I’ve been a journalist by profession for more than three decades, and my reporting trips have taken me on many occasions across the vast coast-to-coast Rust Belt left behind as one U.S. company after another has outsourced its manufacturing operations to low-wage havens abroad. I’ve seen the construction industry, once a decently-paying bulwark for skilled working class American men without much educational aptitude, be turned over to non-English-speaking illegal immigrants toiling for labor contractors at under-the-table wages a fraction of what on the record employees make. The Republican establishment’s response to this has been pathetic: a “reformicon” agenda of using the refundable earned-income tax credit to hand out welfare to the displaced American workers.

Trump promises to turn America into a country that does what nations ought to do: Put the interests of its own citizens first. That’s why he’s promised to build a wall along our southern border and to change our tariff practices to comport with export-import reality. He has also managed to grow the Republican Party, apparently generating record primary turnouts and inspiring thousands of onetime Democrats to switch to the GOP. That’s why my husband and I will be casting our ballots for Trump in November should he become the Republican nominee. Some would call that “anger.” I call it “hope.”