprises are in any community. Government at all levels best confronts problems of crime by supporting the efforts of local law enforcement to combat crime at the local level.
Rebuild our cities, including Washington DC, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again.
This is perhaps the easiest of the challenges here, for reinvigorating our cities is by far the best economic investment we can make as individuals.
We need small businesses to thrive within our communities. We need people feeling safe and comfortable patronizing those small businesses.
By fostering small businesses within our communities, we encourage the essential activities which will drive the rehabilitation of the communities as a whole.
Champion a strong economy, champion small business, and America’s communities will thrive.
Strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world
A strong country needs a strong military.
A strong country does not need a strong military-industrial complex. President Eisenhower, a career soldier as well as successful President well versed in the demands of both military and government, warned us in 1961 of the dangers it presented.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
The illegal wars which you inherited in 2017 and which you are inheriting yet again are proof of Eisenhower’s prescience in this regard.
We need a military which defends America’s legitimate interests—meaning those interests articulated and embraced by the people, not government bureaucrats. We need a military which will keep this country safe from outside aggression.
We do not need a military pursuing endless war chiefly to enrich defense contractors and their lobbyist-influenced allies in government. We do not need a military endless engaged in futile conflict abroad, sending young men and women in to harm’s way where no definable American interest is served.
As you also desire to be a champion for peace, while America needs a strong military, I urge you to realize that America and the world never needs a strong military-industrial complex. We have been bedeviled by one for far too long, and it is by far the most noxious swamp creature you will face in Washington.
Recognize it as such, and fight against it as such.
Keep the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency
Consider carefully the role of money in any economy, including the global economy. Consider carefully that the role of the dollar in even the global economy is simply that of money.
The dollar is the world’s reserve currency not by arbitrary choice but by dint of economic strength. It was the economic strength of the United States which enabled the passage of the Bretton Woods agreements by which the dollar became the world’s first de jure reserve currency, and it was the economic strength of the United States which sustained the dollar as the leading reserve currency once Nixon ended gold convertability in 1971.
It is the economic strength of the United States that makes the dollar even now the preferred reserve currency in the world.
So long as the United States maintains a healthy economy, and so long as that economy is the largest and the most dominant in the world, the dollar will remain unchallenged as a global reserve currency. Contrary to the confabulations of many, the dollar’s reserve currency status is not a stepping stone to American economic greatness but rather the direct consequence of it.
Be a good steward of the American economy, and a constant champion of American growth and American prosperity. The dollar’s reserve currency status will be secure so long as you do.
Economic strength is always currency strength. Never lose sight of this key principle.
Fight for and protect social security and medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age
Americans nearing retirement age (and I am one of them) have dutifully paid their Social Security and Medicare taxes for the entirey of their working lives. We should be mindful and respectful of the implicit bargain involved.
At the same time, we need to realize that Social Security system itself is, as Reagan pointed out in his 1964 speech “A Time For Choosing”, the least efficient means of guaranteeing Americans an income into their dotage.
We need to honor the implicit bargain but at the same time we need to invoke American innovation and creativity in building a far firmer foundation for honoring that implicit bargain than we currently have.
Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations
Have I mentioned the importance of getting government out of the way?
It is long past time for this country to rediscover the words of Henry David Thoreau, who observed in his essay Civil Disobedience that “Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
We need to remember the words of another of your illustrious predecessors, Ronald Reagan, who in his first inaugural address reminded us that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
As with other points in your agenda, the crucial challenge will be articulating the policy in a fashion which people can accept and embrace. Fortunately, we have the advantage of history, of men like Thoreau and Reagan, whose ideas have animated this country and proved pivotal in overcoming so many prior challenges.
The challenge in your administration will be to maintain that focus of policy in removing government as an obstacle, and in part that means ending the notion that government is ever a means around any obstacle. The more people are encouraged to look to themselves and to their communities, and away from government, to solve the many problems within our communities, the better the solutions will be for everyone.
We need to confront the notion that government is ever a moral good. It is not, and it never has been. The lesson of not just American history, but all of history is absolute proof of this.
Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children
I would urge you to get the federal government out of the role of disbursing funds to schools entirely. The Department of Education has no Constitutional basis, as the Constitution prescribes no role for the Federal government in education.
Education is a matter which by the Constitution’s silence is intentionally left to the states, and to local communities. It is for each community in this country to determine how best to educate their children. It is for government to step aside and not be an obstacle to the community’s efforts to educate their children.
