Yesterday Donald Trump gave his first State of the Union address in front of Congress. This officially marks his first year in office and sets the stage for his next moves in Washington. During the address, Trump touted a few of his accomplishments from this past year and set clear goals for those to come. While his speech was rife with exaggeration in the classic DJT fashion, there was much to celebrate not just for Republicans but also for Democrats. Ultimately the speech made it easy to see the bigger picture and detect the tone and direction of the 2018 Trump Administration.
Whether or not you believe in Donald Trump and his message, no sane human can deny that during the first half of last year the White House was a mess. His cabinet was in complete chaos and the president himself seemed unable to handle anything. This was to be expected since prior to being President he had never held ANY government or legal position. Although he claimed his business expertise would make the job smooth for him on the campaign trail, it was very clear - even after the first week with his botched cabinet picks - that this was not the case.
Here are some key reasons why the Spring and Summer of 2017 was a nightmare for the Trump Administration (most of which are related to his lack of experience):
No understanding of diplomacy. Trump used a "shoot from the hip" strategy to impress voters on the campaign trail, but foolishly tried to apply it in a place it doesn't work; Washington. To make matters worse, he continued to be undiplomatic even when it became clear it wasn't working for his administration at all. Riding on the adrenalin of his surprise win, Trump wasted much of his political power in 2017 being wild when he should have switched his tone early on. It took about 9 months for him to realize what the problem was.
No understanding of procedure and law. Many a' time did Trump embarrass himself making mistakes that other presidents have had the knowledge base to avoid entirely. Ignoring mistakes, the President's agenda was slowed down simply because he didn't know how anything worked in legal terms.
No understanding of what he wanted. Trump had a great campaign message which resonated well with many voters. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to know what those messages meant in terms of actual policies that could be implemented. If you go back, most of what he promised and campaigned on was surprisingly vague and this became a problem when he actually sat down to do stuff. When he did start making policy, many of his voters who thought he meant something that he actually didn't mean became angered and felt tricked. Because of this, over the course of his first year Trump's approval rating went down as he implemented policies his voters didn't think he campaigned on. That's what happens when you're vague.
Bad cabinet and administration choices. Trump campaigned on "draining the swamp" but served the swamp like a little bitch more than any other president of our time over the first year. Most of his cabinet consists of multi-millionaires directly taken from big banks such as Goldman Sachs and CEO's such as Rex Tillerson from Exxon Mobil. The rest of his cabinet/administration members are either close family or people who were actually against the swamp but are connected to fringe right-wing ideologies such as Steve Bannon. This predictably created unneeded friction in his workspace which given some common sense could have been avoided.
Investigations. The President has spent much of his time focused on the collusion investigation and it has damaged his administrations progress to some degree. It is completely unclear as to whether Trump is being mind controlled by Putin from afar (sarcasm intended) but it seemed to get in his way a number of times.
But while it is unsurprising that Trump's first several months were cringe worthy, what was surprising was the dramatic turn-around in the fall. Somewhere in October, we began to see a President Donald Trump that had grasped the political game and began to do good for the American people. By the time of the passage of the new tax bill, his administration was a well-oiled machine that was implementing realistic and creative legislation that worked great. Many of the vague promises - which, as mentioned earlier, are useless in a legal setting - had evolved into common sense policies which even caught the attention of many Democrats. The biased media on the left failed to report on this turn-around, but it was easy to see regardless.
In reflection, Trump is no dummy; even if his first year was largely chaotic. His political acumen can only ever get better, and there is reason to believe it will increase exponentially over the coming months. In his State of the Union, he promised for infrastructure spending, cheaper drug prices and more bipartisanship. So far, it seems like his version of rebuilding American infrastructure is handing over large swaths of publicly owned structures to already-mega-wealthy companies such as Goldman Sachs (yes, he has and currently is doing exactly that - no biased framing) which helps nobody but Goldman Sachs. However, this might change as the government switches its focus from taxes and immigration to spending and bipartisanship.
More and more people are growing frustrated with Trump: his cabinet picks, his services to the wealthy, his decision to repeal net neutrality. While he boosted our economy a huge amount, a full 83% of the wealth created in 2017 went to the richest 1%. The Republican tax plan he passed was built to make the rich richer (who gave cute little insignificant bonuses to their workers to make them feel rewarded), but nonetheless it will have a VERY positive impact on smaller companies and our overall economy. Even Democrats cannot reasonably argue Trump's economic policy doesn't work. Nobody can deny that he is growing more competent and powerful in Washington and will continue to do so over the next year as he becomes the "dealmaker" he promised to be. Everything is in place for him to please his voters, and he will most likely do no less.
Author: ukuleleman.exe