An American Golden Age? Reasons to be hopeful about Trump 2.0

Turn on the TV and you’ll learn that American fascism dawned as Trump took the oath of office for his second shot at the US presidency.

I’m not so pessimistic. I’m with the majority — 60 percent of Americans and 67 percent of 18-29 year olds, according to a recent CBS/YouGov poll — who are feeling pretty good about Trump 2.0.

To be sure, there’s plenty that could go wrong over the next four years, whether due to Trump’s ambitious political agenda or his insatiably bombastic personality.

A deepening national divide, new trade wars, the national debt continuing its death spiral, personal vanity projects, and an over-reliance on executive fiat are all genuine risks of a second Trump term. The Don’s softened stance on abortion is particularly disheartening, and a matter I will be watching like a hawk.

While Trump is not above scrutiny on all this and more, Americans are right to feel hopeful as 2025 begins. And as a green card holder and contributor to the US treasury, I feel entitled to a bit of that good old American optimism myself.

So, whence the bounce in my step?

 

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First up, the swift demise of the radical woke ideologies that overran American public life and bled into every other Western nation.

One of the first executive orders to be signed by President Trump this week is titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. As reported by the Free Press, the order establishes the biological reality of two sexes and clearly defines male and female throughout the entire US federal government.

It likewise snuffs out “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”, as well as ending the practice of housing men in women’s prison and using taxpayer funds to “transition” prisoners.

This is no empty symbolism. Gender ideology is officially dead, and just as it spread from America around the globe, its undoing will soon reach every shore as well, though the lag time will require more patience than I have.

(Keep your eyes peeled for more woke-ending executive orders that will no doubt appear on the official White House website over the coming days).

Second, the release of Biden’s political prisoners.

It has just been reported that wife, mother and pro-life activist Bevelyn Williams has been pardoned and scheduled for immediate release from her three-year prison term. Williams was one of dozens of pro-lifers targeted by a Biden administration that had perfected the art of weaponised justice.

President Trump has also granted pardons to January 6 political prisoners — men such as Jake Lang, who was held in DC area jails for over four years without trial. While there is a wide spectrum of views on the conduct of the J6 defendants — and their cause is far less noble than that of pro-lifers — the treatment many have faced is unconscionable, and has even prompted a spate of under-reported suicides.

Third, Trump’s immigration reforms. According to incoming Border Czar Tom Homan, sex trafficking went up 600 percent under the Biden administration. The murders of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Lizbeth Medina, Kayla Hamilton and Jocelyn Nungaray by illegal immigrants also underscored the border carnage unleashed over the last four years.

Much to the chagrin of his critics, Trump’s mass deportation plan is remarkably popular — not just among his supporters, but American voters generally, and Hispanics in particular.

And Trump already appears to be living up to his pledges — with the controversial CBP One app shut down, a suite of Biden executive orders rescinded, a border emergency declared, and the Laken Riley Act about to be signed into law.

Finally — in what promises one of the most dramatic aspects of the second Trump term — the dismantling of the Bureaucratic State.

Before I could finish writing this article, President Trump signed an executive ordersuspending the security clearances of the 51 former intelligence officials who falsely implied Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian fake. With all that we now know about that laptop, all I can say is bravo!.

Trump has reiterated his commitment to “make public remaining records relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Then of course there is DOGE — or the Department of Government Efficiency — which has vowed to cut bureaucratic red tape by 50 percent, reduce federal spending by US$1 trillion over the next four years, and re-engineer the function of government by providing real-time budget tracking to the US public.

Admittedly, my optimism is grounded largely on promises and hinges on the courage and tenacity of the Trump team, and of course Trump himself.

Nevertheless, if the contrast between Trumps first and second presidential portraits is any indication, Trump 2.0 emerges energised, defiant, sharper to the strategies of his adversaries, and determined to complete the mission he was sent to accomplish in Washington.

And I for one have the popcorn ready. 


You probably have strong feelings about Trump’s second term. Let’s hear them in the comments below. 


Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adult pastor.

Image credit: screenshot FOX 9


 

Showing 12 reactions

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  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2025-01-23 12:54:19 +1100
    Come on, Kurt, we all know what is happening here. This is solving the ‘problems’ of the Fox News agenda because we all know that Trump and the Republicans are going to nothing about inflation, the cost-of-living, failing educational standards, lack of minimum wage or lack of access to medical care.

    Poor MAGA voters are tricked again.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-01-22 08:17:32 +1100
    How will any of his executive orders lower the price of eggs?
  • Julian Cheslow
    commented 2025-01-22 07:12:26 +1100
    Did he present any proof for his claim about sex trafficking going up? The right has shown they have no problem lying about immigrants if it riles up there base. And they have also clearly decided to make trans people a new scapegoat/boogeyman.

    From what I saw, none of Trump’s directives/plans have anything to do with helping the working class. It is more relying on there same targets of demonization.
  • mrscracker
    Thank you Mr. Sammons for your comments. That sounds like a good plan.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-01-21 23:43:43 +1100
    Also, Kurt, can’t tell if you’re on your knees for God or for Trump, would you mind clarifying?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-01-21 23:43:07 +1100
    I, too, would grab popcorn were I able to safely observe the presidency from outside the country.
  • Susan Rohrbach
    commented 2025-01-21 23:24:53 +1100
    “the mission he was sent to accomplish in Washington.”

    This mission was arguably to abolish abortion. See momanddadmatters.substack.com for how he has finger crossed on such goal.
  • Susan Rohrbach
    commented 2025-01-21 23:02:23 +1100
    The happiness is relief at not Kamala and should not be taken as mandate for president warp speed.

    Note on j6 suicides: it was Donald Trump who invited them to j6 with “be there. It will be wild!”
  • Peter Sammons
    commented 2025-01-21 20:44:06 +1100
    As you say. Give him a chance, and pray for him too.
  • Maryse Usher
    commented 2025-01-21 18:44:11 +1100
    We are so imbued with dreariness, so battered by lies, stupidity and profligate vice; so fearful of prosecution and persecution for being right, that it is difficult to believe the restoration of the good, the beautiful and the truth in our society. I watched with tears of joy the Inauguration and the President’s speech.
    There is no point trying to stop abortion in a pornographic, sex-soaked culture. Dead babies are the logical consequence of too many people who have looked to Eros for happiness. L.A. is the epicentre of the erotic dream. Watch how Sin City burns.
    This is a good time to promote chastity, especially in schools. We need this virtue to become normal and usual. MACA: Make America Chaste Again, and we might see a true triumph of the Immaculate Heart, as She promised.
  • mrscracker
    I was looking at trading in my truck and visited a car dealership today to see what they might offer. Everyone inside was watching the inauguration and seemed very happy. There was a man with Indian heritage, an Asian gentleman and an Hispanic family. I think that’s the diverse direction populism is taking.
  • Kurt Mahlburg
    published this page in The Latest 2025-01-21 13:46:19 +1100