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My Point of View by Brad Kramer

For the first time in my life, I’m genuinely excited for an administration and Congress! My generation (Gen X) has lived our entire life being told that Social Security will be depleted by retirement, the national deficit has been spiraling out of control since we were children, and we’ve been fed propaganda about how climate change was going to destroy us. Every time that insufferable Al Gore opened his mouth with a doomsday prediction, deadlines came and went, and his houses on the beach never washed away.

I was skeptical about Trump’s first administration because he was yet unknown. Would he just be another nutty celebrity who campaigned on his popularity, but didn’t achieve anything?

He resonated with a lot of my generation by talking about having to get the deficit under control, managing our border and building a strong military that wasn’t entangled in every global dispute. He walked the walk, unlike most politicians who just talked about those issues, but never achieved anything. They disappeared into the swamp that is D.C. and let us down, administration after administration. The system was rigged.

President Trump’s cabinet is looking like a dream team to finally tackle all those issues that my generation has come to age knowing would be a thousand-pound gorilla on our backs! Trump spent his first term learning who the swamp creatures were that slow-walked his directives until his presidency was over, and went back to business as usual, and they’ll be fired on day one. He spent his term fighting lawsuits on his immigration, economic, law enforcement and other policies, but toward the end of his presidency, had won most of those lawsuits, so he’ll start on day one with a game plan that won’t be bogged down in courts. His administration is filling with leaders in their respective industries who have spent their careers fighting the deep state, bringing a passion and depth of knowledge that no administration has equaled.

If you want to know who those cabinet members are, don’t listen to what the talking heads on cable news tell you, but listen to a long-form podcast to listen to who they really are over a two- to three-hour interview. These people are going to have significant impact on our lives, so I’ve been listening to every podcast from Shawn Ryan, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and a few others, where I can listen to them answer challenging questions and tell us who they are. These are not softball-question, scripted interviews where they can pitch a few soundbites and bounce off the stage, but they’re asked tough questions by inquiring minds who will challenge them.

After watching military leaders more concerned about turning the military into a dress-up party more focused on people’s feelings than the business of building up the strongest military in the world, I’m excited about Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard and others who will lead our military, intelligence and law enforcement organizations. After decades of being fed toxins in our food, I cannot wait to see what Bobby Kennedy, Martin Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, Dave Weldon and others responsible for the FDA, CDC and other health-related departments can do. Much of my career has been spent in agriculture and manufacturing, and I train HazMat teams that handle the ingredients used in your food. The average person has no idea what chemicals in their foods were deemed “safe,” while the workers who handle those chemicals must wear respirators and HazMat PPE and have annual physicals to make sure they’re not overexposed. And where do I even start as I express my excitement over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy?

President Trump has already made huge accomplishments securing our border and drawing two conflicts to a close that threatened to ignite World War III, even as Biden instigated the conflicts before wandering off into the rainforest.

We need your help! If you sat out the previous elections, join us! This election proved that when people get past their apathy and realize our lives are on the line and your vote matters, they voted and won. If you crossed the aisle to vote for sanity, join us! I believe the GOP is going through a necessary change where we rid the party of the military industrial complex and elements that were at odds with true conservativism and patriotism. GOP meets every second Monday of the month at 5 p.m. at Edgewater Pavilion, and we’d love to have you on our journey toward a robust, well-rounded party with representation by all kinds of people. Help us make it your Republican Party, and then let’s turn Minnesota Republican! Freeborn County is already voting Republican 2:1. With your help, we can make it 3:1 and counter the insanity of the metro.

Brad Kramer is a member of the Freeborn County Republican Party.