Steven Strauss

January 2021: President Trump “Made America Great Again,” and a grateful nation re-elected him. Here is how he did it.

President Trump in his 2017 inaugural address declared war on our rigged political system. Republicans retained control of Congress and responded enthusiastically. The Senate changed its rules to eliminate filibusters on Supreme Court nominees, and Congress made other procedural changes to speed up the lawmaking process. To further improve efficiency, Congress sharply reduced civil service protections, thereby making termination of government employees easier.

In the first 100 days, Obamacare was repealed, “winners” and “producers” got huge tax cuts, and much else on the GOP wish list was accomplished.

Congress also approved Trump’s judicial and U.S. attorney nominees — in record time — despite some grumbling that many of these nominees had connections to the "alt-right" movement. Candidate Trump warned that investigations and litigation against “doubters” (like Jeff Bezos, The New York Times and other “losers”) would be coming. President Trump’s new appointees were quick to initiate those investigations.

Trump, as candidate, demanded that a special prosecutor investigate “Crooked Hillary." Subsequently, the Trump administration appointed a special prosecutor to investigate not only Clinton, but also Obama and the "elites" who had donated to Democrats. The “smart” thing would have been donating to Trump-Republicans or staying out of politics altogether — which is what the wealthy did in future elections.

Thousands of people had to be investigated, so Americans learned not to criticize Trump. It didn’t matter whether prosecutors got convictions, or even indictments — the tremendous cost of defending one’s self or business against the Department of Justice crushed thousands of Trump’s opponents — and sent a clear message.

In 2016, Trump’s spokesperson Omarosa Manigault predicted: “Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump” — and she was right. Going forward, the domestic mass media broadly supported, or at least did not oppose, Trump.

Trump, as he promised, renegotiated many of our international agreements, leading to (among other things) our withdrawal from NATO. This resulted in the collapse of the U.S. dollar, trade wars, and other economic and political dislocations. Trump’s admirer, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, moved quickly to maintain order in Europe — by annexing the Baltic countries.

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In 2016, almost half of all Americans believed that Trump, as president, would be willing to use nuclear weapons — and he did. Thankfully, the 2017 Nuclear War was short and contained to the Middle East, where President Trump authorized a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran’s atomic weapons program. This resulted in a few million dead in the region, a wave of suicide bombings against the U.S., and America becoming a global pariah state. The Trump administration proclaimed it a great victory.

The BBC and other foreign media reported during Trump's first term that the U.S. unemployment rate was skyrocketing towards 25% — and was not 0% as President Trump was claiming. The international media also said America’s foreign policy was for sale, citing Trump’s many conflicts of interest.

With all this turmoil, Trump had to crush an attempted coup against his authority from rogue elements within the Republican Party. The foreign media described these rogue elements as patriots seeking to impeach Trump under the Constitution. But the Trump administration claimed these dissident Republicans were “bribe takers, criminals, pedophiles, drug addicts and agents of radical Islam." The evidence against these troublemakers surfaced on WikiLeaks. The BBC and other foreign media said the leaked evidence was nonsense and obviously faked, probably by the Russian government. Remaining elements in the judiciary, Congress or military (who did not support Trump) resigned or were removed.

After the impeachment attempt was suppressed as treason, a now fully supportive Congress voted President Trump additional authority to deal with the state of emergency. This included creating a Great Digital Wall of America (modeled on China’s Great Firewall) — to cut down on the ability of radical Islam and dangerous foreign influences (like the BBC) to reach Americans.

As the 2018 election approached, Trump focused on electoral reform — to make sure dissident Republicans couldn’t align with loser Democrats to steal the upcoming election.

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Congress, at Trump’s request, passed a comprehensive set of election reforms, including a shift to a digital voting system (which Trump outsourced to a Russian firm with huge experience). Some states resisted adopting these “reforms." Naysayers argued that the new system suppressed poor and minority voters, and made the voting system easy to manipulate. But these critics were rapidly prosecuted for defaming Trump.

The 2018 election results clearly showed how effective these reforms had been. Where they had been adopted, the Trump-Republicans won decisive victories. In states where the reforms hadn't been adopted, the old Clinton coalition of “elites, losers and haters” won. The “losers and haters” rioted on a large scale about the election results, so the National Guard had to be used. When some officers and soldiers refused to shoot rioters and resigned, Trump replaced them with stronger people. In 2020, in the interests of consistency and to avoid any confusion about voting fairness, all states were required to use the new and improved electoral system.

Some “losers and haters” continued to resist Trump’s efforts to Make America Great Again. To prevent them from undermining Trump’s policies, many African Americans, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Hispanics and non-conformists were sent to labor camps for re-education and potential deportation.

But Trump got it all under control. In the 2020 election, the president received 99% of the popular vote and 100% of the electoral vote. And Trump-Republicans continued to control Congress.

Oh, and the Mexican government ultimately did pay for that border wall. The foreign media had the audacity to report, however, that Mexico did so to keep out hordes of starving and persecuted Americans.

Steven Strauss is the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Steven_Strauss.

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