|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Forget the personalities, look at the contrasting policies
This commentary was submitted to VDC by Mark Shepard, former state senator from Bennington County. It sums up VDC’s thoughts on the presidential election. Republished from affordableandsaferamerica.com
This election is about as clear as any presidential election in our lifetime. Both candidates have been a key part of a presidential administration, Trump as president and Harris as Vice President. Harris has made her alignment with the policies of the Biden-Harris Administration clear. Furthermore, because of Biden’s weak cognitive state, it is more than likely that Harris was leading more than Biden.
For these reasons, there is no excuse to not know the effect of our vote. We need only compare the policies of the Trump years to that of the Biden-Harris years.
Below are comparisons between Trump and Harris on four major policy areas. They unequivocally show that who is president of the United States makes a massive difference to millions, perhaps even billions, of people. Indeed a vote for Trump is not nearly as much about Trump as it is about loving our neighbors, from next door, to across our nation, to around the world.
If you are inclined to not vote, please consider the outcome for millions of Jews in Germany because the people in the German churches decided to stay out of politics. Staying on the sidelines, when the differences have real consequences, is putting comfort above the well-being of your neighbor.
Energy Cost and Inflation
The chart below shows a stark contrast in regular gasoline prices under the policies of Trump vs. the policies of Biden-Harris. Once Biden-Harris policies drove the price of gasoline above Trump’s highest level, the price of gasoline never dropped down to even the highest cost under Trump.
This is not simply about gasoline prices. Almost everything we buy – groceries, clothes, home products, building supplies, cars, tools, toys, etc. – is tied to the cost of petroleum. The Biden-Harris high inflation is directly related to their dangerous opposition to oil being readily available at a low cost. The impact of that mindset on the third world is devastating, even deadly. (For more information on the good vs. bad debate over fossil fuels, consider reading Fossil Future, by Alex Epstein.) Small businesses, especially minority businesses, which had thrived under Trump, were hit especially hard under Biden.
It is dishonest for Harris to promote a livable wage when the policies she helps advance produce unlivable inflation. Policies are enacted intentionally to achieve goals. High inflation works as well as low wages to create a discontented working class that can be easily exploited to gain power.
Border with Mexico
Even without being able to finish the wall, Trump border policies created far more orderly immigration processes and a more secure border. When given the reins of government, one of the first thing Biden-Harris did was overturn policies of Trump that were working, including ending work on the border wall.
Trump border policies helped inhibit drug and child trafficking across the border. Under Harris, empowered as the Border Czar, annual overdose deaths in America were over 100,000 in both 2022 and 2023 impacting millions who lost their loved ones. There is likely not a person in America who does not know someone who lost a friend or family member to Fentanyl. We need a serious president.
We must be cautious that we don’t embrace ideas that do not accomplish what proponents claim they will accomplish, or even worse be counter-productive. Here is a simple gumball model on world poverty that helps bring clarity to our current immigration policy.
Wars and stability
Under Trump no new large-scale wars started, instead unimaginable moves toward peace and better relations took place.
The Abraham Accord Peace Deal between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Crippled Iran’s ability to fund terrorism and its proxy-wars.
A better trajectory in our relationship with North Korea.
Under Biden-Harris two major wars are underway and both were arguably encouraged by Biden-Harris policies. Minimally, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced. These wars are a great cost to Americans in taxes or debt, but an even bigger issue is that they use up military resources and divert focus from a much bigger threat, that being the Chinese Communist Party’s expansionist mindset and growing military might.
Harris’ February 2022 speech in Germany, which did nothing to lower the tensions brought about from efforts to bring Ukraine into NATO, presented a Vice President that was oblivious to the realities not far from her. Not only has Putin been consistently clear that Ukraine joining NATO was not an option Russia would accept, but he had amassed at least 150,000 Russian troops along the Ukrainian border to strengthen his position.
Could Harris not have tested Putin with consideration of a neutral Ukraine? After all the United States did promise Russian and Soviet leaders, as part of ending the Cold War, that NATO would not expand one inch to the east. In spite of that promise, by 2022 NATO had expanded eastward by 14 nations, and Ukraine would give NATO a nearly 1300 mile direct border with Russia.
We don’t have to agree with the positions of other nations, but to prevent wars we need leadership that will at least try to understand them. How would we respond if Russia or China were about to enter an alliance that could put their military power on the Canadian border?
The Biden-Harris administration wasted no time reversing the Trump Iran sanction policies, thus allowing Iran to rake in billions of dollars in oil revenue to arm its proxies and terrorist activities, as well as invest more in its own nuclear weapons program.
Democracy in America
Every election Trump has gone through the normal election process, never using his party to defeat his Republican Primary opponents, nor the government to defeat any opponent. By contrast, those controlling the Democrat Party have employed numerous shenanigans, law-fare tactics, and even weaponized government agencies for political purposes to force any real opposition out of the Democratic Primary Process, such as it was.
They forced challengers to Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being one, out of the Democrat Primary, ensuring Biden would win the “primary.” It is clear now after the smooth ousting of Biden that the Democrat Primary was to clear a path for Harris to be the nominee without having to earn a single vote from the people. Harris proved her unpopularity among Democrat Primary voters in her 2020 run for president where she did not even make it to the first primary.
With a “nothing is off the table” attitude, Democrat Party leaders and their proxies used law-fare, weaponizing of government, and weak security to make it almost impossible for Trump to run an effective campaign.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Commentary
How soon we forget! Gas prices were low four years ago because tens of thousands were dying from Covid at a a time Trump said it would just go away.
