Now if it wasn't clear from before, I'm a liberal. I lean left on almost every political subject. But while my gut and instincts tend to pull me to the far left of the spectrum, my mind is always there to help pull me back toward the right. Or at least the center. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I don't like President Trump or the job hes done since he ran and won as a Republican. Understand, however, that I am NOT a member of the Democratic party. I won't automatically vote for a Democrat just because they are on a ballot, nor will I automatically vote against a Republican just because they are on a ballot.
From my perspective, here's what President Trump has accomplished.
Nominated and seated Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
Passed a 'temporary' travel ban on the third try.
Passed a major tax cut.
Pulled out of the Iran deal.
Started talks with North Korea.
Nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
Now there are plenty of other things that he's done. Like passing a budget, getting his cabinet in place, nominating and seating a bunch of judges that aren't on the supreme court... but these are things that almost any president should do, so I don't think of them as true accomplishments. That list does look a little small though for over a year in half in office, especially considering he has a Republican majority in both the house and the senate. And it looks a little small considering how much noise he's made. But that right there is one of the biggest things I don't like about President Trump; the noise.
He calls the press 'the enemy of the people'. He mocks judges and entire appellate courts. He mocks foreign leaders that are allies and cajoles foreign leaders that are enemies. He mocks athletes, celebrities, politicians, news papers, news networks, television networks, entire countries and even entire races and religions of people. He spreads rumors and outright lies via tweets and re-tweets.
But all of that is just noise. He hasn't broken any agreements with NATO or our allies. He hasn't tried to remove any judges. He hasn't started any wars. He hasn't ordered our military to do anything untoward or illegal. But if you listen to the noise, and worse try to interpret what he means via 140 character tweet, you may think he has done those things, is going to do those things, or is at the very least contemplating doing those things. I try very hard though to NOT interpret what he says, and instead focus on what he's done or is doing. You see, one of my biggest problems with his supporters is them interpreting what he says and then looking at it through a particular lens that throws out all the stuff that doesn't agree with their particular world view. It's how you can have moderate republicans supporting him at the same time that the modern white supremacy movement and KKK is supporting him.
Remember, he also said he was going to lock up Hillary Clinton because of... reasons? Well, he didn't do that, so let's not focus on his bluster about locking her up, and focus on the fact that he didn't do it.
You could argue that the 'noise' is all part of a negotiating tactic. For example, when I went car shopping for my Mom's new Escape, I looked at about a dozen other Escapes that would work. None of them were as good as the one I was dealing on, and I honestly didn't want about half of them, but I walked into the negotiation with printouts and car fax reports on all of them. I was showing the salesmen through bluster that I was prepared to walk out and go somewhere else if he didn't give me the deal I wanted. Well in that same vein, President Trump may be talking about backing out of NATO or not supporting the member nations all as a means of negotiation. And maybe it even worked.... although so far as I can see, he didn't get anything from NATO that wasn't already on the table.
I just think that that type of bluster is bad for a President. Any President. We the people should be able to trust what he says and he should damned well know that everything he says is broadcast to everybody. Especially his tweets. At the very least we would know where he stands and his silence on any particular subject would be a sign of him either working it out or contemplating action.
Another problem with the noise is the vagueness he utilizes. He calls the Russia Investigation a Witch Hunt... but supports our Intelligence Agencies when they say that Russia tried to hack our election and probably did so under the direction of President Putin. Now someone who does believe that Russia attempted to hack our elections but also supports President Trump may well say that the Russia Investigation being a Witch Hunt just means that those pesky democrats trying to pin him with colluding with Russia to steal the election is a Witch Hunt. Or maybe the 'Main Stream Media' constantly talking about the Russia Investigation is the Witch Hunt. Or some other fairly innocuous explanation. Someone who doesn't support the President and believes that Russia tried to hack our election can think that he WAS colluding and therefore is trying to shut down the investigation before it can prove anything and is vying for his supporters attention by talking about it as a Witch Hunt. Or they could believe that he's just trying to change whatever negative narrative is going on (the women he paid off to sleep with him, the business dealings, his cozy attitude with Putin, his ban being turned over again and again...) and instead changes the story back to him and Russia by calling it a Witch Hunt.
You see what I mean by not paying attention to the noise and instead just focusing on what he's done or is doing? Here's what he's done on the Russia front; He's suggested to the G7 to reinstate Russia. He's fired FBI Director Comey, at least partially for his Russia investigation. He's met with President Putin for a one on one (and translators) summit. And... that's it. He hasn't done enough for me to think he is guilty of colluding with the Russians in their hack of our election, nor has he done enough for me to think he isn't guilty of that.
