Moderates are understandably skeptical of President Trump. From his loud-mouthed tweeting to his adulterous past, there’s plenty to criticize. I’m not a huge fan of Trump either. However, the 2020 Democrats are incredibly radical on many key policy issues. And contrary to what many think, Trump and the GOP are actually very friendly to moderates on many policy points.
Just look at the issues. All of the 2020 Democratic front-runners support taxpayer-funded abortion with no restrictions up until the moment of birth. No U.S. president has ever taken such a radical position, including President Barack Obama. This position would put America far out of touch with the rest of the Western world on abortion. Only one European nation, the Netherlands, even allows abortion after 20 weeks (up to 24 weeks). The Democratic status quo on abortion is barbaric and wildly out of touch.
The 2020 Democrats are also out of bounds on the minimum wage. Joe Biden, the “moderate” among the front-runners, supports a $15 per hour minimum wage. Even remarkably liberal states such as California and New York have yet to adopt such a radical policy. Additionally, if implemented at the federal level as Biden wants, this policy would force 22 states to more than double their minimum wage. Local politicians know their state economies better than career politicians such as Biden, full stop.
Furthermore, many of the 2020 Democrats, such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, want to use taxpayer money to pay off student loan debt and make college free. This is problematic for several reasons. First, it would give a massive handout to those pursuing a college degree while completely neglecting working-class folks who don’t require a college degree for their jobs, such as farmers, plumbers, and mechanics. You could even say the policy discriminates against these workers.
Furthermore, the student loan forgiveness policy would help a relatively privileged class of people. According to 2018 data from Pew Research, 39% of millennials completed college, and that minority of the population comes from families that are much more privileged than the average American family. For example, at the University of Southern California, 14% of students come from the top 1% of wealthiest U.S. families. Perhaps they made a foolish financial decision and are looking for help, but so are millions of other Americans. Why provide isolated aid to a privileged class of people who voluntarily took on this debt while denying aid to other programs more deserving of it?
Also, in addition to being unconstitutional, the wealth tax that Warren wants to use to pay for this policy kills economic growth and leaves businesses with less money to expand and hire more workers. This is why almost every country to adopt a wealth tax in recent decades has repealed it.
Now let’s look at what Trump and the GOP have to offer moderates.
On gun control, Republicans have implemented significant compromises. After bump stocks were used in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Trump banned them via executive order. Similarly, after the Parkland shooting, the Florida House and Senate, both of which were controlled by Republican supermajorities, passed a comprehensive gun safety bill that was signed by then-Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican. The bill increased the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, created a three-day waiting period, and banned the sale of bump stocks (before Trump did it federally).
Again, this happened in a Republican-dominated state. Republicans turned away from the National Rifle Association to give the voters what they wanted. Can you think of major policy issue where a Democratic-dominated state would make such a significant compromise? I can’t, not today’s Democratic Party.
Trump also stepped toward the middle by pursuing serious criminal justice reform with the First Step Act, which he signed in December. This law reduced mandatory minimum sentences and helped well-behaved inmates shorten their sentences, among other reforms. It must also be noted that according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, over 90% of the people granted a cut in prison time under this law were African American.
And as far as fiscal conservatism goes, Republicans are hardly radicals. The 2019 omnibus spending bill was $333 billion dollars, including large appropriations for all the major federal agencies. It also raised wages for federal employees. Additionally, just a couple weeks ago, Republicans worked together with Democrats to pass a $4.6 billion bill for humanitarian assistance and security at the U.S.-Mexico border that was signed by Trump.
Furthermore, the agencies loathed by the libertarian-right, such as the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the IRS have not been eliminated or anything of the sort. As the Washington Examiner‘s Tim Carney recently pointed out, Trump never really “drained the swamp” and made massive budget cuts. D.C. spending has remained pretty much the same.
A vote for the Republicans in 2020 means a vote for maintaining the status quo on the American economy and the American way of life, which right now means a booming economy and record unemployment. A vote for the Democrats is a vote to radically reshape our country with potentially no going back.
Do moderates really want the radically new nation that the Democrats do? For most, I believe the answer is no.
