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Trump ran on “Make America Great Again” and people “got it”. The slogan cut through all the BS. It was similar to Reagan’s two campaigns that got the messaging right so people could understand. People often cite Reagan’s “It’s Morning In America” campaign in 1984. However, we were two years onto the road to recovery by then.
Here is Ronald Reagan in 1980 when our country and the world was a total mess thanks to Jimmy Carter.
Of course, because the media wants to style every Republican candidate as a modern-day Hitler, they said it was a rallying cry for some sort of totalitarian colonial government.
Today, the Italians are electing their new prime minister and the media is doing the same thing. The favorite, Giorgia Meloni based on polls is somehow “far right”. My guess is that she is far right because everyone, including the media, has moved so far to the left. From the looks of her platform, she is trying to put Italy First and that’s not a terrible thing.
Mussolini never put Italy first. He put Mussonlini first. Hitler never put Germany first. He put Hitler first. Stalin put himself first and Chairman Xi is first in China too. None of them are examples of “servant leaders”.
Once the accusation of being some sort of modern-day despot fails to take hold in the broad public conscience, the next line of the playbook says to cry racism. America First is not some sort of ethnocentric ethnic cleansing-based agenda. It’s not a “white people first” agenda either.
It’s like predictable clockwork. Every argument I get in with a liberal starts off with a bunch of accusations that are unaccountable to anything. When you show them the fact, they deny it. Then they deflect, “I don’t understand” or “your source is biased”. When you try explaining, showing new sources that are clearly objective, they continue to deflect, and then finally you are a racist.
It’s why you see so much gaslighting in the media today.
I don’t think the politicians have been good at articulating it in the proper words either. Best to be direct.
America First is creating a climate where the economic incentives are such that American companies will choose to produce in America. The regulations either have to be repealed or rewritten to recognize opportunity costs and real costs instead of some made-up or potential thing. That allows American companies like banks to lend and mining companies to explore.
America First is small government focused and low tax. It gets the government off the backs of the people. It doesn’t pit rich against poor but tries to make sure everyone has the opportunity to make something of themselves. That means getting rid of entire federal agencies and slashing the bureaucracy with a meat cleaver, not a scalpel. It means thinking differently and letting private industry take the lead, not the government.
America First is about creating opportunities for all Americans. It’s about making sure Americans get their chance to exercise their rights in their country ahead of people that aren’t from here.
America First is about returning to first principles. That means federalism. Dismantling power centers in Washington DC and distributing it out to the 50 states where the government is more accountable to citizens.
If you read the latest SCOTUS decision on abortion, it has federalism written all over it. They took all the power away from the courts, from the executive branch, and from Congress. They gave it to voters in individual states to decide for themselves. Sorry Lindsay Graham, your ideas on abortion were unconstitutional as soon as you put pen to paper.
America First is about immigration. It’s about having strong borders because you can’t have a country without them. But, it’s also about letting people in that want to adopt and adhere to the traditional American value system of hard work, nuclear family, and self-determination. It’s not about having a gigantic government-administered safety net.
America First is about equal application of the law to everyone. No special deals. No one is above the law. The legal playing field is level. It’s not a weaponized Department of Justice that goes after political enemies or a weaponized local Attorney General that uses the power of government to try and disable political enemies. That’s un-American.
At the end of the day, America First is about individual freedom over the “collective”. It’s about bottom-up and decentralization. It’s about accountability and responsibility. It’s about embracing a free-market free-enterprise system that is hyper-competitive because competition brings innovation.
People that criticize and attack America First want the collective because there is no accountability for them. They like top-down because they will always be on the top and won’t have to suffer the consequences of their actions. They like to divide on the basis of anything they can divide people over. Totalitarians like to do that.
Excellent commentary Jeff. I just ran across this on twitter where a pro-life Catholic family with seven children were terrorized Friday morning at 7:05 when a DOJ SWAT team of 25-30 FBI agents armed with long guns stormed their home for an arrest warrant for Mark Houck, who was being arrested for "Mark with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, due to a claimed “ATTACK OF A PATIENT ESCORT.” Mark and his 12 year old son drove to Philadelphia and held "sidewalk counseling" out side of two abortion clinics once a week. On occasion a vile man would come up to his 12 year old son using vile language and Mr. Houck asked the man to shut up. He was charged once, but it was thrown out of court. Now Merrick Garland's DOJ decided to charge him on federal charges. This story will not make national news but it should. Here is a link to the article. Government overreach: It has to stop! https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fbi-raids-home-of-catholic-pro-life-speaker-author-with-guns-drawn-as-his-terrified-kids-watch/
Excellent. Well said. There's an entire political party that needs to memorize that--as a rant, to be repeated at every opportunity, if only because their messaging sucks.