The Dirty Secret About Trump: He's a Moderate

If you get your news from the liberal media, you probably think former US president Donald Trump is a far-right extremist. He is, supposedly, someone who plans to be a dictator, who will jail journalists. He’s a ‘Hitler in the White House’, per some media personalities. ‘Democracy and freedom are on the ballot’, we’re told every single day in the run-up to this year’s election.

And yet, the truth is almost the opposite, at least if you look at policy. Far from being far right or extremist, Trump’s policy agenda is extremely moderate. Much of it wouldn’t be foreign to a Nineties-era Democrat. He believes abortion should be legal up to 15 weeks. He supports gay marriage. He’s courting labour unions. He believes immigration drives down working-class wages. He’s pursuing the black vote. He wants trade with China to favour the American worker – not the Chinese elites – and has proposed a 10 per cent blanket tariff on all foreign imports.

Indeed, it’s not despite Trump’s moderate agenda that his adversaries have sought to paint him in extremist terms. It’s because he has effectively co-opted some of the Democrats’ long-abandoned pro-worker policies.