Any attempt to explain why to vote for one candidate or another is bound to fail from the start. The scope is too vast to capture in brief, and the discussion too important to be reduced to acronyms or slogans. But for those who believe, as I do, that Donald Trump is the preferred candidate for the US presidency, the task seems easier. After all, Trump was president for four years, which means that instead of prophesying about what might be, we can easily look at what was. So why vote for Trump today?
Because while every American president since 1995 refused to honor Congress's decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, citing fears of Palestinian violence, Trump inaugurated the new embassy, teaching everyone an important lesson about refusing to surrender to threats.
Because when all the learned experts explained that peace between Israel and Arab states was impossible without first solving the Palestinian issue, Trump delivered the Abraham Accords – the most significant step toward lasting peace in the Middle East in decades, and the only one not based on the failed and detestable equation of "land for peace."
Because when Obama, Biden, and their associates eagerly promoted a foreign policy centered on cooperation with Tehran's murderous regime, Trump reinstated sanctions, eliminated Qassem Soleimani, and made it clear to the ayatollahs that terrorism would have severe consequences – an understanding that led to quiet until the Democrats returned to the White House.
While President Joe Biden delivered eloquent speeches and transferred vast sums to Ukraine, he failed in the most crucial mission: arming Ukrainians with the military capabilities to defeat Putin. And Trump? The man whom the media and US intelligence agencies tried to frame as Moscow's agent ended the five-decade disarmament agreement with the Russians and signaled to Putin that any aggression would not be well-received. He also armed President Volodymyr Zelensky's military with Javelin anti-tank missiles, which perhaps explains why Putin, like Hamas and its Iranian supporters, waited until Biden was settled in the White House before invading and starting the war.
Because his economic policies reduced, for the first time in 60 years, the wage gap between America's bottom and top quartiles, explaining why the vast majority of working-class people, including most trade union members traditionally considered enthusiastic Democratic Party supporters, now vote for Trump, and why more than two-thirds of those earning $500,000 or more annually support Harris.
Because Trump is the first president who stood firm against Western appeasement of China, making it clear to Beijing that its flagrant theft of software, industrial secrets, and intellectual property – theft costing the American economy around $600 billion annually – must stop. Trump backed his tough talk with equally tough trade agreements, causing the Chinese to back down briefly, until Biden returned to Washington and nullified all his predecessor's achievements with a stroke of a pen.
Because Trump understands there's no more acute problem, or greater existential threat, than millions of illegal immigrants crossing the border unchecked. Just last week, for instance, one of them, benefiting from Biden and Harris's reckless and permissive immigration policy, randomly shot a Jew walking to synagogue on Saturday. The US must secure not only its security future, endangered when thousands of unscreened violent migrants roam its cities freely, but also its economic future, which is at risk if illegal immigrants continue to pose an enormous burden on taxpayers – in New York alone, they cost the city $5 billion, forcing the city to reduce welfare services for US-born poor – and continue taking jobs that traditionally supported minorities and lower classes.
Because Trump was the first to expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to define Jews as a protected minority, giving the federal government broader power to fight rising antisemitism, especially on campuses. Instead of applauding the president for this necessary step, US media portrayed the legislation as an attack on free speech and continued, without any factual basis, to accuse Trump of antisemitism.
The idea: Common sense and freedom of choice
One could go on and on, but the bottom line is clear: Donald Trump may be an unconventional and unusual candidate, and sometimes he makes statements that even his most ardent supporters would prefer to forget, but he was a measured, responsible, and excellent president. Instead of accepting as gospel the educated lies of the elites – for instance, that anyone who wants should be allowed to enter the US, or that wars can never be won and therefore aren't worth trying – he promoted different, necessary ideas that history has already proven absolutely correct.
After years of elite rule, during which giant corporations, media conglomerates, intelligence agencies, and politicians became one inseparable entity serving only its own interests and no one else's, while taking more and more basic liberties from other citizens, Trump came demanding change. The movement he leads is a return – irritating, disruptive, but absolutely necessary – to American founding principles, foremost among them the understanding that democracy's owners aren't just in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, or Wall Street, but all of us, the unglittering majority who, like any normal person, care first about their own interests. The deranged American press calls such an approach "racism" or "misogyny" or "transphobia" or "xenophobia." The more accurate definition is common sense and freedom of choice, a basic idea that Donald Trump apparently understands better than anyone else.
Liel Leibovitz is a senior editor at Tablet Magazine and a popular podcast host. The author of several books, he writes for Israel Hayom, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
