For those with Trump Derangement System, you’ll be a tad disappointed to read that Trump has yet to start World War III or burn down the Capitol Building. In fact, his foreign policy accomplishments look a lot more substantial than Obama’s – the man who was given a Nobel Peace Prize for a combination of his skin pigmentation, being a Leftie and winning the election. Trump is deluding himself if he thinks the Norwegians will award him a Nobel Peace Prize for anything. But The Don has bombed Iran’s nuclear ambitions back by four or five years. He’s helped settle six or seven international disputes. He got the Muslim world behind the Gaza deal (which at least got the Israeli hostages home and further isolated Hamas). He’s signed myriad trade deals, not least with the EU, Japan and Australia. Sure, he has employed the threat (and use) of tariffs liberally and aggressively. But a consequence of that is that since taking office this past January there have been trillions of dollars of inward investments into the US.
What else? Elon Musk’s DOGE has ferreted out hundreds of millions of dollars of bogus overseas spending and turned off that tap. Trump has also ended all funding to the Public Broadcasting System (think the BBC or Australia’s ABC). He has torn up any and all commitments to Net Zero and opened the regulatory gates to supercharge fossil fuel exploration. He’s pulled out of not just the Net Zero Paris Agreement, but also the UN Human Rights Council, the Hamas-captured UNRWA and UNESCO. Oh, and let’s not forget his leaving the WHO, a lockdown cheerleading body that disgraced itself during Covid.
My favourite accomplishment, though, the one I think most important to the US, is that in under three months Trump closed the porous US southern border and since then has been finding and deporting illegal aliens at a high rate. (If you count those self-deporting, guesses run at about 2.5 million so far, or more.) And he and his administration are not being cowed by the Left-wing legacy media, Hollywood and the Democrats into just deporting those who have committed crimes once in the US. As he rightly says, coming into the US illegally is itself a crime. His administration will therefore seek to find you and deport you, no other crimes necessary. I think it is now plain that the Biden administration had, in large part, willingly opened the border. It then counted illegals in the 10-yearly census that determines which states get how many Congressional seats, a huge bonus to the Democrats gaining them an estimated dozen or more House seats.
You see, as Mr Abbott and Mr Trump have shown, stopping illegal immigration (and the legal type for that matter) is solely and completely a matter of will and being determined to do so. The UK Tories were never serious about it. They just repeatedly lied to their core voters. Hence the British polls now show the world’s oldest political party to be in fourth place. Some polls suggest an election today would see the Conservatives winning fewer than 20 seats. You reap what you sow. And that’s what is so baffling about Australia’s Liberal Party’s incompetence in not making a massive cut in immigration its headline policy, along with a clear, Abbott-like commitment to leaving Net Zero and Paris. It is to Peter Dutton’s eternal shame that he lacked the courage to stand up to his woeful advisors and the wets in the partyroom in order to run hard on these two issues. Had he, I think he’d today be the PM.
But back to Towering Trump. Under Biden inflation hit 9%. Right now it’s 2.7% in the US (and 3.2% here in Oz). There is 3% GDP growth (barely over half of that here). Stocks are at a record high. More importantly, real wages (including for the lowest paid) are increasing (and by more than for the rich), something that hasn’t happened going back decades (except in the first Trump term). Turns out that locals will do any jobs. You just have to pay them. And let us not forget that Trump is actively fighting the culture wars. Because he rightly recognises that everything – everything – is downstream of culture. This Trump administration has gone all-in against the transgender lobby and against DEI, an affirmative action worldview that sees the world in terms of groups, not individuals, and then sidelines the notion of merit. DEI is out in the US military. Out in the public service. Team Trump is fighting hard to get it out in the universities (though, as someone who knows about universities, it may be too late there because there are already vanishingly few conservatives left in academia).
Of course the scorecard is not all positive. For instance, Trump thought he could get Putin to cut a deal. Wrong! But I still trust him more than anyone not to drag the West into a war with Russia. (Those who want one are free to volunteer. Remember, after World War II the Allies basically gave away eastern Europe to Stalin rather than fight a new world war. And that was before Russia had nuclear weapons.) That just leaves all the lawfare that was employed against Trump. So far his administration has been disappointing in failing to charge any of the culprits. Because I don’t think there’s any doubt that what happened under Biden was far worse than Watergate. (For instance, Nixon tapped the phone of one Democrat. The Biden attempt to get Trump involved tapping dozens of Republican Senators’ phones.)
Last word. Where is the US right now? It’s as polarised as at any time since the Civil War. Democrat states will vote Democrat even where the candidate muses about murdering his opponent’s children, as happened last week in the Virginia Attorney-General race. Hatred of Trump, derangement if you will, justifies anything apparently. Here’s the thing to watch. Trump outpolls the Republican brand. He did far better in 2024 in New Jersey and Virginia than the Republicans did last week. There are voters who love him but not the Republican brand. So will this base that loves Trump turnout in next year’s midterms when The Don is not on the ballot? I think he’s going to ask them to and that they will, just enough, to hold the House. But it’s far from certain.
