Former US President Barack Obama understood that the US government is a democracy that runs multilaterally. This means that it’s a government under which every party – whether they’re liberal or conservative or libertarian or whatever – gets a say in political matters, no matter who’s been elected to be in charge. This is why Obama could never get his gun control laws passed: even though a Democrat was elected President and took up residence in the White House, most of the people in Congress were gun-toting Republicans. But Obama expected this, because he has spent his whole life working up the ranks in the American political system, learned the ropes, and it all culminated in an eight-year Presidential term.
The same goes even for another former President, George W. Bush, who knew the US government like the back of his hand. He grew up surrounded by politicians. His dad was the President a few years before he was elected himself (well, the legitimacy of the election is often brought into question). Sure, Bush made some controversial decisions, like invading Iraq after 9/11 with no just cause, but he knew that things get passed by Congress and they’re group decisions made by the majority of a bunch of people who are elected into power from all different political parties.
Donald Trump is trying to break the mould and it’s causing problems
Now, we’ve got the current President, Donald Trump, who ran in the election race back in 2016 with a focus on how he was a Washington outsider with no political background and a promise that he would shake things up in the government and be the voice for the ignored working classes.
For some reason, working-class American voters believed that a billionaire reality TV star would be a good representation for them in their government, so he was elected.
But since he has a very stubborn attitude about his ideas and his policies, Trump is not open to compromise and won’t budge on anything. If he doesn’t get his way, then he’s mad and he retreats to his Twitter account to complain about it.
You can shake things up all you want – Obama got same-sex marriage legalised, after all – but if there are rules that keep the government running smoothly that have been in place for decades, then you have to follow them. Fair’s fair.
Since he’s never worked in politics before, Trump seems to have no idea what the role of President is.
He seems to believe that the President has absolute power and that the Democrats have no power to question his authority or vote against his bills. He’s wrong on every count and it’s not good for the US government. It’s almost like that’s why he ran for President – he’s only happy when he gets his way, and he thought that the office of President would finally give him the power and the ability to get his way every single time he thinks up an idea.
Trump keeps taking America further and further back in time
The US government has followed the multilateral approach to settling political matters for almost a whole century now. With his “Make America Great Again” slogan and campaign, people were worried that Trump was bringing the US back to the ‘80s by copying the Ronald Reagan campaign.
With the Mexican border wall, people were worried that Trump was bringing us back to the ‘60s, with the Berlin Wall and all the Russia stuff and the Cold War. Then with the Muslim ban, we were going back to the racial segregation of the ‘50s. But if he totally disregards the government system that America has followed for decades, then he’ll bring us back to the 1930s! Let’s hope he doesn’t get all the way back to the 1800s, because we all know what was happening in America back then...
