The Issues at Stake on November 6

The Issues at Stake on November 6
A man walks to use a voting booth at one of the Virginia primary election polling stations at Colin Powell Elementary School in Centreville, Va., on March 1, 2016. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)
11/5/2018
Updated:
11/5/2018
On Nov. 6, Americans will go to the polls. In what is widely considered the most important midterm election in modern history, voters will determine the direction we will take as a country for the next a few years.
The 2018 midterm election is important in a couple of ways. President Trump is not on the ballot, but his agenda is. If the Democrats gain control of either one or both chambers in Congress, the Resistance will run amok. Trump’s reforms could be stalled. He could be impeached. For at least two years, Congress will be in constant turmoil. So will the country.
More importantly, America is at a crossroads. The fight between Trump and the Resistance is not simply a political tussle. It is a war of ideas and visions for America. It is a struggle about who we are as a people.
Trump wants to return to the founding principles of the republic: liberty, individual freedom, personal responsibility, and family values. He wants America to be a country of law, due process, and equal protection for all.
He wants to get the government out of the way so the people can realize their maximum potential in a free market. He wants international relations and trade to be reciprocal and mutually beneficial.
History has repeatedly showed us that whenever these tenets were adhered to, America prospered; whenever they were betrayed, misery and mass suffering were the result.
Make no mistake: the left hates to see the progress we have made under Trump. The economy is booming. Wages are rising. More Americans are optimistic about their and their kids’ futures. We enjoy the lowest black, Hispanic, and Asian unemployment rates ever.
Yet this become a problem for the left: a popular Trump diminishes their chances of reclaiming power. Some leftists have publicly hoped for a recession to hurt Trump politically. For them, millions of American workers losing jobs in a recession is not something that keeps them up at night, but Trump being the president is.
In foreign relations, under Obama’s “leading from behind” doctrine, turmoil and disaster ensued on a global scale. ISIS, the most violent and bloodthirsty terror organization in human history, gained control of a large swath of land and set up a caliphate.
Syria, a relatively secular country under the oppressive Assad regime, plunged into a bloody civil war and created the largest refugee crisis for Europe. Obama struck a meaningless nuclear deal with Iran and returned to the Mullahs  frozen assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. In the same vein, Obama reconciled with communist Cuba without gaining any major concession.
Trump reasserted America’s leadership role internationally. ISIS was destroyed. Iraq stabilized. When Assad used chemical weapon against civilians, Trump swiftly authorized missile strikes on Assad’s positions. The United States pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal which was neither effective nor enforceable and reinstituted sanctions against the rogue regime. And in the Korean peninsula, there’s a glimmer of hope that peace may finally have a chance.
Trump did things many his opponents claimed to be impossible. He chastised our NATO allies for not paying their fair share and demanded more defense spending. France and Germany, the two largest European economies, listened.
He renegotiated NAFTA, which had resulted in a large number of job losses and factory closures in America. The new treaty, USMCA, comes with better terms for U.S. workers and businesses without causing significant disruptions.
China has been put on notice: its theft of intellectual property and trade secrets will no longer be tolerated. The EU and Japan both express their willingness to negotiate bilateral trade deals with the United States, a concept they confessed to abhor. Trump promised he would put America first. He delivered.
If you think the Trump-Russia collusion investigation is a Democratic conspiracy against a duly elected president, you haven’t seen anything yet. If the Democrats capture the House, expect witch hunts on steroids.
They will throw the kitchen sink at Trump and hope something sticks. The lives of Trump, his family, and associates will be made living hells. What’s Trump’s crime? His unabashed love for America and the American people. If you want to stop political persecution and criminalization of political differences, throw out the Democrats from Congress.
Many things are at stake for this election. Do you want your girl friend, wife, and daughters to share locker rooms and bathrooms with grown men who claim to be women? Do you want your teen-aged kids to be taught homosexual sex in public schools? Do you want to lose the custody of your toddlers because you deny his/her transgender request?
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.