Although the 2020 election for president isn’t official yet, President Trump has a steep uphill battle in trying to pull out a last-minute victory with his legal challenges. It didn’t work in 2000 when Al Gore filed protests against George W. Bush, and it’s not likely to succeed this time either.
However, Joe Biden has already forged ahead with his administrative plan assuming he will be the next president. One disturbing fact is his announcement that the day he is inaugurated, he will begin a series of moves to reverse many of Trump’s decisions that he made during his four years in office.
Now we understand the phrase “to the victor belongs the spoils,” and because of that, Biden certainly has the right to implement his own programs. But to just automatically cancel all accomplishments of the winner’s predecessor has long-range negative ramifications for the country.
So far, Biden has indicated that he will cancel Trump’s climate change plan and all of the Trump tax cuts for both individuals and businesses, he will rejoin the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, and he will open back up immigration including illegal and criminal elements allowing them to come into the U.S. Other items that may be on the chopping block are the wall at the southern border, military spending and fracking for oil and gas and other measures to help give the nation oil independence. It’s also likely that Biden will reinstate some sort of diplomatic relations with Iran, a country that Trump denounced.
Now some of those who read this editorial might say that Trump did just that to many of President Obama’s programs. But other than Obamacare, it can be argued that Trump simply added funding to beef up areas that he felt needed attention like the military, the southern border and the Keystone pipeline. These weren’t automatic reversals because of disdain for his predecessor.
Our point here is to ask, will Biden’s actions usher in a new political phenomenon that brings in wholesale, automatic changes every time a different political party takes control of the White House? It’s a pretty safe bet that sometime down the road, a Republican will be elected president. Will this back and forth football game become the norm? If it does, operation of the nation’s government will be thrown into turmoil.
We understand that if Biden is declared the official winner, he has the right to institute his vision of how to run the country. But everything Trump did was not wrong. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail so that there is some give and take in what happens to America’s future.