All funds come to government from the taxpayer, and that means all funds disbursed by the federal government are never anything more than a redistribution from one taxpayer to another. Instead of disbursing funds to schools, leave those funds in the hands of taxpayers and allow them to fund the schools and the curricula of their choice. Give the taxpayer back his or her tax dollars, as that will give the taxpayer the power to fund schools as he or she sees fit.
However, what must not ever happen is the unconstitutional forgiveness of student loans that has been the mercenary policy of your predecessor.
Perhaps a case can be made for putting the burden of these loans back on the colleges which have arguably failed to deliver on the promised education—and where such cases can be made the colleges absolutely should be held to account. However, no case can be made for unilaterally foisting upon the taxpayers the debts of an individual private citizen.
That is what the Constitution by its silence on education demands of the Federal government.
Keep men out of women's sports
The purpose of Title IX is to prevent discrimination in education. It states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”.
As regards its intent, the legislation is admirable.
What we must acknowledge, however, is that women have separate sports divisions and leagues because that was the solution to complying with that mandate of Title IX. Women have separate sports divisions because the alternatives—either banning women from sports altogether or having them compete alongside men—were both tantamount to excluding women from sports.
Allowing biological males, regardless of which gender they identify as, to invade women’s sports is a blatant contradiction of that explicit intent of Title IX.
It is regrettable, and even absurd, that this needs to be a policy point of your administration. It is, however, the consequence of the age in which we are.
My encouragement is for your administration to call out this thinking that male-to-female transgenders participating in women’s sports as women is somehow in keeping with either the language or the intent of Title IX. Allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports is nothing less than a cancellation of women, and, ultimately, the very exclusion of women from sport the legislation is intended to prevent. It is hypocrisy of the worst sort.
Lean in to Title IX. Defend it by defending the place women deserve and have earned in sports competition at all levels. That means biological males do not compete alongside women. That always needs to be the beginning, middle, and end of that discussion.
Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again
While we should never trample on the right of Free Speech, we need to remember that freedom of speech never includes freedom from consequence. The act of uttering words with the particular intent of inciting lawlessness does not enjoy any protection under the rubric of Free Speech.
People may lawfully debate the merits and demerits of what happens in the Middle East, and what US policy should be regarding the Middle East. We should encourage such debate from all sides, and our public places should welcome participants in that debate with all points of view.
That debate does not ever encompass encouragement for terrorism, or for genocide, or for any criminal act of any kind by any person or any nation.
My hope is that college campuses will always be bastions of Free Speech where vigorous debate is always welcome, where differing view can be offered and challenged. For campuses to be safe, people must feel safe to express their ideas. Some ideas will offend some people, but so long as there is not advocacy for lawless and criminal behavior, society is strong enough to withstand the outrage of that offense. It has been up until now, and it still is.
Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship
This is an area that perhaps should be framed in terms of Constitutional Amendment.
Democratic process endures only so long as people have faith in elections. Of this there can be little debate.
Yet the Constitution itself gives little guidance on the federal government’s role in elections, and by operation of the Tenth Amendment reserves the bulk of this task to state and local governments.
However, just as the right to vote was secured for various groups by the passage of the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments, securing the integrity of future elections may itself warrant additional Constitutional language.
The election of 1800 produced arguably the first Constitutional Crisis in this country, and its result was the 12th Amendment which frames how Presidential elections are conducted to this day. Thus the premise of a Constitutional Amendment is not without historical precedent.
In a world transformed by technology, enshrining within the Constitution the principles of ballot security and ballot integrity would build a foundation for a future without much of the electoral messiness this country has endured of late.
Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success
There is little to say on this except that you will succeed here by succeeding in everything that has come before. The rising tide lifts all ships, and the genius of American greatness has always been that the country rises the most when everyone rises.
How will you govern? As with all Presidents, you will govern in the manner you deem best. You have won the election and so you have won the power to govern as you choose.
These are merely my thoughts on how you can best keep your promises to the American people, and thus how best you can succeed as the American President. They are not the only ideas out there, and I am sure they are not the only ideas that will be presented to you.
Please receive them in the spirit with which they are intended—as the ideas and meanderings of one proud American and one proud Trump supporter, who shares your vision and wants to see it come to fruition.
The goal is always America’s success and America’s future. That is my hope and I know that is yours as well. And it is in furtherance of that success, that future, and that hope that you begin your second Presidential Administration with all of my support, all of my good wishes, and all of my prayers.
I have faith that you will succeed in making America great again. Good luck, and God speed, Mr. President.
Screw MSM Corporate Media cannot be saved, ELEVATE and promote the independent journalism we have now!
Trump’s first act had better be issuing a blanket pardon to every non-violent January 6th political prisoner.