President Trump’s character is no national secret. He is crude, sometimes brutal, and manifestly not what most people would call “presidential.” He admits as much himself. But he is not running for reelection in a vacuum. He is running against a man and, even more, against a party that are deeply flawed and dangerous.
When Joe Biden was asked to disavow this summer’s rash of left-wing urban violence, arson, and murder, he absurdly deflected blame for the riots to Trump and “right-wing militias.” This was telling; Biden preferred not to risk losing the support of a political Left that increasingly views violence as acceptable, and that is attempting to intimidate the nation with its “vandals’ veto” into voting for him.
Then, when called upon to disavow a Supreme Court-packing scheme that would destroy the nation’s constitutional order, the man who wishes to be our nation’s leader said he did not think voters even have a right to hear his position until the election is over.
The 2020 election poses a binary choice. Policy considerations alone, divorced from personalities, recommend Trump’s reelection. But the truly urgent reason to support him over Biden is that Democrats are openly scheming to abolish the Senate filibuster, scrap the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court, and add Washington D.C. as a state that can reliably send two leftist Democrats to the Senate. They aren’t even keeping it secret — they mean to upend the Constitution and cement themselves in power permanently, insulating themselves from the compromises necessary in a genuine democracy. Biden refuses to disavow these efforts or distance himself from them. He cannot be trusted with power.
Yes, Trump has smashed norms of presidential behavior, mostly symbolic and rhetorical. But the very institutions Democrats are now trying to destroy or undermine — the ballot box, the Senate, and the judiciary — have kept his worst excesses in check. He does not threaten the structure of the republic, but the Democrats’ new schemes do pose just such a threat to the nation’s unity and continued success.
We have not hesitated to criticize Trump’s often-embarrassing personal conduct. And we have attacked his misguided policies, such as on trade, which has inflicted real harm on ordinary people. (Just try buying a washer-dryer combo in this tariff era.) But his administration’s policy successes outweigh its failures. With the Abraham Accords, he proved you can advance Middle East peace while standing firmly with Israel. He moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and started treating Iran as the serious threat it is, imposing sanctions and targeting terrorist mastermind Qassem Soleimani.
There is also a reason why, before the act of God known as COVID-19, Trump presided over the strongest U.S. economy in generations. His deregulatory and tax reform agenda did more than generations of Democratic demagoguery to raise the wages of working-class families, and black and Hispanic workers benefited most. The world may never quite return to normal, but it will be better if Trump’s economic policies stay in place.
Biden, who tries to blame Trump for the virus, campaigned as a centrist in his primary but has spent the general election season moving leftward. He wants to raise taxes, including, despite what he claims, on the middle class. He has promised to support a national version of the California law that is destroying the dynamic gig and freelance economies in that state. Biden also promises on his campaign website to repeal all state right-to-work laws, so his union cronies can collect dues from unwilling workers.
By bringing back the individual health insurance mandate, Biden wants to restore a regressive and demonstrably unnecessary provision of Obamacare. And he plans to destroy the nation’s ascendant energy industry with a crippling Green New Deal-style plan from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and subject Americans to the Paris Climate Agreement’s wholly futile restrictions on their economic activity.
Given Biden’s advanced age, it is also distinctly possible that his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, will become president without ever having to face voters, with whom she was extremely unpopular in the presidential primary. Having once called Biden out as a racist on national television, she preaches even more radical policies, including slavery reparations and a national law repealing all state regulation of abortion.
But again, these are not the most important reasons to reject the Biden-Harris ticket. The most important reason is that Democrats are promising to change the rules of governance to secure permanent power, packing the courts and insulating themselves from voters by packing the U.S. Senate.
Trump’s manner and character inspire strong doubts, but when conservatives vote, they should keep in mind the damage that Democrats openly promise to inflict on our republic. The only meaningful way to prevent it is to leave Trump where he is.
