An open letter to Donald Trump

Dear Mr. Trump:

As the only true challenger to a failed government in the race, you are expected to run an unconventional campaign, but you suffer from polling that reveals a public trust deficit. That deficit is fed by certain members of the public who buy into the Clinton/Obama argument that you are not fit to lead (the pot calling the kettle black) and by other members of the public who doubt you will fulfill your promises.

To eliminate that trust deficit requires immediate action. I recommend demonstration projects along with the identification of cabinet heads who will lead the effort in your administration. Below I offer five areas where you could prove to the public that you have your program to resurrect American greatness in place and ready to go, if only they will vote you into office.

Making the American Military Great Again. You should form a group that would be comprised of retired officers and heads of defense and intelligence agencies of excellent reputation who support a major revitalization of the American military, ensuring that we have the best, state-of-the art equipment, force type and size, and command necessary to wage war against Islamic terrorists and against conventional enemies all over the world. They would pinpoint precise needs, expenditures, and R & D commitments needed to create a global military power second to none. You would emerge from this meeting naming who would be your Secretary of Defense and precisely what you plan to expend and do to make the American military the most formidable. You would devote one week of the campaign to this theme, appearing with your Secretary of Defense at locations in America where manufacture and production of the new military would most likely be engaged and at locations where acts of terror have been committed on American soil, reminding Americans that the acts of terror could have been prevented had Clinton and Obama engaged ISIS vigorously, destroying it at the outset.

Making the American Economy Great Again. You should form a group that would be comprised of leading conservative economists and deregulation experts, Republican governors past and present who have succeeded in revitalizing state economies, along with the heads of manufacturing concerns from small to large who support your plan for tax and regulatory relief. They would identify the precise problems that stymie the development of a vibrant and free economy and the reforms needed to revitalize the American economy, making it a free market leader of the world. You would emerge from this meeting naming who would be your Secretary of Treasury and your new Deregulation Czar. You would devote one week of the campaign to this theme, appearing with your Secretary of the Treasury at select economically depressed locations across America, faulting Clinton and Obama for advocating costly regulations and taxes that keep Black youth, unemployed people over 45, and women (indeed explaining that Clinton’s “free” tuition for all, single payer socialized medicine, and massive new welfare programs will catapult the $21 trillion deficit into the stratosphere) at historically high levels of unemployment and underemployment and that stifle innovation and deny America its place as free market leader of the world.

Making America Safe Again. You should form a group that would be comprised of security experts, state law enforcement leaders, former intelligence officers, former border patrol officers and builders who support your commitment to cause local, state, national and international law enforcement to have better coordination and to ensure full support for local law enforcement efforts to combat domestic terror and who support your commitment to build a wall and greater security along America’s Southern border to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the nation. You would emerge from this meeting naming who would be your Secretary of Homeland Security and who would be the head of Border Patrol. You would devote one week of the campaign to this theme, appearing with your Secretary of Homeland Security and head of the Border Patrol along the Southern border at key locations where illegals have crossed in large numbers.

Making America a Nation of Law and Order. You should form a group that would be comprised of leading conservative law professors and attorneys who advocate restoration of constitutional limits on government power and defense of the Constitution who support your list of nominees to the Supreme Court and oppose Clinton/Obama executive actions that violate the separation of powers, make and enforce law without the consent of Congress, and defeat representational democracy by enabling the unelected heads of federal bureaucratic agencies to exceed constitutional limits by enacting through regulation almost all federal law. You would emerge from this meeting naming who would be your Attorney General and who would be your Solicitor General. You would devote one week of the campaign to this theme, appearing with your Attorney General and Solicitor General in Philadelphia to remind Americans that our greatness depends on the rule of law and that the Constitution must be honored in word and deed by Justices of the Court who are subservient to it rather than who presume extraconstitutional powers in support of unlimited government.

Making American Government Honest Again. You should form a group that would be comprised of leading critics of corrupt government practices, waste, fraud and abuse, along with former inspectors general and private attorneys who have sued the government successfully and that would focus on corruption and unlawful activity within the federal departments and agencies. They should catalog the corporate cronyism in the agencies, the revolving door phenomenon in Washington, and the abuse of position and privilege for personal gain (such as Hillary Clinton’s abuses via her private email server and corrupt connections while serving as Secretary of State to donors supportive of the Clinton Foundation).

You should emerge from this meeting naming a new top criminal lawyer and investigator who would serve in a new office within the Department of Justice dedicated to ferreting out and prosecuting those engaged in corrupt and unlawful activity within the federal government and to drafting new laws designed to permit private parties victimized by corrupt acts and practices to sue those government agents individually and recoup damages.

Mr. Trump, if you were to focus your campaign on these themes and provide a clear roadmap to implementation of your agenda via this approach, you would set the national debate on your terms; dispel the public trust deficit; and instill confidence in voters that you have the plans to restore American greatness and the people necessary to do it already in place. You will thereby outflank Clinton and reveal by contrast the vacuous nature of her charges against you. In short, the moves I recommend here will add tremendous gravitas to your campaign beyond rhetoric, enabling Americans to appreciate as never before precisely what a Trump presidency would mean for America.

Sincerely,

Jonathan W. Emord