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We Gave Him a Chance

Evaluating Our "Troublemaker-in-Chief" One Year Later

By Nicolas De CastroPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Donald Trump, immediately after taking the oath of office, prepares to give his inaugural address. Photo from Politico and Getty.

The United States has, throughout its history, experienced some grueling hardships: wars, economic depressions, shootings, etc. In spite of these events, we have always been able to recover and continue to be a strong nation. But what happens when we reach uncharted waters in that our own president is the direct cause of our turmoil? President Donald Trump, a title that sounded ludicrous up until his improbable victory over the heavily favored and experienced Hillary Clinton, has taken the reigns and led us down a turbulent and chaotic road. When the election results were in there was an overwhelming sense of shock, fear, and uncertainty; but optimists like myself were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and chance to lead and maybe prove the critics wrong. But now, as his presidency nears its one-year anniversary, it has been enough of a sample size to prove his critics right.

Trump was a household name well before his foray into politics, due to it being emblazoned throughout his portfolio of hotels, golf courses, office buildings, and numerous cameos in film and television which led to him starring in a reality show, The Apprentice. He had always contemplated running for political office, be it mayor of New York City or Governor, but decided to aim even higher when he announced his candidacy in June 2015 from the Trump Tower lobby and immediately set the tone with his casting of immigrants as “rapists” and promising to build a border wall at Mexico’s expense. From then on his no-holds-barred style of campaigning sent shockwaves not only around the country but the rest of the world, to the point of drawing condemnations from the most influential people such as Pope Francis and J.K. Rowling who did so with quite eloquent tweets, and Stephen Hawking, who bluntly stated “he’s a demagogue.”

On the surface, Trump’s characteristics and campaign promises have some merit and potential: his business background in place of a political one offers a fresh perspective to the presidency, his lack of a filter is unlike anything we had ever seen in our modern political climate, and his plan to “drain the swamp” of corporate lobbyists and ineffective politicians to pass laws that benefit the working class which he claimed to be the voice for. Unfortunately, Trump squanders his potential in these attributes by having a history of unscrupulous business dealings, making offensive or false statements, and succumbing to the Washington establishment he railed against by filling his cabinet with fellow billionaires and unqualified, corporate lobbyists. He also has failed to make any progress on his agenda, preferring to reverse President Obama’s accomplishments citing the reason that they are “bad deals” to cover up his true motive of spite and animosity towards his predecessor. During his victory speech he called for “binding the wounds of division,” that he would be “a president for all Americans” and he “[wouldn’t] let you down”; however, since that election night, he has only poured salt in the wounds of division, widened the rift between both parties, and has disappointed the majority of his base. Liberals have unfairly painted this base with a broad brush as a sort of xenophobic cult when in reality the majority of these voters did so despite having a negative opinion of him. They were willing to sacrifice a chance to elect the first female president for a chance to see some changes from an outsider candidate.

I remember when President Obama was asked about how the day-to-day life in Washington was in comparison to political dramas like House of Cards and Scandal and he replied that it “would not make good television.” Now, it seems like we live in one of those shows with the unpredictability of this White House. It feels like one could retroactively create a Trump presidency 2017 calendar with each month displaying the most controversial tweet or headline from that month. While it has been only 1/4th of his term with more than enough time to turn things around, his performance has been ineffective to say the least and doesn’t seem to be improving anytime soon. The silver lining I believe of this Trump era is that regardless of the scope of his accomplishments or failures, it was a time where even the most apolitical of people became more involved and active, such as working-class women who decided to run for office because of Hillary and more so due to her loss and saw not to take anything for granted in policies and laws so many of us rely on.

Now I would never wish any malice or misfortune on our president, I just believe that it’s time to do our civic duty of voting. Electing a president is similar to hiring someone for a job and after what we’ve seen it will soon be time to “hire” a new one and let the current one go; our democracy isn’t meant to have to have one single permanent leader, but a constantly changing place that always has room for improvements.

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