Why Trump’s near-death experience could make him a better president - opinion

There is nothing as immortalizing as martyrdom and nothing as cleansing as surviving its attempt.

The failure of an evil and no doubt disturbed 20-year-old to assassinate the former president last Saturday has led to the apotheosis of Donald Trump. Even those who have detested him and called him Hitler for last decade – a fact that was never acceptable and no doubt contributed to a climate of demonization and incitement – have seen changes in the man whom the New York Times now describes as carrying a new humility at the Republican National Convention.

I am old enough to remember the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan as if it were yesterday. I was in high school at the Hebrew Academy of Miami Beach. They took us to an immediate school assembly, understanding our trauma at seeing our head of state shot by an assailant. America is now in a similar predicament, having to search its soul for the sources of its violence and civil hatred. 

I was in Italy for meetings at the Vatican, courtesy of my friend Gary Krupp, and thus the Sabbath was over and I saw the attempted assassination in near-real time. I shuddered for my country when I saw the greatest, mightiest nation on Earth brought down to the levels of a pathetic banana republic. 

I believe that Trump has had a life-changing experience. I believe that he may now pursue what has always really been in his heart, namely, to be popular and accepted among the largest number of people for greatest number of reasons. And perhaps, now that some of the demonization of Trump has been found – even by his enemies – to have crossed a line, we might focus on some of his policies that can help to unite a broken nation.

Nearly every poll shows that Trump is almost certain to be our next president – becoming the only other president in US history to match the record of Grover Cleveland and serve two non-consecutive terms. What might a second Trump term be like if he, indeed, carries forward his message of seeking to unite the country and meaning it?

Ideas for a second Trump term

First, the president should, like Lincoln before him, bring a team of rivals into his cabinet and administration. Dismiss the Yes men. Robert Kennedy, a famous Democratic name, would be a great choice for Secretary of State, especially as he is ferociously pro-Israel. Bring in the excellent Mike Pompeo as Secretary of Defense due to his moral clarity at a time of maximum global danger. 

Kelly Craft, a staunch Christian lover of Israel, should return to the United Nations. She and I have discussed at length the need to finally reform the organization. Putin has no place on the Security Council and neither does China. A new Security Council, whose membership criteria must be that the country is a democracy, must be created.

We have two sons fighting in the wars in Israel. Serving in Gaza, they witnessed first-hand how UNRWA and its headquarters are actual branches of Hamas. The United States tax player pays 20% of the entire UN budget. We are the world’s suckers. Meaningful reform must come from American pressure to severely reduce its contribution. In addition, the US should threaten the UN with expulsion of its General Assembly back to Geneva – where the League of Nations began – a beautiful but boring city where no ambassador wants to serve. They want to go to Broadway and stay in New York, not become comatose in Geneva. 

As president, Trump largely kept the peace on the world stage. Once elected, he must quickly, as promised, bring an end to the war in Ukraine. Not by territorial compromises to the tyrant Putin but with a quick promise that if Putin does not immediately withdraw from all territory seized from Ukraine, his nemesis will be granted full NATO membership, realizing the Russian president’s worst nightmare.

Trump has been right to criticize NATO for treating the American taxpayer as suckers. Any country not willing to pay the paltry 2% of its GDP to defense should be expelled.

The Southern border has to be secured. Latino Americans have vastly increased the greatness and cultural excellence of the United States. With a declining American birthrate (as with all Western countries), we need more immigrants, not less. But a country without borders is not a country, as Europe has witnessed with the rise of far-Right parties in response to the absence of borders.

Trump should crack down on Islamism. Not Islam but Islamism. The former is a great world religion and fully capable of operating at the highest levels of modernity as we see with the Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The latter is a violent political ideology which abuses Islam by using it as a thin veneer of religious piety to cover its genocidal ambitions. 

Trump should introduce a new pledge, an oath, that must be taken by any and all immigrants to the US, pledging that they fully support all the Western freedoms that the US represents and promise to embrace them, from full and equal women’s rights, to full religious rights, to freedom of assembly, and the separation of Church and State. My wife is a naturalized US citizen from Australia. She would have had no problem whatsoever in taking such an oath. Neither should an immigrant from Tunisia, Pakistan, or Lebanon. 

Trump should sign a new security arrangement with Israel that binds both countries to protect each other should either be attacked by Iran or any of its proxies. This is not dissimilar to NATO’s Article 5. If America guarantees to protect Poland from Russia, then why not Israel from Iran? And make no mistake. Iran is a much greater threat to world peace than Vladimir Putin. True, he has a nuclear arsenal (by now, they may have one as well). But he is only seeking regional hegemony, such as dominating former Soviet satellite states. He has no desire to blow up buildings in New York. The Islamic Republic of Iran does, however. It seeks global hegemony and universal jihad. Trump should sign a security pact that binds together Iran’s foremost targets, the US and Israel, to stave off this threat to world peace.  

The life-changing experience that Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt has no doubt fostered should lead to him to initiate a program of national service. It’s one that America’s youth need more than ever. I don’t believe in a draft or compulsory service, but Trump should offer tax credits and Federal tuition grants to any high school graduate who wishes to dedicate a year before college to public service – at schools, homes for the elderly, the inner city, etc. He should make up for that year by reducing undergraduate degrees from four years to three, as in British universities, notably Oxford and Cambridge. Besides, we’ve learned that all Harvard, Penn, and Berkely do anyway is teach you to be a moral idiot.

TRUMP SHOULD end the abortion wars by adopting a universal definition of life that is not conception (Catholic) and is not birth (secular). Rather, follow the Hebrew Bible. Life is determined by a baby’s viability outside its mother. Yes, leave it to each states to decide, as the Supreme Court has ruled. But the overwhelming majority of women don’t want to live in a country where a morning-after pill is denied a young woman who made a mistake at a University frat party by sleeping with some troglodyte who has as much respect for women as he does for himself.

On gun control, I have to admit my views have changed. The insane and disgusting outbreak of antisemitism across the United States has taught me how essential it is for Jews and other minorities to be armed. I’m not saying we need AR-15’s on the street – one almost took the life of Trump himself. But I am saying that I now completely understand the intent of the founding fathers in allowing ordinary citizens to be armed in order to protect themselves and not rely on government or law enforcement. Antisemitism in the streets of the US and Jews gunned down in synagogues have led me to unequivocally support the Second Amendment, within reason.

After joining legendary presidents who survived assassination attempts, such as Theodore Roosevelt, shot in the chest while campaigning to regain office; FDR, nearly murdered in Miami; Harry Truman; Gerald Ford; and Ronald Reagan; Donald Trump now has the ability to make history as the president who learned that a country that is out of control with violence needs a humbler, gentler hand to lead it. 

The writer is an American rabbi, author, and media host.