With less than 10 days until the first Democrat debate, the most relevant question each and every candidate should be asked is, “Where’s the apocalypse?” Where is the doom and gloom we were assured would follow Donald Trump’s ascendency to the presidency? Where is the economic meltdown? Where is the tyrannical usurpation of power? Where?
During the only presidential debate of 1980, Ronald Reagan cemented his legacy as “The Great Communicator” by asking one simple question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan’s question to the nation not only framed the election of 1980 in the most succinct and relatable terms, but it also drew the race down to simple accountability. Old Reagan asked a simple question, “Where is what you were promised?” Carter, riding into Washington on the heels of Watergate, promised a return to decency. During the oil crisis, a return to self-reliance. During the economic downturn and national malaise, a return to, dare I say, greatness.
Reagan asked the simple question about promises and got a resounding electoral response. The American people took stock of their situation and held Jimmy Carter accountable.
Similar to the 1980 election, the 2020 election should be framed in terms of promises made and quantifiable results. Ever since Donald Trump’s now famous escalator ride to announce his candidacy, every facet of the left, from Hollywood to talking head right down to elected leaders have predicted, ad nauseam, the end to western civilization. Where are the results?
The stock market, the backbone of our capitalist society, is up, considerably, under Trump, not in economic freefall. Unemployment, often seen as the most reliable means of measuring national stability, is down, considerably. There is no economic meltdown due to the Trump presidency but quite the opposite. Employer confidence is up. Investor confidence is up. Where is the apocalypse? Not in the financial sector.
Democrats have yelled, at fever pitch, what a threat to democracy a Trump presidency would present. Yet, is it not the Democrats that have spent two years and countless dollars in a vain attempt to overturn a democratic election? Now that the Russia collusion hoax has been revealed in all its glory, where was the Trump threat to democracy? No doubt buried by Democrats dealings with Christopher Steele and his phony Russian dossier. But where was the apocalypse? Not in the democratic process.
Trump ran on promises to secure our southern border and improve national security. Of course, these were racist dog whistles on the hyper-sensitive left. Yet when the liberal Ninth Circuit ruled against the president did he ignore the Constitutional role of the Courts and go his own way? No. He appealed to the Supreme Court and was vindicated. Where was the tyrannical, iron-fist ruler the left guaranteed? Where was the apocalypse? Simply, there wasn’t one.
Now that the Democratic debates are upon us, the left, and Americans in general, need to ask themselves a few very simple questions, as President Reagan posed 40 years ago. Are you better off? Is the country better off? To the former, only an individual can attest, to the later, the answer is demonstrably and quantifiably ‘Yes.’
But one question remains unanswered: where is the apocalypse the Democrats assured us would follow Trump to the White House?