The Path to Victory for Trump

Following this week's primaries, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have both attained enough delegates to be their respective parties' presidential nominees this fall. Barring some sort of unforeseen event -- a debilitating hospitalization, an ultra-expedited criminal prosecution, or a convention floor revolt -- we will thus get a rematch of the 2020 presidential election.

For the many Americans who are neither Trump enthusiasts nor card-carrying Democratic partisans, this choice at the ballot box may be less than fully enticing. But for those patriots who still love this country, warts and all and in spite of our ruinous current trajectory and decadence, it is imperative that Trump secures a second presidential term. It really is that simple.

You may admire Trump's willingness to challenge conventional orthodoxies and his instinctual nationalism; or maybe you think he is an unprincipled politician and an obnoxious boor, to boot. Perhaps you believe Trump is now being persecuted by a weaponized prosecutorial apparatus; or you might have deep qualms about voting for someone found guilty of a crime by a jury of his peers.

But whatever it is you think about the polarizing 45th president of the United States, it doesn't really matter. The reality is the Democratic Party in its fetid current form is wholly unfit to govern the local assisted living facility -- to say nothing of the greatest country in the world. And whoever once said American elections don't present a binary choice is a moron; that is precisely what they do.

Patriots of all stripes must therefore band together to get Trump across the finish line this November. Trump can certainly make that task easier (or harder) based on how he runs his campaign this year. Here is what he should do.

Since Trump is the first former president to run for a non-consecutive additional term since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, his campaign is somewhat anomalous. Most challengers to an incumbent president seeking reelection can only talk about what they will do once they are in office and how that agenda differs from the incumbent's record. But Trump already served a full term; he has a record. What's more, that term was just a few years ago; most voters remember it well.

The key to Trump's reelection this fall, then, is to make the straightforward case that his term was demonstrably better for the median American citizen than Biden's term has been.

On the economy, Biden has presided over the worst inflation in four decades, declining real wages, a formal recession and a historic supply chain crisis. Trump, by contrast, oversaw a generally flourishing pre-COVID economy: The stock market soared, inflation was generally subdued, America became a net exporter of oil and natural gas for the first time ever, and the Black unemployment rate even reached the lowest it has been since that statistic was first measured.

On the border, Biden has presided over the worst crisis in American history: Endless streams of unknown illegal aliens have flooded over, leading to a massive strain on municipalities' resources, skyrocketing violent crime, depressed wages for working-class Americans and the mass importation of terrorism-implicating "special interest aliens." Trump, by contrast, may not have finished construction of the border wall, but illegal immigration was orders of magnitude lower than it is today due in no small part to the prudent measures he implemented, such as Remain in Mexico.

On the world stage, Vladimir Putin did not march into Ukraine under Trump (indeed, it is curious that Putin invaded Crimea during the Obama presidency in 2014 and then waited patiently until the next Democratic president to invade again), and under Trump, Hamas did not infiltrate Israel and kill the most Jews in a single day since the defeat of Nazi Germany. Iran was on the brink of economic catastrophe by the end of Trump's term due to his administration's "maximum pressure" campaign; under Biden, the Islamic Republic has been "maximally emboldened" to sow the seeds of jihad all over the Middle East. For all the talk of Trump's "chaos," there was not a single major war abroad during his presidency.

The 2024 presidential campaign is going to get ugly. Democrats have barely commenced the advertising onslaught that is to come, wherein they will depict Trump as a Mafia-like thug and shamelessly compare Jan. 6, 2021, to 9/11. Trump's best chance this fall is to ignore the noise and prove, contrary to the smear campaigns, that he is the superior candidate in terms of competence, stability and sanity. He has the record to prove it.

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To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.