Authenticity

The prevailing narrative from the left is that Donald Trump is corrupt and a liar. They impeached him twice; they raided his home; they conducted multiple investigations; they criminally indicted him – all to push that narrative. Now that we are fully into his second term as President, it is fair to say that Doanld Trump may be the least corrupt and most honest President that we have had, at least, in my lifetime. With Trump, what you see is what you get. He is the authentic Donald Trump. He doesn’t give speeches that were written and rewritten by a team of political speech writers and forged by a series of focus groups and the wishes of his deep pocket donors littered with fancy euphemisms and clever turns of phrases. He doesn’t have a team of handlers telling him what to say and how to say it. He doesn’t change his accent, his speech pattern and his idiomatic expressions depending on his audience. He honestly tells the American people what he believes in his own voice, even if it is alarming or taken as mean-spirited. He does what he believes is right, and that is something to respect, even when he is wrong. He is who he is – for good and for bad. No other President since Ronald Reagan was ever this authentic. 

The public Trump is a lot like the private Trump. There is no hypocrisy to Donald Trump because Donald Trump never tries to be anybody but Donald Trump. And he is doing what the people elected him to do. He told the American people what his agenda as President would be, and now that he is in the White House, he is implementing that agenda without apology. Every President for the last 40 years has talked tough on illegal immigration. YouTube is filled with speeches from our last five Presidents saying almost verbatim what Donald Trump has said about illegal immigration and border security. But they never received the backlash that Trump has received because the people attacking Trump knew that these other Presidents would never follow through on what they said. That is the difference with Trump and why is able to do what he is doing? His tough talk on illegal immigration is what he really believes in and wants to get done. It was not just an attempt to placate a segment of his constituency to garner the votes he needs to be elected.

Likewise, every President and Presidential candidate talks about creating a peaceful world because the American people want peace, but how many actually do anything to bring it about? Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in the spring of 2009 and then proceeded for the next 8 years to start five wars in the Middle East, drop over 2,500 bombs on civilians and use drones to kill hundreds of people on his kill list. His rhetoric, his persona promoted peace; his actions initiated war.

Meanwhile, 6 months into his new term, Donald Trump is negotiating peace deals around the world. In June, Trump helped broker the peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ending their decades-long deadly conflict. The next month, in July, Trump negotiated the unconditional ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia using tariffs and trade deals as leverage to end that ongoing war. A week later, Trump helped forge the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, ending that 35-year conflict. He did this all in the first 6 months of his new administration, and that’s not to mention the Abraham Accords that he brokered during his first administration bringing peace to many countries in the Middle East that had been riddled in violence for the last 80 years.

The question is, why is Trump able to do all of what he is doing, when other Presidents have failed or have not even attempted to try? These other Presidents had been captured, whether it’s by Wall Street, big business, big pharma, big unions, big tech, big education, big media. Their hands were tied. These special interests benefit from the status quo, so very little ever gets done on any important issue. And that is what makes Trump so dangerous to them, and that is why they spent the last ten years trying to destroy and even imprison him. He is not beholden to the special interests that control our politics. When Trump sees a problem, he doesn’t consider how fixing it may negatively impact the billionaire oligarchs who have disproportionate amount power in our country and have benefitted and even created many of the problems we deal with. Trump considers what is best for the country and what is best for the citizens. That’s it.

Trump has decided to eliminate the crime and violence that is destroying the great city of Washington, DC by taking the bold step of federalizing local law enforcement there, and violent crime was down over 22% the first week, and there was not one murder. Every President and politician have known for years that crime was a major problem in the city in which they work, yet no one had ever done anything about it, until Trump. Why hasn’t there been a crackdown on crime in Washington DC or in any of our major cities? Why is crime allowed to run rampant and even encouraged in our major cities? Our politicians are not interested in fixing problems, because as soon as problems are fixed the politician loses his power. Their power is based on having as many problems as possible, and the illusion that they are the only ones who can address them. Chaos equals more control for them. They lose campaign talking points if they actually fixed the problems. They can’t demagogue a problem that no longer exists.

When Trump says put America first, it is not that his predecessors were putting foreign countries first over America, they were putting their donors, special interests, the oligarchs first over America, which many times meant favoring other countries and foreign interests over America. Trump is doing what every other President had the power to do but chose not to. He is using the strength and the power of America to the best interests of America and American citizens. For all of his bluster and boasting, Trump is authentic. He stays true to his word, true to America and true to our citizens.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.