It’s debatable: Does President Trump deserve a second term?

This week, Arnold Loewy and Charles Moster debate whether President Donald Trump deserves a second term. Moster is a former litigation attorney in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidential administrations who has offices in Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland/Odessa, Abilene and Georgetown. Loewy is the George Killiam Professor of Law at Texas Tech School of Law.

LOEWY-1

The topic of our debate today is whether Donald Trump deserves a second term in office. In my view, he does not. If the truth be known, he would not even have a first term if the United States used the popular vote rather than the antiquated electoral college to choose its President. You may recall that Trump had about 3 million fewer popular votes than his principal opponent, Hillary Clinton. I will, however, give Trump credit for understanding the electoral college and focusing his energy on important states like Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. By so gaming the system, Trump was able to be elected with fewer votes than Clinton.

Since assuming office he has been a major embarrassment. His brusque insulting style hardly serves as a role model for our youth. His frequent dishonesty has been well documented, most recently in a CNN special. I think that the country deserves a president whose word can be taken as truth. Another four years of not being able to take the president at his word would not be good for the country.

Although it is true that the Mr. Trump survived attempted removal from office following his impeachment, that hardly qualifies as worthy of a good conduct medal. His acquittal was largely on party lines and was not necessarily predicated on good behavior. Rather it was based on the ground that what he did while reprehensible, was not necessarily worth removing from office.

Rather, the senators deemed it appropriate to let the electorate decide whether or not Mr. Trump should remain in office. An aroused electorate should answer that question with an emphatic “no.”

I am not saying that President Trump never did anything good. The economy, at least for the wealthy, is in good shape (although one could quarrel with how much of that is due to the president’s policies). But the office of president should not be held by one who is willing to compromise the best interest of the nation for his own selfish desires.

That is exactly what President Trump did and exactly why the House of Representatives reluctantly impeached him. Although the Senate did not remove him from office, the electorate can and should do so in November.

MOSTER-1

Of course, President Trump deserves another four years in office. Notwithstanding what the Professor refers to as a “brusque insulting style” (which I consider “refreshing”), President Trump has achieved great accomplishments for the American people both domestically and internationally.

The Professor is wrong that the economy is in “good shape” for only the wealthy. According to the impartial survey – factcheck.org, the economy under Trump has added 6.7 million jobs and “unemployment fell to the lowest rate in half a century.” That good news for all Americans, not just the rich as the Professor erroneously asserts. You can add to the president’s achievements the precipitous drop in black unemployment, which has been reported and acknowledged by CNN, certainly not a bastion of conservative support. NAFTA which was negotiated by my colleagues while I served as a lawyer in the first Bush Administration, resulted in the devastation of our manufacturing sector, particularly small businesses which could not compete with cheap Mexican labor. Trump corrected this grave imbalance and renegotiated the treaty with Mexico and Canada. His most recent success in concluding a phase-1 trade deal with China has resulted in the purchase of billions of dollars in American goods and protection of intellectual property which eluded the Obama administration.

Readers may recall that Democratic administrations have the propensity to get us into major wars or engage in a pattern of brinkmanship which substantially increases the risk of nuclear war – LBJ’s Vietnam debacle and JFK’s Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis being prime examples. Notably, it was Hillary Clinton and Obama’s style of diplomacy which destroyed our productive relationship with Russia and reignited a New Cold War which now poses the greatest risk to our survival as a nation. Contrary to the false portrayal of the president as a war monger, he has shown great strength, restraint, and – yes - intelligence when dealing with our adversaries. Our enemies know for sure that he has no hesitation to take out the perpetrators of evil and will continue to do so.

The Professor and his colleagues live in an alternative world where their domestic and world views are shaped by liberal propaganda tossed out by CNN. The president deserves another term of office and he is heading for a landslide.

LOEWY-2

In two successive sentences at the end of his commentary, Mr. Moster accuses me of “liv(ing) in an alternative world and tells us that Mr. Trump “is heading for a landslide.” Well, talk about living in an alternative world. I would like to know what poll Mr. Moster consulted before reaching that conclusion. The ones that I have seen have Mr. Trump trailing all of the major Democratic candidates for president. In addition, prior to the impeachment vote in the Senate, a majority of the populace thought Mr. Trump should be removed from office. Perhaps Mr. Moster can explain how these numbers, or anything else, suggest a landslide victory

It is interesting that Mr. Moster considers Trump’s brusque, insulting style refreshing. Perhaps he also regards Mr. Trump’s propensity to lie as refreshing. Well, I don’t regard either as refreshing. Indeed, if Mr. Trump had actually received a majority of the votes, I would regard his presidency as living proof of the old adage that: “The beauty of democracy is that assures us that we will be governed no better than we deserve to be.”

Candidly, my objection to Mr. Trump is at least as much who he is as what he has done. Not that what he has done isn’t sufficient to refuse to reelect him. Whether impeachable or not a president ought not to be conditioning aid to a foreign country that Congress has appropriated unconditionally, on the condition that the foreign country aid him in his effort to be reelected.

Our president should stand as a bright shining example for our children to follow. I would hate to think my grandchildren are modeling their behavior after the current occupant of the White House. I don’t think many of us would teach our children to lie if the truth is inconvenient. I also do not think many of us would teach our children to hurl insults at their classmates. Yet that is exactly the behavior being modeled by the president.

Mr. Moster accuses me of having my world views “shaped by liberal propaganda tossed out by CNN.” To be sure, I am probably closer to their world view than to Fox news, but they merely reflect some of my views; they don’t shape them.

George Will captured the last election perfectly when he said: “The Republicans nominated a a person less qualified to be president than any other nominee in history and the Democrats managed to nominate somebody who could lose to him.” It is my fondest hope that this time around the Democrats will nominate a less flawed candidate and send Trump back to New York or Florida or wherever he calls home.

MOSTER-2

Please let me remind Professor Loewy that we are debating whether President Trump deserves another term in office. Notably, the Professor did not dispute a single fact which I raised demonstrating the president’s exceptional achievements domestically and internationally. In the world of jurisprudence which the Professor should understand well, facts not disputed are deemed admitted and proof positive of the intended verdict – here that Mr. Trump deserves another four more years. I rest my case.

That said, the minor points raised by the Professor concerning the alleged unsuitability of the president need to be addressed. Notwithstanding Trump’s acquittal by the Senate of all impeachment charges, my opponent reasserts that the alleged conditioning of aid to a foreign country is objectionable whether “impeachable or not.” So much for the principle of “due process” which the Professor touts in his Constitutional Law classes. Acquittal is just that and it is incredulous that a law professor would refuse to recognize the judgment of what Chief Justice Roberts referred to as the most esteemed elective body in history – the U.S. Senate. I guess the Professor is only bothered by alleged murderers, rapists, and other hardened criminals getting a fair break after an acquittal determination.

Finally, I understand quite well after all of these years on the debate trail, that Professor Loewy does not like President Trump and loathes his personality and alleged character defects. Well, that’s his opinion which is not shared by me and the millions who elected Trump in 2016. Although I continue to maintain that my opponent resides in an alternative world shaped by discredited and biased media, he is entitled to his opinion. However, the overwhelming and undisputed facts and arguments lead to only one conclusion – the president deserves another four years in office.