I disagree with those who think saving America means supporting Trump in 2020. Whether its Trump or one of the Democrats who is elected will make very little difference; movement away from freedom will continue as government spending and regulations continue to increase. The Democrats may not be as harsh on innocent immigrants or as dishonestly opposed to free trade but they will favor more taxes on the productive. The Republicans may drag their feet on socializing medicine and providing free education for all but they will provide more pork for their cronies.

Trumps economic policies (tariffs followed by subsidies to counteract their effects, tax cuts with no decrease in spending, tariffs without recognizing trade wars as lose/lose and trade as win/win) are destructive of freedom, hence anti-American. His implicit foreign policy (denigrating allies while treating dictators, terrorists and theocrats as moral) encourages our enemies and is also anti-American. His pretense of opposition to socialism while saying he will provide health care for all is a blatant contradiction.

The authoritarian tone of his actions (his careless, stupid, easily proven untrue, and unretracted insults; his my way or the highway treatment of his appointees; his providing support for white nationalists; his stretching executive actions beyond constitutional limits) pave the way for dangerous authoritarians. Most fundamentally is his lack of respect for the rule of law in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular.

Unfortunately, the Democratic hopefuls nearly make Trump look good. They bemoan the few things that Trump almost got right. They criticize his withdrawal from the Paris green treaty, seeming to want to lower the life span and happiness of billions of people by enslaving the energy producers who make our planet more livable allegedly to avoid catastrophes that only a few scientists claim likely.

They criticize his minimal attack on ObamaCare (removing mandates) and jump on the socialist bandwagon proclaiming now is the time for Medicare for all. They decry his appointing a Secretary of Education who wants to reduce the federal governments role and then they promote free education for all. They denounce his tax cuts (particularly the lowering of corporate tax rates, which should be zero) and want equality by stealing the wealthys wealth.

Andrew Yang proposes a government payout to all workable only if all other payouts were abolished (i.e., no Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, government education, etc.).

Elizabeth Warren, most dangerous of the hopefuls, has plans for expanding every government program imagined and lacks only a funding plan and that leads to the only element of sanity among the Democrats: Joe Biden in the first debate questioned how the others plans could be funded and then, in the October debate, other hopefuls attacked Warren in particular on her conspicuously lacking funding plan.

No politician wants to limit government to protecting individual rights. It appears that the best we can hope for is that whichever party wins the presidency, the other wins Congress and slows down the attacks on freedom.

Robert Stubblefield

Aiken

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Letter: Freedom will decrease as government grows | Opinions and Editorials - Aiken Standard