Almost everything else he's done has been a variation on what some other president has done. He's played golf, he's hosted foreign leaders, he's dealt with congress. Some of it is 'more'... like the amount of golf he plays, or the fact that he hosts some leaders at his own resorts instead of at the White House or Camp David. Some of it is 'less'... like the small number of bills signed and passed from Congress. He has done plenty of Presidential proclamations and executive actions, but those are things he complained about under President Obama. Ahh... but then again those complaints were just part of the noise. Its only hypocritical if you listened to it and believe he was being honest.
Now something he does that isn't mere noise but does involve listening to him is complaining about the Democrats. Like how any shutdown is going to be their fault. If the Democrats controlled either house of Congress, I could see that argument. Or if you could point to something that the Republicans wanted to do that required even a single Democrat to vote for it, I could see that argument. But neither of those things are true. If the Republican party was anywhere near cohesive, they wouldn't need the Democrats for anything at all. But the Republican party isn't anywhere near cohesive. It's full of moderately right politicians, hard conservative politicians, and tea-party/freedom-caucus politicians. And that latter group is just one step away from anarchists in that they don't seem to want the federal government to do much of anything. That coalition just can't contiue to stand and we've seen it break apart over and over. Just look at Obamacare and the holy 7 year promise of repealing it.
When they worked at repealing the Affordable Care Act, you had some that wanted to keep the 'good' parts and only get rid of the 'bad' parts. Then you had some that wanted to stand up to their promise in full and just repeal the whole thing without any replacement. Then you had the other end of the spectrum that not only wanted to repeal it, but also wanted to cut deeply into medicare, CHiP, and medicaid. The compromise they had involved arm locking half of their own party just to get 'something' done and even then it failed.
So now, just to get a win, you have President Trump undercutting the parts of the ACA that he can with executive orders. He's not just taking it apart, he's breaking the entire system and dooming it to an even worse failure. The insurance companies, the health care providers, and those taking part in the program are all going to lose. But that's President Trump... he can now brag about how he took down Obamacare without actually taking it down, fixing it, or making it better.
And that leads into the way he seems to think the government works. From what he does and how he does it, I get the honest impression that he doesn't understand the difference between the executive branch and the legislative branch. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if we had a legislative branch (the Republicans in control of congress) that would stand up to him... but they just sit back and let him rule. Think about the tariffs he's throwing around. That's not the job of the Executive branch. The only way the Executive branch gets to do that is in case of a threat to national security.
But what threat to our national security is he stopping by these tariffs on Canada and our European allies? I'm not talking about liking the tariffs or not liking the tariffs... I'm talking about the fact that the President of the United States of America only has a small window in which he gets to apply tariffs and he hasn't laid out that case at all. It's as though he thinks he's the 'owner/operator' of the United States and can therefore do anything he wants.
You could complain about his rallies, but Presidents often go to rallies based around talking about a new policy or supporting some candidate. Sure, he makes them more of a 'Make America Great Again' rally rather than anything else, but it's not as though that activity is new. He does seem to like saying how he's Made America Great Again though. It makes me wonder if he's just beating that drum to spur on his supporters or if he honestly believes he's done anything. The stock market, the unemployment numbers, the number of people in the workforce... all of those, as well as almost any measure on how good our country is going, are better than when he took office. But look at any of those numbers and seem them not as to when he took office, but a couple years before and you'll notice that almost all of them have been trending in that direction for some time now. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he hasn't screwed things up for the economy (give it time, his tax cuts and slashes to federal regulations are going to kill the economy), but he's simply NOT rocked the boat. He didn't pull us out of a major recession, he didn't stop us from falling into a recession... he's done nothing to 'Make America Great Again'.
To sum all of this up; I don't like President Trump. I don't like him because he doesn't communicate in a way that lets us know what his moral compass is, what he wants to do, or what he thinks should be done. Every time he speaks, I have to wonder if he's trying to rally his supporters, throw off the media onto a new story, or just reading what someone else has written for him. I have no idea what he's going to say until he says it and no way to value what he says. I don't like him because he seems to want to 'win' more than get anything in particular done. I don't like him because he doesn't seem to know how the government is supposed to work (and then even worse, his own party lets him get away with it).
I just don't like him.
I'd love to say that I'm just counting down until the next election as there's no way he'll get a second term (not even considering chances for impeachment or him resigning), but I didn't think he'd have a chance to win. And while plenty of people are saying that he's setting the countries hair on fire, President Trump still has his fan base intact and still has the blessing of the Republican Party. I bet there are people out there that dislike him just as much as I do, but will still vote for him over any democrat.
I think this mid-term election will tell us a lot about what to expect. Here in my hometown I'm seeing a lot of political advertisements because our primaries are next week. And let me tell you, the republicans are all but tripping over each other to brag about how much they support President Trump or how much they're just like President Trump. So eventually my dislike of him will turn to my dislike of the people that supported him. It's one thing to vote for him when you had no idea how he'd govern, but it's entirely another thing to vote for him when you've seen what he does and what he's capable of.
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