Richard C. LyonsWhat decides an American citizen’s vote can be many things: from recent performance of the economy to profound decisions on foreign policy. It can be based simply on how a family has been voting since JFK, or just on how one feels about a candidate.
Ideally, we would all vote based on reasoned judgment, after an assessment of facts, for the best possible course our nation takes after election day. Considering this, there is a great argument to be made that the nation could not be on a better course than the course begun in January 2025.
In December 2024, socialist tyranny was thriving in South and Central America, in the Devil’s Triangle of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua … and in U.S. inner cities through drug and sex trafficking gangs, such as Tren de Aragua: invaders the Biden administration allowed to walk into our country, into Democrat Sanctuary cities … a gang Texas GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales calls “one of the most vicious, known to rape children, murder, and every other crime under the sun.”
The Trump administration launched Operations Southern Spear and Absolute Resolve to end the drug trafficking cartels and the tyrannical rule of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, who had exported the Tren de Aragua gangs to this country.
The Trump administration closed the southern border over which millions of illegals were allowed to enter, including hundreds of thousands of foreign national criminals. Illegal border crossings today are 0.
In December 2024, Iran was triumphant in the Middle East, having financed, with Biden administration help, the horrors of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel by Hamas terrorists. Iran’s Ayatollahs were on the verge of creating a nuclear arsenal with missiles capable of destroying Israel with one shot, or of taking out any European capital at will, including London.
The Trump administration decided on June 22, 2025, to launch Operation Midnight Hammer with 125 aircraft, some fitted with GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs, and via U.S. ships with Tomahawk missiles, proceeding to take out Iran’s anti-aircraft defenses and crippling its nuclear facilities. Then, on Feb. 26, 2026, when Steven Witkoff, U.S. negotiator to Iran, heard the IRGC would be able to deliver a nuclear weapon in seven to 10 days, the Trump administration decided to deliver something else instead: Operation Epic Fury, which further decimated Iran’s nuclear facilities, stockpiles, and missiles, followed by Economic Fury, which has strangled Iran’s economy ever since. This strategy has rendered the threat of Iranian nuclear proliferation dead, without a single military boot being put at risk on the ground.
In December 2024, middle America was suffering from 50 years of globalist trade policies that hollowed out America’s manufacturing base, crippling our middle class with stagnant wages and ever-narrowing opportunities.
Through Trump administration tax cuts, deregulation, and tariff policies that favor America, we are reshoring manufacturing for the first time in generations. In addition to $18 trillion in foreign investments being made into our economy in the past 20 months, American companies are investing in the United States again too, such as U.S. Steel restarting its Gary Tin Mill Plant in Indiana, or Johnson & Johnson investing $55 billion in new manufacturing, or Apple and Nvidia combining to commit over $1 trillion in American-based investments in infrastructure and manufacturing.
These policies have resulted in over 1 mllion new private sector jobs being created and filled since Trump policies have been enacted, with wage increases that are in excess of inflation. And there are also the security benefits of reshoring essential supply chains to this country, and the economic benefit of a reduction in trade balance deficits that have plagued the United States since the 1970s.
In December 2024, American cities and their citizens were victims of runaway crime as states and cities run by Democrats gave sanctuary to criminals and gave murderous mayhem to their constituents.
Between January 2025 and today, 1,296 Tren de Aragua gang members have been arrested, some even where Democrats are doing everything possible to protect them. Where Trump administration anti-crime policies have actually been enacted, like Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tenn., crime reductions have been historic, with over 10,000 arrests of dangerous criminals resulting in a 29% reduction in violent crime in Washington and a 38% reduction in serious crime in Memphis.
Lastly, in November 2024, our country was on a cliff’s edge, about to plunge into a precipice, an abyss of socialist darkness. Our economy was being over-taxed, over-regulated, and ruled through socialist DEI human resources policy, while ESG socialist policies were determining what companies would receive funding and which wouldn’t. While the Green New Deal policies were throttling the energy sector, making everything more expensive.
During the Biden administration, inflation soared 21%. That inflation is still with us. Since Trump took office, the inflation rate has been brought down to roughly 3.4% per year, much of that having to do with the world-saving actions taken against Iran.
So, our hemisphere, the Middle East, and the world are much safer than 20 months ago. Our economy is returning to being “America’s economy,” not a globalist punching bag. Our streets are safer, and we have been saved from the darkness of tyrannical socialism.
Reason bids us all, for the sake of the nation, vote to stay the course!
Richard C. Lyons is a third-generation printer, a publisher and producer, and the author of The DNA of Democracy Series.
Views expressed by guest contributors to Issues & Insights are their own and don’t necessarily reflect the views of the I&I Editorial Board.
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