I voted for Donald Trump from my home in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
I am a U.S. citizen, so I can legally vote from abroad, but it is still quite a hassle. I registered in August, printed and filled out my ballot in September, made an appointment with the U.S. consulate in Sao Paulo to drop it off, and then crossed this massive city during rush hour traffic to reach the consulate. The alternative would’ve been to send my ballot to the U.S. through an expensive shipping service because Brazil’s post office is unreliable.
I've lived abroad for several years, in Europe, South Africa, and now Brazil. But this was the first election I truly believed it was important for me to vote.
Living abroad has given me a deeper appreciation for the freedom and high standard of living we enjoy in America. I want America to still be America when I move back. My three children are U.S. citizens, and I want them to be able to pursue the American dream.
WHAT WE STAND TO LOSE
Unlike back home in America, middle-class citizens in South Africa and Brazil have to pay for private security because the local police are ineffective. So it was shocking to me that some Americans want to defund the police. They should come here to Sao Paulo to see what they are signing up for.
Although Joe Biden has rejected the slogan “Defund the police” (probably because he knows it would be electoral suicide), a Biden-Harris administration promises to enact policies that would cripple America’s local law enforcement and make them unable to protect the public. The Democratic Party’s 2020 platform calls for stringent new regulations that would affect nearly all areas of police work:
“Democrats believe we need to overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom. Police brutality is a stain on the soul of our nation … This is the moment to root out structural and systemic racism in our criminal justice system and our society, and reimagine public safety for the benefit of our people and the character of our country.”
They also hope to expand the Department of Justice’s power to monitor and investigate local police departments, reinvigorating pattern-or-practice investigations into police misconduct to “ensure real accountability for individual and systemic misconduct in our police departments.”
It's not just law enforcement capacity—A Biden-Harris administration threatens American safety at every scale, most especially at the level of an individual's right to bear arms.
It's not just law enforcement capacity—A Biden-Harris administration threatens American safety at every scale, most especially at the level of an individual's right to bear arms.
Latin America is home to 43 of the world’s 50 most murderous cities—19 of them are in Brazil. In both South Africa and Brazil, restrictive gun laws make it hard for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. Those who do clear the hurdles to legal gun ownership are treated with suspicion by the authorities—while inadequate (and often, corrupt) police presence allows actual criminals to roam free with illegal guns. Living in places of persistent violence and insecurity showed me firsthand how essential the Second Amendment is.
Biden, meanwhile, has been perfectly transparent about his plan to give Beto O’Rourke the power to confiscate Americans’ legally purchased guns. During a campaign rally in March, Biden put his arm around O’ Rourke and said, “You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me. You’re going to be the one who leads this effort.” (O’ Rourke had made gun control a central component of his failed run for the Democratic party’s nomination.) According to his official website, Biden wants to strip away the Second Amendment rights of anyone “who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission.” The duplicity of that provision, of course, is that a “hate crime” means whatever the left wants it to mean.
I have also lived in several different countries in Western Europe. I worked at a bank in the Netherlands from 2008 to 2011, and lived in the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2015. Americans have become accustomed to hearing a lot of propaganda about how good these countries have it—welfare states where state benefits abound. Last year Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted:
“To our friends in the UK: please cherish, protect, & continue investing in your healthcare system! Once Big Pharma & special interests get their hands on it, it could take generations to regain. Millions of people in the US are fighting to have a system half as good as the NHS [the British public health care system].”
These narratives about the luxury of life in welfare-rich states are simply untrue. Europeans are taxed to death—all to pay for second-rate public services. The NHS lags behind the health care systems of other developed countries on many significant metrics. British patients face long waiting lists and have little to no choice in their care providers.
Quality of life is not all that’s at stake in this election; the sanctity of life is too.
A middle-class American has a much higher standard of living than even wealthy Western Europeans: American houses are bigger and newer than European houses. American stores have a broader selection of goods at lower prices, and those goods are usually in stock. When I lived in Western Europe, empty shelves were a regular occurrence. In fact, the average thrift store in America offers a higher-quality selection than most normal stores in Europe. These models of statehood that the Democrats idolize have failed to provide the standard of life that Americans have grown accustomed to.
Quality of life is not all that’s at stake in this election; the sanctity of life is too. Another important reason I voted for Donald Trump is that I am pro-life. President Trump is the most pro-life President in modern history. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris—along with the entire leadership of the Democratic Party—support late-term abortion. Last year, I had a baby delivered via emergency c-section at 37 weeks. It is sickening to me that anyone could say it should be legal for me to have killed her.
Thanks to President Trump, we now have Amy Coney Barrett on the supreme court. I consider ACB to be a fantastic role model for my daughters: She is pro-life. She is a wife and a mother, and now she is one of the most powerful women in the world.
Donald Trump is not only pro-life on the issue of abortion; he is also pro-life in his foreign policy. He has avoided the endless foreign military interventions that killed thousands, if not millions of innocent people abroad. And he is bringing our troops home. When I lived in Europe, I met refugees from countries where America had intervened. These were ordinary citizens who just wanted to earn a living and raise their families. Then they lost everything. Many of them told me heartbreaking stories of relatives who died.
Most Americans are fed up with these endless foreign wars. However, up to now, there was a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy—probably because both sides stood to make a lot of money off it. The presidential nominees of both parties usually had pro-interventionist platforms that were basically identical.
Then came Donald Trump, and Americans finally got the option to vote for a President who rejects foreign military intervention and profiting from the death of innocent lives—both that of our soldiers and those in the countries in which we sought to nation-build.
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Voting by mail.[/caption]
THE MOST CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT IN LIVING MEMORY
Some of my conservative friends still object to Donald Trump’s character. Yes, I wish Trump had only been married once, and I deplore some of the things he has said. But that doesn’t change the fact that he has governed as the most conservative President in living memory.
Their farcical attempt to remove Trump through impeachment shows they have no respect for the outcome of legitimate, democratic elections.
As conservatives, we don’t have the luxury of saying we will tough it out under four years of Biden-Harris, and then hope for a right-wing candidate of sterling moral character to emerge from the wings. The progressives who are running the Democratic party will seize the opportunity to rig the game.
Their farcical attempt to remove Trump through impeachment shows they have no respect for the outcome of legitimate, democratic elections. They will try to pack the courts, abolish the electoral college, and give statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico to ensure a permanent Democratic majority in the senate. Maybe Joe Biden doesn’t hold such extreme beliefs himself, but he is too old and frail to stop the progressives who have seized control of his party. After four years of a Biden-Harris administration, our institutions may be so thoroughly upended that we can never elect a conservative president again.
Living abroad has given me a deeper appreciation for America—its beauty, its high standard of living, and above all, its freedom. That’s why I voted for Donald Trump. I want America to still be America when it is time for my family to move back.
This article is part of a Human Events Opinion Special Collection: “Human Events Election Day Roundup.” You can read the other pieces in the collection here.
