I am perplexed. In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on the need to improve our national infrastructure, and he promised a “really huge” investment to repair and upgrade the deteriorating highways, bridges, power systems, etc. that are critical to our national economy. The voters who elected him seemed to agree. Once elected, President Trump was distracted by tax cutting, the Mueller report and other issues, so he never sent a proposal to Congress to carry out his campaign pledge. Surely, he would have promoted this issue in a second term.
So here we are in 2021, with President Joe Biden proposing and passing a less huge, more modest infrastructure bill, and Trump and his supporters fighting it tooth and claw, calling it socialistic and communistic. Biden’s bill does have a minor piece of investment for charging stations to aid the transition to cleaner energy, but most of the bill is precisely what Trump campaigned for in 2016. Moreover, if conservatives had pledged more support for the core concept, the charging stations may have been negotiable this year. But the core was anathema for my fellow Republicans now in 2021.
Why the change? I hope and trust that our leaders and mainstream voters are Americans first and party members second. Is my trust misplaced?
Kerry Soelberg
West Jordan