Hi John – I think prices rose mostly due to 1) Biden signaling he’d shut down the oil and gas industry and 2) cutoff of Russian oil due to a war he bumbled his way into. But the Covid shutdown could have played a role for a few months, I guess.
And don’t forget he approved the Russian’s pipeline while shutting down the Keystone pipeline.
It is better to look at the data before making a comment and exposing that you have no interest in the facts. COVID was 2020-2021, not 2017-2020. Now with an understanding of the dates of COVID, look at the graph. Three years of low gas prices during Trump’s time were not COVID. And, note that it only took one quarter for Biden-Harris to get the price of gas above any time of Trump’s first term and it never again came down below any of time of Trump. It is nonsensical comments like this that have made the Democrats, under the control of the radical left, lose all credibility. It is about power and don’t let the facts get in the way.
Guy: There’s no question but that the Covid shutdown played a significant role in gasoline prices. The Covid shutdown circumvented everything related to our free-market economy – a circumstance which was, arguably, the goal of what we now characterize as the globalist cabal. And make no mistake. That ‘tens of thousands were dying from Covid’ is also debatable. What isn’t debatable is the fact that the Biden/Harris administration shut down our free-market economy under false pretenses. And the last thing Harris, and the globalists manipulating her puppet strings, can accept now is a recurring Trump administration that supports individual liberty and free enterprise.
I don’t like graphs like this. There is no guarantee that Trump can lower gas prices to where they were in the 2017 – 2020 period. He can open up new sources of production to minimize increases in the US but the global market decides these prices, so giving credit (or blame ) to one president is not productive.
I will vote for Trump because he wants to take down the over powerful administrative state. I hope he will reign in the FDA, the ATF, the CDC the EPA and the DOE. All of these agencies are out of control.
He will try to get some control over the intelligence agencies, too. That fight is already vicious and it’s likely to get worse.
Re: “He can open up new sources of production to minimize increases in the US but the global market decides these prices,…”
Yes, the ‘global market’ has an effect. But when the U.S. energy sector flexes
Re: ” There is no guarantee that Trump can lower gas prices… so giving credit (or blame ) to one president is not productive.”
As inadvertent as I suspect this assertion may be, it is yet another false dichotomy. A conjecture based on a false premise.
Trump isn’t lowering gas prices.
But Trump is allowing the free market (supply and demand) to do so. The U.S. has the potential to produce more energy than any other country in the world. Saudi Arabia and OPEC affected gas prices in 1973. Today, the U.S. has more energy capacity than OPEC primarily because of technological advances in shale-oil and natural gas extraction. Trump didn’t invent these technologies. But the free markets Trump supported did.
Holding our elected officials responsible (blaming or crediting them) for not supporting free markets is not only a legitimate exercise, its mandatory that freedom loving voters do so.
P.S. Oil isn’t the only commodity in the U.S.. The reason the World Economic Forum cabal is trying to destabilize the U.S. is because we are not only the world’s energy provider, we have immense entrepreneurial advantages in technology, as well as a huge agricultural capacity to feed the world. For example, we are learning just recently that the lithium reserves in Arkansas can supply massive battery production.
Why is Trump being attacked so? It’s just this simple. Because the globalist cabal wants to control our land and its resources. They haven’t been able to conquer us militarily. So now they’re trying to destabilize us from within – yes, it really is ‘the enemy from within’. They aren’t coming after Trump. They’re coming after you.
Food for thought. Especially in Vermont – the mecca for non-profit charity organizations.
https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/massive-voter-registration-fraud
I agree with everything you said there, H Jay.
I expect that if/when Trump wins (and I believe he will win decisively), the deep (admin, bureaucratic) state will fight aggressively to disqualify him and if that fails, they will undermine and discredit him. To suggest that Trump will get us back to zero interest rates and low energy prices within the next four years (as the chart does, not you) only sets us up for disappointment. It strengthens those that want to destroy the US.
I expect some real pain in the next few years. I will vote for Trump anyway because we need to get back to the things that made the US great. Those are, optimism, individual freedom, free markets and small government.
Dear Jdevino1791… please educate yourself on covid – watch all the episodes of theHighwire.com and get the real truth – the facts and nothing but FACTS! Maybe you will be astonished and humbled. Also JFK jr wrote a book on Fauci which you may want to read as well.
This is a powerful graph. Now mix it with vthope.net/vtvote.html and get the facts on the candidates statewide if you haven’t already voted (about half in my guestimation.) Know the candidates, the voting records, the plans they have for Act 18 and come prepared to the polls on Tuesday.
Hard to love my neighbor senator and representative when the Covid scam demic played out and they were told it was a fraud. But they all went along with it and got paid when everyone else went broke.
It would be useful to see a graph of violent crime statistics but so may democrat-run jurisdictions have stopped reporting such data to the FBI. Statistics on the firing of offensive rockets in the middle east would also be quite revealing. Democrats put feeling good about things over actual public safety, but that is nothing new.
This also why the so-called universal background check is a fake. If crimes and convictions aren’t being reported, they aren’t in the data base used by the FBI. Since the data base is used to qualify a gun purchaser’s qualification to buy, each and every crime and conviction has to be updated every day of the year to make it accurate. Each day in America people are convicted of serious crimes. If those crimes and convictions are not reported the data base is worthless.
This article would have made for a nice Trump campaign ad…
If we replace all the democrats with republicans we will all do well and prosper. If not, we all suffer. It is up to the democrats are you smarter then a box of rocks…my be is NO!!