To say that I was not a fan of Donald Trump during the 2015 primaries, or even the 2016 election itself, would be an understatement. I would like for you to understand this, right at the outset. My support of him as we approach the 2020 election is something that he earned from me, not anything that stems from some fan-boy, this-has-always-been-my-guy type of mentality.

When Donald Trump ran in the Republican primaries, I (rightly, I believe) opposed him for the open wickedness of his past, which I will never even attempt to justify. There were other candidates that I, as a Christian, could support without having to hold my nose. Nonetheless, when he won the primary, I voted for him over Hillary because she was infinitely worse. And I will at least give him credit that, behavior-wise, his term in the White House seems to have been marked by absolute faithfulness and adoration to his wife and family, a stark and pleasant departure from his wickedness in some of his pre-presidential days.

But in the absence of the widely expected Clintonesque or worse presidential behavior, the political left has turned to other things to try and destroy Donald Trump before he could even finish a single term. And it is worthwhile considering just how unjust that is. When Barack Obama was elected president, nearly half of the country virulently opposed him and voted against him. And yet he took office with a nearly 70% approval rating; clear proof that even most of the conservative side of America was willing to give him a chance to succeed.

Can anyone with a straight face even begin to say that Donald Trump was afforded the same courtesy by the left?

Donald Trump was not sworn into office until January 20, 2017. But a headline from Vanity Fair on Nov. 14, 2016, said, “Will Trump Be Impeached?” On Dec. 15, 2016, Vanity Fair produced this gem of a headline, “Democrats Are Paving the Way to Impeach Donald Trump.” The New York Times, in an opinion headline from Nov. 3, 2016 said, “Donald Trump’s Impeachment Threat.” Politico, on April 17, 2016, posed this in a headline: “Could Trump be impeached shortly after he takes office?” April, 2016! That is before he even won the nomination!

In May of 2017, Texas Rep. Al Green became the first Democrat in Congress to voice support for impeaching President Donald Trump. He famously went on to say to MSNBC in May of 2019, “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.” That all by itself should tell you just how little of a chance the political left was ever willing to give Donald Trump. They have been willing to use the impeachment process as a tool to circumvent the probability of him being reelected, rather than as the gravest constitutional backstop against only the gravest offenses.

They obviously did not succeed in removing President Trump from office. He was acquitted by the full Senate on February 5, 2020.

For nearly 4 years President Trump has faced a constant barrage of ceaseless attacks, one right after the other. He has not been given so much as a second of respite. Russian collusion, Ukraine, blame for a pandemic that originated in China, utterly unfounded accusations of racism, multiple claims that he was about to start World War III, claims that he is anti-Semitic (despite the fact that his own son in law is Jewish), no one in the history of our Republic has ever faced such a ceaseless onslaught of hatred as Donald Trump.

And that is what makes his list of accomplishments so utterly breathtaking.

I loathe the concept of valuing polish over substance. Mind you, I rather appreciate polish in a mineral or a man; but a polished piece of gravel is still of far less worth than a diamond completely in the rough. Donald Trump has less polish than a piece of 40 grit sandpaper. I cringe repeatedly at the crass, vain things that he says, and often publically chide him for it. But if anyone else had done just one half of what he has done in their first term, people who actually value policy accomplishments over polished mannerisms would be clamoring for him to be king for life. It would be far too long of a list for me to put everything in this one paper. But let me give you just some of the highlights.

1. The stock market rally. The day Donald Trump was elected, the S and P closed out at 2163.10, the Dow closed at 18,613.52, and the Nasdaq Composite closed at 5193.49. As of today (August 18, 2020) the S and P closed out at 3389.78, the Dow at 27,228,07, and the Nasdaq at 11,210.84. Simply put, despite a world-wide pandemic, the stock market has soared to historic highs under President Trump, taking everyone’s retirement accounts with it.

2. Historically Low Unemployment. At the start of 2020, before Covidpocalypse, the unemployment rate was down to an all-time historical low of 3.5%. And these excellent job numbers were not discriminatory either. No less a liberal outlet then CNN, on September 6, 2019, reported that black unemployment now stood at a historic low of 5.5%, and Hispanic unemployment now stood at a historic low of 4.2%. Simply put, under Donald Trump, for the first time in history pretty much anyone of any race who wanted a job could have one.

