Donald J. Trump was officially voted in as the 47th President of the United States. Trump won with 312 electoral votes compared to Harris’ 226, and just over 50% of the popular vote.
This was a large win for Trump, with polls once again underestimating him and other Republicans across the country. But is the victory itself shocking? Not really.
America has been in a terrible state over the course of the Biden-Harris administration, with record inflation, illegal immigration, drug related deaths, crime, and wage decrease all over the past four years — and Kamala Harris was a part of it. The argument that the Vice President has no say in American politics is reasonable, but not for this. Harris made a record number of tie-breaking votes in the Senate and has taken credit for being “the last person in the room” on major decisions, such as the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw 13 U.S. service members killed, another 45 wounded, and 170 Afghan civilians killed.
On top of this horrible record, Harris ran a poor performing campaign. Her hesitancy to take strong positions was indicative of her untrustworthiness, as people were unsure about what she was going to do. Harris very notably ran pro-Israel ads in states like Pennsylvania while running pro-Palestinian ads in Michigan, declined to answer whether or not she would sign an electric vehicle mandate, and refused to answer whether or not she supports any restrictions on late term abortion, instead articulating her support for Roe v. Wade.
With the few positions that she did take, she either copied those of Trump, such as no tax on tips and expanding the border wall, or she just took very radical positions, such as a 25% unrealized capital gains tax.
On the campaign trail, the Harris campaign was underwhelming with its connection with voters. While trying to resonate with middle-class voters by emphasizing her middle-class upbringing, Harris constantly campaigned with Hollywood celebrity millionaires. Her reluctance to go on right-leaning news outlets and other unfriendly media platforms isolated her campaign message to liberal voters, who already made their decision to vote for Harris. This is not even including the extremely liberal positions she took during the 2019 campaign, which certainly had an impact on some voters this election, saying that she wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings, eliminate private health insurance, completely ban fracking, or even have tax-payer funded sex change surgeries for detained illegal immigrants.
So that leaves us with Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, and not only can we look at his record to infer his plans for the next term, but we can also see what he has said.
With Trump’s record in his past administration, he emphasized issues that were important to voters in 2016 and are even more important today. These include policies such as requiring migrants to apply for asylum in countries they pass through before doing so in the U.S., the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and the Abraham Accords, which began to normalize relations between Israel and other Arab nations.
In his next administration, Trump plans to substantially cut taxes for the middle class, cut taxes for businesses only if they manufacture their products in America, and cut many crushing environmental regulations, which will likely result in an increase in efficiency and subsequent decreased costs of goods.
With abortion — a hot-topic especially amongst women — he’s actually quite moderate.
Trump is against strict abortion bans. Since he has stated that he supported overturning Roe v. Wade, he wouldn’t want to stop states from implementing bans. However, he is against abortion bans such as the six-week maximum in Florida.
I could go on about the many policies proposed by Trump that would benefit America, including energy independence, or promoting peace through strength around the world, but I know that’s not what many students on campus are concerned with. The main concern I’ve seen from Democrats is that Donald Trump will be a tyrant when he goes into office and will ban abortion nationwide.
The beautiful thing about this country is that there are so many checks and balances, guard rails and separations of power that no person could even come close to gaining absolute power. In fact, the president is not actually all that powerful. Congress needs to pass legislation before the president signs it, and both Congress and the Supreme Court can block actions taken by him. On top of that, the autonomy of states also removes a lot of power from the president’s hands, with the Constitution explicitly stating: “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Whether you’re a Republican, Independent, or Democrat, there’s nothing to worry about. On Jan. 20, 2029, Trump will leave the White House, abortion will not be banned, the economy will be reinvigorated, and the world will be a much more peaceful place than what it is right now.
