Today, President Trump will deliver the annual State of the Union address. Underneath the pyrotechnics, the president has a strong case to make that the country is better off than before he took office.
The political left and its allies have gone on offense on the immigration issue, painting a picture of heartless and out-of-control ICE agents snatching people minding their own business off the streets. The president should counter that narrative with hard facts.
The stories, for example, of teens Brady Heiling and his girlfriend Hallie Helgeson, who had their lives tragically stolen by an undocumented drunk driver from Honduras, who never should have been in their native Wisconsin. Or the unnamed minor victim of the transgender-identifying illegal alien from Colombia charged with child rape in New York, set free by the state’s sanctuary laws. President Trump should invite the families of the victims of open border policies to his State of the Union,
By contrast, under Trump, for the first time in more than 30 years, the United States has an orderly border. Potential undocumented immigrants have lost easy access to the country, and we have made enormous progress toward deporting the millions here illegally. Voters have demanded this restoration of law and order for decades, but it has been ignored by both parties until Trump came into office.
The president should point out that it is blue states’ sanctuary policies that lead to more dangerous confrontations with deranged protesters and more widespread community raids, instead of the low-risk jail and courthouse pickups in red states.
These tactics are forced by Democrats’ refusal to cooperate with law enforcement, but they leave the worst of the worst released back onto our streets, just to make things harder for ICE.
Perhaps second only to immigration in terms of domestic importance is this president’s restoration of democratic accountability over the administrative state and its army of bureaucrats. Trump has spent his first year reasserting control over the burgeoning agencies that have long been running American life with little accountability. The unitary executive theory is the only long-term solution to the deep state; we the people must control, through the election of our president, the bureaucrats that staff our government, or they control us. Under Trump, the unconstitutional “fourth branch” has suffered its first body blow in a century.
Third, the president should point out that under his watch, America finally stopped discriminating on the basis of race. He should tout his successful executive orders and Justice Department investigations that have chased out diversity, equity and inclusion policies in public and private institutions, and his enforcement of civil rights laws against universities openly discriminating against White and Asian applicants.
Fourth, he should remind the country that he restored the biological definition of sex to federal law on Day 1, and he has ensured that women and girls’ rights to fair competition, safety and dignity are not subordinated to the delusions of men who claim to be women.
On the economy, the president again has a solid case to make that we are headed in the right direction. Overall, while long-term affordability challenges certainly persist, the picture after the first year-plus of Trump’s administration looks good. Inflation has moderated without triggering the recession predicted by economic models; growth continues above 4 percent; and unemployment numbers are falling.
Whether tariffs have been a boon to the economy — as Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claim — or a drag, the fact is we haven’t seen the global economy implode as many hysterical “experts” predicted. The president should take a victory lap and embarrass some of those so-called experts by highlighting their false doomsaying.
Finally, the president should tout his Don-roe Doctrine, a foreign policy that unashamedly places American interests first. Our enemies are more wary of us, and our friends know what we expect of them in return for the protection and opportunities offered by the globe’s most powerful military and largest economy.
American dominance has been re-established without the cost of American blood or entangling ground invasions or long wars.
Under President Joe Biden, America’s slow decline seemed inevitable. It no longer does.
While there’s plenty more work to be done to Make America Great Again, the state of the union under this president is strong, and he has much to brag about.