Open letter to Donald Trump

By Walter E. Block

First, congratulations. My main “complaint” against you is that this race kept me up for most of the night, gritting my teeth and rooting for you (and also for a Republican House and Senate).

 I have the audacity to offer you my advice as to how you should conduct your second administration. Hey, everyone else is doing so, why not me? I write as a libertarian economist, so my suggestions will reflect that vantage point, (In several of my recent publications urged my fellow freedom fighters to vote the LP ticket everywhere else apart from the swing states, where you might well have needed them. I’m glad you didn’t). Magnificent work on your part not only in the Electoral College but also in the popular vote. I come from Brooklyn, you from neighboring Queens; we are lantzsmen.

My recommendations to you are placed under four headings: law, foreign policy, personal liberties and last but not least, economics.

1. Law. Magnificent choices for the Supreme Court last time around. This time, if there are any vacancies, just do your thing! And, also, for the lower courts as well, where you were nothing less than superb.

Then there is the pact signed on by most of the states which supported your buddy, the Giggle Girl. They agreed to award all their Electoral College votes whomever won the popular vote, that’s you. Hold them to it. They richly deserve the embarrassment!

2. Foreign policy. You really outdid yourself when you inaugurated the Abraham Accords. Moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was likewise a stroke of genius. I’m delighted that you won’t be giving Bibi Netanyahu the back of your hand, as did Obama, Biden, and Harris would have; the very opposite will happily occur! Biden’s actions indicate he thought he was Prime Minister of Israel. I am sure you will make nothing of the order of such as mistake. That is, you will allow and support the effort of the Jewish State to defend itself, conquer its enemies. Under your presidency, they will “take the win” by blowing to smithereens Iran’s oil fields and nuclear bomb capacity, not by pausing, or negotiating, or having all sorts of cease fires.

Magnificent initiative on kicking out all the Palestinians from Gaza. Let them go foment their hatred elsewhere.

You must have a hidden magic wand somewhere about you! No one else would have come close to trying, and succeeding to a great degree, in making friends with the likes of the leaders of North Korea, China and Russia. I’m glad that the claim that you are a tool of the latter has belatedly been put to rest; may it never reappear. If anyone can put an end to these incessant wars it is no one but you. I wish you Godspeed in this task of mercy.

3. Personal liberties

Your personal safety should come right at the top of the list in this category. No decent person wishes you to go the way of John F. Kennedy. Make sure that all of your guards are taller than you. If this means no women on your secret service detail, so be it. After the failures and near misses of the government agencies previously involved, think seriously of privatization. As for males competing against females in women’s sports, I know that you are appalled at this eruption of wokesterism as any red blooded American. So much for sexism. As for racism, you are entirely correct that “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” violate Martin Luther King’s insistence upon content of character, and ability, to determine matters on campus and elsewhere, not the irrelevant color of one’s skin.

More generally, legalize all victimless crimes. That is, do not put in jail anyone convicted of prostitution, pornography, gambling, addictive drugs, gambling, etc. Paternalism is fine for children, not for adults. If people are so stupid as to harm themselves in these ways, how can we allow them anywhere near the ballot box? And if we do permit this as we should, that demonstrates that they should be responsible for their actions.

I know you favor immigration, of the legal variety. Good luck to you in this endeavor of yours to bring about a bit of law abidingness on this matter. Defund the police? No, defund the social workers! Mass theft of groceries, pharmacies, of less than $950 have led to widespread store closings. Prosecutors who “turn ‘em loose” to commit more crimes are devastating to our society.

Abortion is nowhere mentioned in the US constitution. Roe v. Wade was the triumph of wishful thinking on the part of woke lefties over the rule of law. Your stance on this matter is absolutely correct: allow each state to decide its own policy. The “progressives” (they are actually regressive) wish to undermine our constitution. Don’t let them do it.

4. Economics

You were magnificent during your first term on the basis of reducing taxes, making business the business of American, and deregulation. By the way, if anyone in politics is a fascist, it is not you. Hitler, Mussolini, etc., enacted strong regulations of the economy, and Obama, Biden and Harris are strong regulators. You, properly, took the very opposite tack. As far as economics is concerned, deregulation might as well be your middle name.

In the next four years, you should emulate your friend Javier Milei and do your best to eliminate rent control. It, paradoxically, raises rents, since it retards investment in residential home building. It contributes to homelessness, a scourge of especially Democratic run cities. The minimum wage law is a snare and a delusion. It is not a floor under compensation, always and ever pushing up remuneration. Rather, it is a barrier over which one has to jump to get a job in the first place. Before its advent in the 1930s, the unemployment rates of white and blacks, the young and the middle aged, were about the same. Nowadays, thanks to this Bernie Sanders type legislation, the joblessness rate of black teens is quadruple, yes, quadruple, that of white adults.

Wages tend to reflect productivity levels. Do labor unions enhance productivity? Of course not. They are too busy organizing strikes, working to “rule” etc. They restrict entry. Of course workers have a right to quit singly or all together en masse. But not to compel employers to “bargain fairly” with them, when they wish for a divorce. Organized labor has no right to preclude the employer from hiring “scabs” to take the place of such employees.

What about tariffs? Here is where you and I have some serious disagreement. These are taxes, and should be lowered, not raised. Adam Smith, the father of economics, wrote an important book: “The Wealth of Nations,” wherein he criticized this attack on specialization and the division of labor. The Smoot Hawley tariff extended the years of the great depression. Yes, the US grew during some epochs of high tariffs, but this was because this was virtually the only tax in existence (the income tax was introduced only in 1913). The economy expended during these decades in spite of taxes on imports, not because of them. I beg you, I plead with you, hire at least one competent economist who can argue in front of you, against the economic illiterates who favor tariffs you will otherwise be appointing to your cabinet.

In closing, I am delighted, I am tickled pink, I am honored, I am overjoyed,  I am elated, that you have taken up the reins of the presidency once again, ones that you were cheated out of four years ago. Justice has finally been done thanks to the good sense of the American electorate!!