Power

 

      Donald Trump promises to, “make America great again.”  But what is it that makes America great?  The simple answer is power.  Economic power.  Military power.  Since the Second World War, the United States has been the world’s greatest nation because it has, without question, dominated the world with its unmatched power.  America’s rivals have or are failing because they cannot create and sustain such power.  The Soviet Union collapsed because it couldn’t compete with America in the exercise of military power.  China is weakening because it cannot match America’s economic power.  Vladimir Putin’s Russia can’t even subdue a much weaker country, Ukraine, in part because of the sustaining support of American power.

       Not only is the United States building and sustaining its power, other nations are as well.  These include India and the European Union which are the dominant powers in South-central Asia and Europe respectively.  Both of these maintain peaceful and prosperous relations with the United States.  What sets prosperous, growing powers such as the United States, India, and the European Union apart from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea?  The former are democracies, the latter are not.

       Democracy has always been a catalyst and sustainer of dominant national power.  This is certainly true of the United States.  The growth of the American republic to a position of unmatched power in the world happened entirely under our democratic system of government which promotes free commerce, scientific investigation, free exchange of ideas, and military power largely free of political control.  In dictatorships such as Russia and China, commerce is closely regulated by the government to enrich the dictator’s friends, scientific investigation is conducted in the service of the government’s political philosophy, unapproved ideas are quashed, and military control is firmly in the hands of the dictator.  The result is a rigid state that eventually mismanages its natural advantages and bankrupts itself.

       Donald Trump promises to bring us dictatorship which will “make America weak.”  Joe Biden promises to preserve the democracy that made and continues to make us great.  The choice is obvious.