What were voters thinking back in 2008 and 2012?

I can understand that they were unimpressed by Republican nominees John McCain and then Mitt Romney. I was disappointed in again having such mediocre politicians as presidential contenders.

They were up against Barack Obama, who literally was an unknown quantity in 2008. A political image with no paper trail. All he promised was hope and change—to radically transform the United States. The utopia that the voters thought they would get turned out to be a delusion.

Obama, however, had an agenda which he consistently followed in his two terms in office.

As Obama leaves office, he is still remarkably popular but, as rather well described by the Russians, politically a corpse. His signature accomplishment in his first term, Obamacare, is a disaster of the first order. The prize of his second term, the Iran Treaty, is even a greater disaster.

Between, his administration borrowed $20 trillion at zero interest leaving future generations almost catastrophically in debt. The domestic economy has had virtually no productivity, culminating with the lowest rate of labor participation of modern times, and the highest number of people on food stamps and welfare. His domestic policy can be characterized as an unmitigated failure.

His foreign policy was led by Hillary Clinton and then John Kerry. Both of whom the Democratic voters said were unsuitable to lead the government. Obama gave them a chance to show their stuff and they proved the Democratic voters were right. Both, not much different than Obama himself, were incompetent, incapable, and ineffectual.

In these waning days in office, he gratuitously, and ineffectually, diplomatically attacked the Russians and spitefully stabbed the Israelis in the back, so to speak.

Shortly, the policies of his entire presidency will be renounced and repudiated. Alan Dershowitz commented in a recent article that Obama will go into the political dustbin of history.

Obama stayed true to his upbringing, education, and life experiences.

Now comes President Donald Trump.

Let’s hope he stays true to his upbringing, education, and life experiences.

As he faces the Washington, D.C., cabal of the Republican and Democratic establishment, their pollsters, economists, and media syncopates, and the federal bureaucracy, let’s all pray he can maintain the courage of his convictions.

Investors already seemed thrilled by the prospect of a Trump presidency. Starting with the day after the election, the financial markets have been on a roll. While the underlying financial factors affecting equity valuations haven’t changed, investors seem reinvigorated.

Unlike any president in the history of the United States or any other country, he is putting into his cabinet primarily people with the highest level private sector executive experience in running large multinational complex organizations.

We all know that the domestic economy is in for a volatile phase. But this time around, private investors and governments understand that the top people running the Trump government will focus on solving problems instead of posturing and just producing political propaganda.

The world runs on private sector economics. This is the basis for international cooperation between nation states. Even in the Islamic world, how Islam can evolve will come through economic self-interest.

It’s in everyone’s interest to eliminate Islamic terrorists and destroy their financial supporters.

Trump has already shown his commitment to building up the military and having them led by hard chargers. Except for Israel, the United States has no reliable friends but instead a lot of unreliable rivals and hostile foes.

Diplomacy works best for America when unfriendly countries realize it has the economic and military capability, and willingness, to inflict damage, but prefers amicably making them trading partners.

Obama has not yet left office yet the Trump government is close to being the de facto government operating domestically and globally.

Investors in the U.S. and around the world are responding with newly found confidence to this change in the governmental policies of the United States from the political delusion of the past to the private sector reality of the future.

Denis Kleinfeld is known as a strategic tax and wealth protection lawyer, widely published author and creative teacher.