America First Standard #16: The Golden Age that Never Came
Thirteen months ago, “America First” patriots across the country were thrilled about the election of President Donald J. Trump.
Over the previous four years, our nation suffered under a weak economy, forever wars, and mass immigration under the Biden administration. But despite the deep unpopularity of the Biden administration, the 2024 presidential election was anything but a shoe-in victory for President Trump. Let’s not forget that President Trump dealt with several multiple politically-motivated criminal indictments, faced a crowded field in the Republican presidential primary, and survived multiple assassination attempts all in 2024.
After overcoming all of these obstacles, seeing President Trump win the 2024 election was a surreal moment for millions of Americans across the country. There was a palpable exuberance and hope among MAGA supporters on election night that we would finally see America moving in a positive direction after four tough years.
Overall, President Trump’s dominant victory over then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election showed us that the nation gave President Trump and the Republican party a mandate to put America First in 2025.
In President Trump’s 2024 election victory speech, he promised a new “Golden Age of America” to the American people. He then reiterated this promise throughout the beginning days of his 2nd term in 2025.
After one full year in office, now is a perfect time for “America First” patriots to determine whether President Trump has delivered on his “Golden Age” promise.
At the beginning of this year, I noted in a few of my articles in the “America First Standard” series here on RVIVR that there were some major warnings signs that the Trump administration might under-deliver on two of the key promises made by the Trump campaign last year—namely mass deportations and ending the “forever wars“.
To close out 2025, here are some of the major “America First” wins and losses in the first year of the Trump administration:
“America First” Wins in Year 1 of the 2nd Trump administration
–Securing the US-Mexico Border and curtailing illegal border crossings
–Implementing an America First trade policy (i.e. Tariffs)
-Extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Tax Cuts (via the passing of the One Big Beautifl Bill)
-Deploying the National Guard & Reducing crime in Major American cities
–Authorizing a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve
“America First” Losses in Year 1 of the 2nd Trump administration
-Failure to enact mass deportations of illegal aliens (only ~600k formal deportations in 2025)
-Further entanglement in the “forever wars” (i.e. the Middle East and Eastern Europe)
-Massive Increase to the US National Debt (over a $2 Trillion increase in just one year)
-Homeownership still broadly unaffordable for Generation Z and Millennials in America
-Failure to crackdown on far-left political extremists following the assassination of Charlie Kirk
-Lack of Transparency concerning the release of the Epstein Files
-Higher unemployment & Mass Layoffs throughout 2025
Based on my review of Trump administration’s first year in office, I can’t help but admit that we are NOT living through the “Golden Age” that we were promised during last year’s election cycle.
I’m not the only person to have noticed this discrepancy between the political promises that were made last year and the current reality that we are facing as a country heading into 2025. According to right-wing pollster Rasmussen Reports, only 40% of Americans believe that the country is moving in the “right direction”.
Similarly, President Trump’s approval ratings have fallen significantly during 2025 when compared to the beginning of the year. In fact, Rasmussen shows a roughly 10% drop in Trump’s approval ratings between January 2025 and December 2025.
Moving forward, our hope should be that we see more “America First” in 2026 than we experienced in 2025. Without more positive developments, the MAGA movement may experience a disastrous midterm election cycle in 2026.
