Why I’m Voting Trump/Pence
Why do I support Donald J. Trump for President of the United States? Growing up in Canada, I watched as Ronald Reagan rebuilt a nation from one which was ineffective on the international stage and economically broken at home into one that took pride in the achievements that carried it to the heights it had achieved. Donald Trump is plotting the same course.
In the History Channel’s documentary, The Men Who Built America, Donald Trump commented on how these entrepreneurs took tremendous personal risk to build an America that rose to great heights. Say what you will about the affluent, but without the affluent there would be no companies, no jobs, no prosperity and none of the social programs that those on the left cling to so dearly. And yet Hillary Clinton wants to wage economic war on the affluent by making them feel dirty and greedy for having achieved. Democrats have made them the target of their ire and the apparent cause of want and distress for other Americans. Donald Trump knows how the economy works and knows you get nowhere by waging a social and verbal war on the affluent.
Donald Trump will stop the war on our working class in West Virginia and Kentucky by reviving a coal industry that has been decimated by Obama environmental policies. No one wants pollution, but sensible policy is required and destroying the livelihood of working class families in favor of radical, immediate and rapid climate change policy is just plain wrong. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that over 11,000 coal miners lost their jobs in the last year. The Bureau also estimates a loss of almost 191,000 coal jobs since September of 2014. This is an economic disaster for many in our country and yet the current administration stands steadfastly to their hard line of immediate change no matter what the cost. This has to stop and alternatives need to be explored.
Donald Trump has stated that he will negotiate only trade deals that make sense for the United States and would take aim at practices such as intellectual property infringement and currency manipulation. When China joined the World Trade Organization it was billed as great for the United States, but instead it has hit workers hard and closed factories. We should not negotiate deals that encourage offshore outsourcing of U.S. jobs to low wage countries like Vietnam. Other trade agreements such as the expansion of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement to include Mexico in the NAFTA have devastated the manufacturing sector. We need to reexamine these deals.
Through the years our industries have been hammered through unscrupulous trade practices on the part of foreign governments. Our steel industry in the 1980’s, already overburdened by top heavy, vertical integration of their operations, was pummeled by the influx of cheap steel from foreign countries just as it was trying to adapt to new methods of operation. To combat this, the Reagan Administration negotiated a series of Voluntary Restraint Agreements to give the industry breathing space, but it was not enough and relief was temporary. Adaptation was hindered with a resulting loss of jobs and the bankruptcy of many historical companies that had built America.
In the early 1990’s, Canadian softwood lumber poured into the U.S. and harmed our softwood lumber industry. Canadian firms benefited from lower stumpage costs and silviculture subsidies from provincial governments. U.S. companies struggled to survive under this onslaught. Such practices cannot be permitted.
On the international stage, we need to hit ISIS and other factions whose sole goal is to destroy us. We should not be on an international apology tour. We should not abandon international affairs. We should not negotiate any deal that leaves the Islamic Republic of Iran as a possible nuclear power. Finally, we need to recognize our enemy and it is Islamic Extremism—not Islam, but Islamic Extremism. We cannot simply use airstrikes and local military forces or call for some mythical intelligence surge. We must employ all available resources to destroy Islamic Extremism wherever it exists. We cannot ignore, appease or negotiate it away.