3. Appointment of judges. As of right now Donald Trump has selected, and the Senate appointed, 220 federal judges, including 53 circuit judges, and two brand-new justices to the Supreme Court. He has even done the unthinkable, turning the historically utterly reliably insanely liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals into something resembling a constitutionally conservative body. Yes, some of those judges have produced some very wrong reasoning and rulings, even at the SCOTUS level, but the laws of probability alone make that inevitable. No one could ever pick 220 anyones for anything without ending up disappointed at something now and then. By and large his picks have been ultra solid in the realm of faithfulness to the original intent of the Constitution.

4. The good beginnings of a border wall. One of Donald Trump’s signature promises during the campaign was a border wall. Currently, 275 miles of that wall have been built. For him to get so much as a single mile built in the face of overwhelming opposition would have been impressive, let alone 275 miles. And as to the assertion that many of those miles have simply replaced existing wall mileage, that is an inaccurate assertion at best, since the existing “wall” it replaced could literally be stepped over in most cases. Yes, the campaign promise to “make Mexico pay for it” was stupid. But it is being built nonetheless, and as the next point will show, it is already making a difference.

5. Illegal border crossings have been reduced by 78% since May 2019.

6. More than 5000 human traffickers have been arrested.

7. The Trump DOJ managed to close down the leading site for human trafficking on the Internet.

8. On May 14, 2018, President Trump actually fulfilled a promise that presidents as far back as Ronald Reagan have made without fulfilling, namely recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This, of course, was met with hysterical assurances that Trump was about to cause World War III. I hope you didn’t blink, because if you did, you missed it…

9. In December, 2018, President Trump signed a historic justice reform bill. While all of the details may not be exactly as I would like, just from a race relations standpoint this was a huge accomplishment. This is something that the left had been agitating for for years, and yet all they ever did was talk about it. Even when they had a black president, they did nothing about it. So great was this accomplishment to the black community that Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for these criminal justice reform accomplishments.

10. We now have a sixth branch of the military, the space force. This, of course, is something that the political left has laughed about and mocked. And yet we are already a space faring people; simple logic, therefore, dictates that our safety is at risk if we are behind the rest of the world in this arena.

11. This one is huge. In 2018, America became, under President Trump’s leadership, the leading producer of oil in the world, surpassing both Russia and Saudi Arabia. For the first time in America’s history we are energy independent. Two election cycles ago Democrats mocked the cries of “drill, baby, drill,” saying, “you can’t drill your way out of this problem,” the problem being our dependence on hostile foreign powers for the fuel that powers our economy and lives. Apparently, though, we can, since under Donald Trump we did. Credit where it is due, oil production was indeed going up under President Obama as well, but it is under President Trump that it finally achieved this milestone.

12. When President Obama left office, the Syrian peninsula was still overrun by ISIS, whom he in juvenile fashion referred to as “the JV team.” under President Trump ISIS has been decimated and all of their territory taken from them. Their leader, terrorist Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (or as the New York time called him “austere religious scholar.” Insert incredulous eye roll here…) was killed.

13. I am not a fan of Executive Orders. Nonetheless, they are apparently here to stay. And in two very significant executive orders, President Trump prohibited the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith, and signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism. He has been, if nothing else, consistently a friend and ally to people of faith. This to me has been amazingly refreshing, especially after the Obama years in which the heavy hand of government, especially the IRS, was used as a weapon against Christians.

16. In another Executive Order President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.

17. NAFTA, undoubtedly the worst trade deal in American history, was jettisoned and replaced with the seemingly much more favorable USMCA.

18. Have you ever worried about getting a fatal disease for which no “fully tested and approved treatment” is available? Right-To-Try legislation was passed under President Trump, allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before. If you or a loved one ever gets a fatal disease, you now literally have a better chance of surviving than you did prior to the election of 2016.

I could go on at length. Would I still rather have someone with a much more pristine past to go along with good policy? Yes. Has he been perfect? No. But neither were presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, or Bush Sr.

But I believe that he has accomplished more of substance than all of those men combined, and in the face of unprecedented opposition. And it is for that reason, among others, that I, still no fan-boy, will be voting for him again in 2020, and encouraging others to do the same.