Dr James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University.This article was first published HERE
What else? Elon Musk’s DOGE has ferreted out hundreds of millions of dollars of bogus overseas spending and turned off that tap. Trump has also ended all funding to the Public Broadcasting System (think the BBC or Australia’s ABC). He has torn up any and all commitments to Net Zero and opened the regulatory gates to supercharge fossil fuel exploration. He’s pulled out of not just the Net Zero Paris Agreement, but also the UN Human Rights Council, the Hamas-captured UNRWA and UNESCO. Oh, and let’s not forget his leaving the WHO, a lockdown cheerleading body that disgraced itself during Covid.
My favourite accomplishment, though, the one I think most important to the US, is that in under three months Trump closed the porous US southern border and since then has been finding and deporting illegal aliens at a high rate. (If you count those self-deporting, guesses run at about 2.5 million so far, or more.) And he and his administration are not being cowed by the Left-wing legacy media, Hollywood and the Democrats into just deporting those who have committed crimes once in the US. As he rightly says, coming into the US illegally is itself a crime. His administration will therefore seek to find you and deport you, no other crimes necessary. I think it is now plain that the Biden administration had, in large part, willingly opened the border. It then counted illegals in the 10-yearly census that determines which states get how many Congressional seats, a huge bonus to the Democrats gaining them an estimated dozen or more House seats.
You see, as Mr Abbott and Mr Trump have shown, stopping illegal immigration (and the legal type for that matter) is solely and completely a matter of will and being determined to do so. The UK Tories were never serious about it. They just repeatedly lied to their core voters. Hence the British polls now show the world’s oldest political party to be in fourth place. Some polls suggest an election today would see the Conservatives winning fewer than 20 seats. You reap what you sow. And that’s what is so baffling about Australia’s Liberal Party’s incompetence in not making a massive cut in immigration its headline policy, along with a clear, Abbott-like commitment to leaving Net Zero and Paris. It is to Peter Dutton’s eternal shame that he lacked the courage to stand up to his woeful advisors and the wets in the partyroom in order to run hard on these two issues. Had he, I think he’d today be the PM.
But back to Towering Trump. Under Biden inflation hit 9%. Right now it’s 2.7% in the US (and 3.2% here in Oz). There is 3% GDP growth (barely over half of that here). Stocks are at a record high. More importantly, real wages (including for the lowest paid) are increasing (and by more than for the rich), something that hasn’t happened going back decades (except in the first Trump term). Turns out that locals will do any jobs. You just have to pay them. And let us not forget that Trump is actively fighting the culture wars. Because he rightly recognises that everything – everything – is downstream of culture. This Trump administration has gone all-in against the transgender lobby and against DEI, an affirmative action worldview that sees the world in terms of groups, not individuals, and then sidelines the notion of merit. DEI is out in the US military. Out in the public service. Team Trump is fighting hard to get it out in the universities (though, as someone who knows about universities, it may be too late there because there are already vanishingly few conservatives left in academia).
Of course the scorecard is not all positive. For instance, Trump thought he could get Putin to cut a deal. Wrong! But I still trust him more than anyone not to drag the West into a war with Russia. (Those who want one are free to volunteer. Remember, after World War II the Allies basically gave away eastern Europe to Stalin rather than fight a new world war. And that was before Russia had nuclear weapons.) That just leaves all the lawfare that was employed against Trump. So far his administration has been disappointing in failing to charge any of the culprits. Because I don’t think there’s any doubt that what happened under Biden was far worse than Watergate. (For instance, Nixon tapped the phone of one Democrat. The Biden attempt to get Trump involved tapping dozens of Republican Senators’ phones.)
Last word. Where is the US right now? It’s as polarised as at any time since the Civil War. Democrat states will vote Democrat even where the candidate muses about murdering his opponent’s children, as happened last week in the Virginia Attorney-General race. Hatred of Trump, derangement if you will, justifies anything apparently. Here’s the thing to watch. Trump outpolls the Republican brand. He did far better in 2024 in New Jersey and Virginia than the Republicans did last week. There are voters who love him but not the Republican brand. So will this base that loves Trump turnout in next year’s midterms when The Don is not on the ballot? I think he’s going to ask them to and that they will, just enough, to hold the House. But it’s far from certain.
Dr James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University.This article was first published HERE
15 comments:
Believe all that at your peril !!
Looks like Amendment 25 is coming into play soon.
Trump is a threat to all of mankind .
Just thought l'd mention for the benefit of the Trump Hater - this is the record of a man you claim will go down as the worst US President of all time.
These are facts listing actual poitical achievements.
You don't have to like the guy or the way he gets it done but he sure as hell is more effective working on behalf of the peoples of the Free World than all his political opponents (past or present) put together.
