We also intend to explain how a White House that appears so chaotic and has been so fiercely resisted by the nation’s press and political establishment has managed to enact so much of the agenda promised to voters in 2016. Reporters like to present Trump as a catastrophe for the country, but it’s time to also consider the cost of not having him as president. Difficult as it may be for many media observers to comprehend—and regardless of the results of the 2020 election—Trump has achieved a successful presidency hidden in plain sight.
It’s perhaps all the more surprising given that he came to the job with no experience in elective office. The real estate developer from Queens rode down an escalator in one of his eponymous Manhattan skyscrapers to announce his campaign for president on June 16, 2015. After arriving at the bottom, he unleashed a raw tirade that resonated with blue-collar voters even as it repelled the nation’s political and media establishment.
Just before Trump arrived at the podium, his daughter Ivanka promised the enthusiastic gathering that her father would “outwork anyone in any room” and that he was “the opposite of politically correct.” Nearly four years into the Trump presidency, it’s hard to argue with either claim, especially considering the people who tend to populate Washington meeting rooms. Ms. Trump also lauded her father’s “refusal to take no for an answer” in negotiations and said that “he has the discernment to understand what the other party needs and then to get exactly what he wants.” She added that he’s a “dreamer” but also a “doer.”
At the conclusion of her remarks, speakers in the Trump Tower lobby blared Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” which fired up the crowd and has been annoying Young ever since. Donald Trump then ascended the stage, and after thanking people and commenting on the size of the crowd, said:
“Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.”
Not exactly the Gettysburg Address, but he did get right to the point. The new candidate then made a boast that must have seemed preposterous to reporters covering the event: “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
Two years and seven months later, U.S. job openings hit a record high of 6.3 million. The record would be broken several times in the Trump era. Also remarkable was that, for the first time since the government began tracking such data, there were just as many job openings as unemployed Americans.6 Newspaper “fact-checkers” are free to opine on whether they think God created Trump, but they can hardly argue with the numbers.
Back in 2015 at Trump Tower, amused reporters may have failed to appreciate, that while Trump had never held political office, he was the most skilled communicator in the presidential race. We’re not just talking about his ability to make his case in fewer than 280 characters. Maria went to Trump Tower in 2016 to conduct a television interview with the rookie Republican candidate and former host of NBC’s The Apprentice. Before any discussion of economic plans or foreign policy priorities, Trump insisted on rearranging the television lights so that the brightest coverage was on the interview subject rather than the interviewer. Well played. He knew that, for any journalist, getting an exclusive with the country’s new preeminent newsmaker would take priority over aesthetics. The meticulous rearrangement of the lighting has continued to be a pre-interview Trump ritual during his presidency.
Trump brought the same attention to detail to the crafting of his campaign message, which was almost entirely focused on winning over swing districts in Middle America with a promise of economic revival. He argued that step one was defeating an entrenched media and political elite.
Upon accepting the 2016 Republican nomination in Cleveland in July, Trump said: “America is a nation of believers, dreamers, and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics, and cynics. Remember: all of the people telling you that you can’t have the country you want are the same people telling you that I wouldn’t be standing here tonight.”
He promised that Republicans would “lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace” and then described an economy in disrepair:
I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper:
Nearly four in 10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58 percent of African-American youth are not employed.
Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago.
Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely. Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000—16 years ago.
He then proposed “reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth…”7
What’s perhaps most striking today is that the agenda he promised in Cleveland is precisely the one he has been pursuing ever since. On that summer night in Ohio four years ago he said, “We are going to enforce all trade violations against any country that cheats. This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property.” Then he elaborated on the heart of his economic program:
We are going to start building and making things again.
Next comes the reform of our tax laws,
