I do not think it is hyperbole to say that the 2024 elections may be the most consequential in United States history. About 2 weeks ago, a former US president was arrested and arraigned for apparently purely political reasons (to stop him from running in the next presidential election) by an apparently weaponized Department of Justice, while the evidence of bribery on the sitting president continues to pile up with little to no press coverage except on one major media outlet, with seeming impunity. If this continues, the greatest country in history (at least in my opinion) will have effectively become a banana republic where political opponents are harassed by the government and where the sitting party is left to prosecute, though possibly guilty themselves of the crimes they are accusing their political opponents of committing (i.e bribery, quid quo pro). Also, if this continues it may mean the end of the rule of law. Bad politicians on both sides of the isle must be stopped this next election from ruining the United States.
Despite the rhetoric from the party with essentially a majority in the senate, their party also holding the presidency, a majority of Americans appear to be doing worst economically than with the former president, that president being the top contender in the other party and looking to be current presidents top political rival (whether or not he will be will depend on the primaries).
The current president also seems to be leading in his inability to stop preventable causes of deaths for fentanyl. Now, to be fair, the deaths from this drug had been steadily rising for years, but in the years “the wall” at the boarder was being built, it leveled off noticeably (it did not stop climbing though but did reduce the steep climb, for info see Fentanyl overdose deaths U.S. 1999-2021 | Statista ). The wall appeared to be working with regard to it fighting the amount of fentanyl crossing the boarder their-by saving the lives of hundreds if not thousands of young Americans. The current administration stopped building the wall and as you can see from the graphic the number of fentanyl deaths started to shoot up again.
With regard to the abortion issue, the former president was successful in nominating and seating 3 supreme court justices. In my opinion, it is thanks to his selections that Roe V. Wade was successfully over turned and the jurisdiction for such matters returned to the states where by the constitution it rightfully belongs.
Finally in foreign policy the former president was successful in cutting the number of killed-in-action deaths in Afghanistan in more than half from the previous presidents second term (see United States military casualties in the War in Afghanistan – Wikipedia). He was also responsible for the elimination of 2 key enemy leaders – Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
These things the former president could not do without assistance from his party in the senate and the house of representatives. So if you determine he did a good job, you cannot expect him to do a better job without helping elect senators and representatives of his same party, along with him, to help him pass good bills.
Every American must indeed judge for themselves. Are they doing better under the current parties control? Judge for yourself, is the economy better? Are your children better or is a working plan in place for the prevention of fentanyl deaths? Did the previous administration have a plan for reducing or stopping fentanyl deaths and was it working until it was dismantled by the current administration? Is the abortion issue important to you? If so who has done more than the former president to “correct” it? And finally with foreign policy and valuing the lives of our troops and inflicting the maximum amount of command and control damage to the enemy, who in your estimation did better, the former president who cut the number of killed-in-action deaths by more that half and eliminating 2 key leaders responsible for organizing and enabling the killing of hundreds of American soldiers over the life of the Afghanistan conflict or the present president who was responsible for no enemy leadership deaths and overseeing a withdrawal that left 13 Americans dead and many of our key allies during the war trapped behind enemy lines, leaving it to private ex-special forces operators to extract them with little or no help from our government and indeed denying that many or any were left behind?
It appears some party’s moral compass might be broken; the American people will have to decide whose.
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 