In 2016, I didn’t know much at all about Donald Trump and, initially, I viewed his candidacy for President with curiosity at best. That changed the moment he announced that, if elected, he would pull out of the Paris climate agreement. From then on, he had a firm supporter in me, albeit I couldn’t vote. Up until then, to the best of my knowledge, the only national leader to call out the catstrophic anthropogenic global warming scam was Václav Klaus, former president of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013. So, this was big. It seemed to me that if the president of the largest economy in the world was prepared to make this stand, it might embolden other world leaders to follow suit.

This is one of the two pivotal issues that have screwed up Western democracies for the past few decades. It has turned supposedly conservative parties to water. To paraphrase Joe Biden, ‘If you’re a conservative and you believe in CAGW, you ain’t a conservative’. Trump was saying that to the RINOs. And Trump was as good as his word.  One of the first things he did as President was to pull the plug on Paris.

One of the many slurs thrown at Trump is that he is a ‘populist’. Back in October last year, in a now viral video clip, hapless journalist Don Urquart accused Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre of, ‘taking the populist pathway’ and, ‘taking a page out of the Donald Trump book’. When pressed by Poilievre, Urquhart could not actually specify which page he was referring to.

Merriam-Webster defines a populist as ‘a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people; a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people’. In other words, someone who doesn’t think government has all the answers and that the common people must be protected from their own ignorance. There is a pejorative connotation to the above definition and that is the word ‘claiming’, implying that a populist doesn’t actually believe what he is preaching. Does anyone seriously believe that Trump is just going with the flow of common opinion?

In pledging to pull out of Paris was Trump being populist? In 2016, was there a groundswell of ‘climate denialism’ among the unwashed that Trump was seeking to exploit? Or, put another way, were the majority of US voters in 2016 smarter than, say, Australian or British voters?

I’m guessing not. I’m guessing that within the entire US population, ‘climate action’ was still largely a vote winner.

In pledging to build the border wall, was Trump being populist? In 2016, I think this would have been a vote winner in border states, but not a big issue elsewhere. This time around it will be different. Is he now being populist in seeking to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, up to ten million of them since Biden took office? If so, let’s have more populism, please.

Was he being populist when he reduced unemployment among black Americans to its lowest level ever? Was he being populist when he restored US energy independence?  Was he being populist when he brokered the Abraham accords? Was he being populist when he moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? Were at least four previous presidents being populist when they promised to do the same, but failed to do so? I could go on but I’m sure you get the picture.

Getting back to my original point, it turns out I was wildly over-optimistic. Not a single world leader followed Trump’s example on Paris. On this one issue alone, Trump stands head and shoulders above the lot of them.

For any US reader that may stumble upon this column, here are my five top reasons you should vote for Trump.

My top reason is national cohesion.

One of Trump’s initiatives during his first term – one that was controversial at the time but gets hardly a mention nowadays – was to ban immigration from a list of certain countries. His executive order was vigorously challenged and amended twice. The Supreme Court upheld the third version. As at February 2020, nationals from a total of 13 countries were impacted including Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea, Venezuela, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Tanzania and Sudan. Not all Muslim countries you will note, but I don’t imagine even the Martha’s Vineyard luvvies lost much sleep over Venezuelans, Burmese or North Koreans being denied entry to the USA. But Muslims must be cosseted at all costs. One of Biden’s first presidential acts was to reverse this ban. And to facilitate the current flood of refugees. Is he unaware of developments in, particularly, the United Kingdom and France? That the Muslim invasion of those countries is now well advanced?

Trump is having none of this. Last October, speaking in Iowa, in relation to immigration, he said, ‘If you empathise with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified. If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sick thoughts that go through people’s minds – very dangerous thoughts – you’re disqualified.’

He also said he would aggressively deport resident aliens with ‘jihadist sympathies’ and send immigration agents to ‘pro-jihadist demonstrations’ to identify violators.

He continued, ‘In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see the open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. They’re teaching your children hate. Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities and we will send them straight back home.’

Trump could see the writing on the wall way back in 2016, writing that was ignored in most of Europe, to their now severe detriment.

My second top reason to vote for Trump is… Well, bugger it, let’s not worry about the other four. All you need is the first. The first duty of the President is to protect his country. Everything else flows from this one initiative. Policies come and go. You will not agree with all of Trump’s. But the 2024 election is, above all else, about national values. And in Trump’s words above, he has nailed his to the mast. Contrast his ‘populist rhetoric’ to the mealy-mouthed attitude on this topic of most of the leaders of the Western world. Including our own state and federal ‘leaders’. And look where conciliation and tolerance of Muslim intolerance has taken us. To the forecourt of the Opera House on 9 October 2023.

Recently in the Australian, Greg Sheridan, no fan of Trump, wrote ‘extreme Islamism has virulent anti-Semitism at its core. This pandemic of hatred is sweeping across our societies. It is monstrously, wickedly unfair to the Jews who are its victims, but it’s also an existential crisis in our civilisation’. That is why the US – indeed the Western world – needs Trump. Who else is taking up this challenge?

I don’t imagine many US voters will read this column, but some Liberal party strategists might. So, to them – harking back to Poilievre v. Urquhart – I say, Trump’s words are a page that our own opposition leader, Peter Dutton, would do well to adopt before the next election. We still have a chance to avoid the fate of Britain and France.