And that isn't hero worship - just an acknowledgement of reality. It isn't always pretty or polytically correct but he wasn't elected to be that type of leader.
Voters saw in him a man who would save them from themselves.
At this stage, they have been proved right for doing so and the haters have been left licking their self inflicted wounds.
Clive reminds us that Trump was one of two options. The issue is not whether Trump is good/bad but whether he's better/worse than the alternative.
I am of the considered opinion that had Harris been elected, she and her gaggle of marxofascists would have driven the US to the brink of civil war. 'Civil war' is perhaps putting it a bit too strongly but I sincerely believe that Waco-style insurgencies in the southern states would have been on the cards.
Right-wing America won't have the marxofascist social engineering agenda imposed and when a right-wing American feel threatened he reaches for his gun.......... which as often as not is a semi-auto assault rifle.
I find it bizarre that an apparently intelligent Professor of Law, who might reasonably be expected to support the concept of the Rule of Law, should be a cheer-leader for one of the most flagrant and blatant law-breakers to emerge in modern American politics. And that's not just my opinion. Dozens, possibly hundreds, of US State and Federal judges concur. But then I read that Allan is well known for his opposition to bills of rights, one of which is the bedrock of American democracy, and I understood why he would idolise Trump. Clearly Allan's mantra is that actions speak louder than laws, particularly the actions of a self-confessed strongman who regards the law as his to play with. I trust Allan's academic publications display a lot more intellectual rigour than this article which is more a litany of dodgy MAGA talking points than a genuine opinion piece.
Well said Dr Allan. The thing that inflames those with the incurable disease, TDS, is that they really can’t accept his success. Against enormous obstacles that would destroy most, he has prevailed, paying testament to his enormous resilience.
Here we go again. No matter how considered and conviction-driven, if you are of the opinion that this Trump presidency is damaging the interests of the U S and beyond, and you say so, you are in Mr Bibby’s mind a ‘Trump hater’ - we’ve had that now for 10 years - or, according to Mr Beechey, to be suffering from ‘Trump derangement syndrome’. That’s right; you’re actually deranged! Responses like this, entirely devoid of any intellectual rigor, are insulting. I personally think that Trump is a thoroughly horrible man, and it would need a book, and a big one, to record all the public examples of it that we are aware of. How about just this last week? A pardon for someone convicted of voter fraud in the last two election (he voted for Trump or course), calling a journalist for asking a penetrating question “quiet piggy”, and another who wrote a critical column in the NY Times “ugly”. Both women of course. Why women vote for this guy is just incomprehensible. And 6 members of congress, one highly decorated, Trump said were guilty of “treason and sedition” for saying that soldiers should disobey illegal orders. (Having to obey orders didn’t work as a defense at the Nuremberg trials, did it?)
All this was in just the last few days! I think Trump is a dangerous and damaging man, and if stating that leaves me open to charges of being a hater, or deranged, then so be it.
Oh really Jonesy
My interpretation of Dr Allan's well written piece is that it was more a list of undeniable achievements (facts) and that's your problem - you can't handle the truth.
Calling a representative of the MSM "piggy" pails into insignificants, compared to those huge gains as stated.
Has the writer brought up that fact that Trump has executed about 100 people in international waters, without any evidence, or trial ?
Extrajudicial killings which are entirely the responsibility of Trump, for which he should be himself on trial in the International Court of Justice.
A savage dangerous dictator
Thank you Dr Allen . MSM hate Trump with a vengeance so it is good to get another perspective. The BBC blunder was just one example of bias towards him ..
You said: ' in under three months Trump closed the porous US southern border and since then has been finding and deporting illegal aliens at a high rate" ... actually Biden and Obama deported more illegal immigrants. Trump instead is pulling anyone who 'sounds or looks' foreign off the streets. These racist attacks are so unnecessary in a digital age where any employer can identify 'illegal aliens'. ICE is all theatre. All it would take is political will. US employers benefit enormously from 'illegals' because they do not have to even pay them the minimum wage ($8.00)! Members of congress know this. The current immmigration system suits the business class.
TDS in plain sight. Amazing actually.
I haven't seen fit to publish your note to me about my 'uneven editing', Clive. Suffice it to say that your submission was almost wholly at the 'personal' level with no substantive contribution.
Brilliant satire from the author. Hey did you hear Trump has cancelled release of both the GDP (advanced estimate, 2025 Q3) and jobs (October month) reports? I can see why he would want to cover up all his success.
I have a MAGA hat and use it when I play golf.
It's practical and serves a purpose.
I've not seen any other vaguely useful consumer goods produced by any of Trumps / MAGA competitors?
I think this sums up everything why Trump became president.
He produced things that serve a purpose while his competitors produce only shallow words and vitriol.
It's not difficult to see why he was re-elected if you ignore the liberal rhetoric bias in the media.
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