Soon after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, he moved swiftly to fulfill his campaign promises through a series of executive orders that didn’t require Congressional approval. Even though he stumbled on the legal front on limiting immigration from seven predominately Muslim countries, infested with Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorists, it did look like that the government was finally working, compared with the Obama days of gridlock in Washington, DC when nothing would ever get done. Then came the firing of Gen. Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor and withdrawal of Andrew Puzder as the nominee for Secretary of Labor that gave the perception that Trump Administration was in chaos. These twin mishaps seem to have lifted the spirits of demoralized Democrats and given them a feeling of relevance in political discourse. And, the liberal anti-Trump media finally got an upper hand in their fight against Trump with their non-stop attacks and going as far as predicting his imminent downfall, just as they erroneously did about his presidential candidacy not long ago. While all this was going on, Republicans seemed to be in hiding; they are quiet on Democrats’ accusations of Russian links to Trump’s aides and they have not produced any significant legislation to implement Trump’s promises.
While Trump’s team could have handled the
debacles better, given that most of his aides have had no prior government
experience it seemed inevitable that Trump’s desire to fulfill his campaign
promises quickly would lead to hiccups along the way. However, media’s
prediction of imminent fall of Trump is more of a wishful thinking than
reality. Judging from the lopsided number of negative stories about Trump by
Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC, it does appear that the media
is engaged in unfair reporting which is supported by a recent poll that shows media's approval rating at 16%. In this age of instant social media, fake news
has become a real problem and often mainstream media look more and more like
sensational tabloids. There was a time when journalists would find at least two
independent sources corroborating a story before printing it, but now they go
with a story even without a single corroboration and that’s fake news. Trump has a point when he
says that the media has become enemy of the people. Freedom of press is an
integral part of our democratic principles, but with the inception of fake news
phenomenon during the 2016 election cycle, the media seems to be abusing that
right. It seems inevitable that the Republican controlled House of
Representatives and Senate would impose some sort of checks-and-balances
against the abusive media by passing a law that allows lawsuits against the
media that disseminate fake news.
Trump’s stumbles got amplified because the
Congressional Republicans have failed to produce a single bill on tax reform,
infrastructure spending, repealing and replacing Affordable Care Act
(Obamacare), securing the border, reforming immigration laws, and strengthening
the military. Trump won based on promises he made on campaign trail on those
scores and yet Republican majorities in both houses have failed to act since
November 8, 2016. If Republicans had shredded their decade-long “Do Nothing” attitude and
worked hard through their various committees, by now they would have passed a
series of bills to be signed by Trump. Had Congressional Republicans done that,
the media would have been busy talking about those bills rather than engaging
in an all-out war with Trump. Republican led Congress has created a vacuum
because of their slow pace in achieving their goals and the media is filling
that vacuum by going after Trump at full speed. Lackluster performance of Republicans
points to either sharp divisions within the Republican caucus or weak leadership
skills on the part of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell. If Trump presidency fails, it would be a no-brainer to blame the
Congressional Republicans for the lost opportunity. It’s amazing that House Republicans
tried to repeal Obamacare dozens of times when they knew that Obama would never
sign it, but now that they know that Trump would sign it, they still have not passed
the repeal bill.
That brings us to the last piece of the puzzle – the Congressional Democrats. Democrats lost because their welfare approach to governing proved to be a dead-end and it couldn’t possibly be sustained at a rate of $1 trillion a year. The Democratic Party did much better nationally and locally, when its political philosophy was centered. But then came Obama who moved the party so much to the left that it’s hard to believe that this party was once led by such people as John F. Kennedy and William J. Clinton. The focus of the Democrats is to give away things “free” to the masses at the low end of society. Free or subsidized health care, housing, education, child care, and food via a variety of welfare programs are funded by the rich and the middle-class that can barely make it. The system is based on disincentive to work rather than giving people a reason to work hard for better life. That kind of society can never prosper and it only increases the number of people falling below the poverty level. The brand of progressive leaders such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders think of hard working successful people as criminals and the people who don’t want to work as victims. As more and more people lose ground, progressive leaders double-down on their welfare approach which sets in a downward spiral to ruins rather than prosperity. Europe is decaying because of socialistic attitudes and more and more countries there are now close to being bankrupt (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy,…). Unless Democratic Party has a strong centrist leader, the Democratic Party is finished. Democrats need to move back to the center where Bill Clinton was, if they want prosperity for all. Warren and Sanders are not the answers - they will put the final nail in Democrats' coffin.
If Republicans in the Congress can get their act together and get on with
their agenda of rapid economic growth and faster job creation, Trump’s stumbles
would soon be forgotten and Trump's and Congress' approval ratings would zoom up nicely (Congress has had approval rating of 7-15% over the last ten years). Trump should lead and meet with Republicans and
Democrats to hammer out compromises on health care and tax reforms. The voters
elected Trump as the president because they were tired of gridlock in
Congress, Obama’s welfare state, slow-growth economy, and stagnated
wages. Obama made a mistake of passing Obamacare without Republican votes;
Trump would be foolish to repeat that mistake and rely only on Republicans to
implement his agenda. Trump is not viewed as a hard-core ideologue, which makes
it feasible for him to use his renowned negotiations skills in moving country
forward on tax reforms, infrastructure repairs, securing our borders, defeating
ISIS, and reducing health care cost in a bi-partisan way.
