https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/30/much-has-changed
The news obsesses over the recent government shutdown, the latest Robert Mueller arrest and, of course, fake news—from the BuzzFeed Michael Cohen non-story to the smears of the Covington Catholic High School students.
But aside from the weekly hysterias, the world has dramatically changed since 2016 in ways we scarcely have appreciated.
The idea that China systematically rigged trade laws and engaged in technological espionage to run up huge deficits is no longer a Trump, or even a partisan, issue.
In the last two years, a mainstream consensus has grown that China poses a commercial and mercantile threat to world trade, to its neighbors and to the very security of the United States—and requires a strong response, including temporary tariffs.
The world did not fall apart after the U.S. pulled out of the flawed Iran nuclear deal. Most yawned when the U.S. left the symbolic but empty Paris Climate Accord. Ditto when the U.S. moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In retrospect, most Americans accept that such once controversial decisions were not ever all that controversial.
There is also a growing, though little reported, consensus about what created the current economic renaissance: tax cuts, massive deregulation, recalibration of trade policy, tax incentives to bring back offshore capital, and dramatic rises in oil and natural gas production.
Although partisan bickering continues over the extent of the upswing, most appreciate that millions of Americans are now back again working—especially minority youth—in a manner not seen in over a decade.
The Supreme Court and federal judges will be far more conservative for a generation—as Trump’s judicial nominations are uniformly conservative, mostly young and well qualified.
For all the acrimony about illegal immigration, the government shutdown over the wall and the question of amnesties, most Americans also finally favor some sort of grand bargain compromise.
