It has been a year since President Trump took office. What do readers think are the main changes, positive and negative, that can be attributed to him? (as distinct from stuff that Congress has done, e.g., cutting the corporate tax rate to a European level)
When Mom and I were on our September 2017 cruise, the non-Americans on the ship always asked us what we thought of Trump. My parents still live in Bethesda, Maryland where the only problem with Big Government is that it isn’t quite big enough. From Mom’s perspective, Trump is, like his supporters, deplorable. There is no need to look at specifics. I responded that I thought the biggest change occasioned by Trump was that he broke the pattern of Americans worshiping their President like an Egyptian pharaoh. As Trump was plainly mortal, Americans now realize that they will have to exert some personal effort if they want to become better off. The god-like Great Father in Washington is not going to do it all for them.
Readers: What do you see as the most significant effects from the first year of Donald Trump in the White House?
Related:
- Bill Murray in What About Bob? describing his psychiatrist (similar to how a lot of Americans would have described previous presidents)
What sort of god was GWB?
The most significant effect was talking big on China and then doing nothing except bow down to Xi. Trump was going to brand Beijing a currency manipulator, taxing Chinese imports and etc. All talk, no action. In the end Trump will just be Xi Jinping’s poodle. Better hope that Xi gives a biscuit to Trump once in a while.
I think the most significant accomplishment directly attributable to Donald Trump was the creation of a lot of unnecessary drama around the President. You and I must travel in very different circles. I have met a very wide variety of Americans, but I have never met even one who worshipped “their President like an Egyptian pharaoh”.
I absolutely hate the posturing against China. Is it just a George Carlin’esque “Dick Waving” contest? I thought we were supposed to root for a bunch of poor farmers getting out of poverty.And of course, the inevitability that a billion and a half vs 300 million(~~5x) people would eventually have a more powerful nation by most metrics. What was that statement? More honor students then we have students?
The most significant effect is the exposure of irreconcilable division, as currently symbolised by the “government shutdown”. There are parallels here with an observation made by Bismarck during negotiations after France’s defeat at Sedan in 1870. From Howard’s “The Franco-Prussian War”:
[The French claimed that] Generosity… was the only possible basis for a lasting peace. Draconian methods would awake all the evil instincts lulled asleep by the progress of civilisation, and endless war between France and Prussia would be set on foot. Bismarck’s reply to this sane observation is interesting. France, he argued, was not – as Austria had been in 1866 – a stable Power with whom war could be conducted on a limited, eighteenth century basis… If France had solid institutions, if, like the Prussians, she had reverence and respect for her institutions, if she had a sovereign established on a throne in a stable fashion, “we might be able to trust in the gratitude of the Emperor and his son and set a price on that gratitude.” But French governments were kaleidoscopic: “One can rely on nothing in your country.”
Neal: The cartoon “Barry & Joe: The Animated Series” suggests there are a large number of Americans who do worship Barack.
@ Neal: I don’t know , even non-Americans worshipped Barak Obama so much they gave him a Nobel Prize for doing absolutely nothing, other than getting elected. I hated King Bush II for the Iraq war, but the Obama love was taken too far… besides, all he did was continue Bush’s foreign policies. So much for change.
Also, our greatest Troll, president Trump just trolled the Women’s March today:
“Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!”
@Neal
I don’t think it is Trump’s fault that a lot of unnecessary drama was created around the President. In fact, it is because the Democrats just can’t let go of the fact that they lost.
As an aside, a wise man once said: Recall that in the 1980s we venerated Donald Trump and studied his “art of the deal”. If Donald Trump had taken the millions he inherited from his father and put it all into mutual funds, you’d never have had to suffer through one of his books. But he’d be just about as rich today.
Trump has been president for one year only if you believe that Obama is not still the president. Yesterday journalist Chris Matthews on his MSNBC show said that “Let me ask you about the president — President Obama, to some people still the president. I was watching the David Letterman — that interview, and a lot of people were saying, ‘Oh, he’s still the president.’ “
it’s hard to separate Trump from his enablers. If a CEO was hired for a company who was, in your opinion, a complete, revolting disaster, who’s really at fault, the CEO or the board who hired him? I realize you don’t share that opinion of Trump, but perhaps you see what I’m getting at.
I think trump is doing a great job and in november there will be a wave but it will be a wave of republicans. After all there still is no known cure for liberalism!
Well, he has certainly made the lives of America’s hard working pundits a lot easier.
Trump has made it clear that MSNBC Chris Matthew is the stupidest human alive. I voted for DT in 11-16 and if he runs I’ll vite for him in 11-20.
I own a small company with about fifty employees. Most of the employees are college educated, several have docs and nearly all of them feel as I do. And trust me, it’s not a following the boss situation, either.
I’ve got Democrats who voted Trump instead of the alternative.
Trump produced huge tax cuts, as promised. The stock market LOVES Trump, as do I.
Procrastination in dealing with Chinese competition will doom this country. Seriously. That’s the real national threat we are facing. Just think about the cold war, except now the enemy has 4x the population with a lawless entrepreneurial drive of the wild west, on top of that a dangerous National Socialist government. Wake up people.
So far, except for the “did not do enough on China,” everyone is talking about how Trump made people feel. Nobody seems to be able to identify something dramatic that Trump actually did in his role as President (exception: Mark referencing the tax cut, but that was Congress passing the cut and then Trump signing it).
“everyone is talking about how Trump made people feel”
It seems to me the unnecessary stress and anxiety President Trump caused the Dreamers by ending DACA (unnecessary because both parties and the President claim to support a permanent solution) is probably significant for them even if a solution is implemented by congress so in the end he didn’t actually “do” much.
Even the short lived Muslim ban caused quite a bit of real inconvenience for people, although that seemed more like Trump implementing Bannon’s policy so maybe it doesn’t count.
Well, he has proved once again that we really don’t need a President.
I picked up Michael Howard’s “The Franco-Prussian War” (1961) after reading Lord Palmerston’s quote. In short: success leads to complacency, complacency leads to failure. Highly recommended.
Regarding Trump’s record so far, here’s David Frum, arguing with Ross Douthat (who doesn’t think Trump’s been that bad):
But maybe administration of justice is too abstract for people to care?