Hazie Thought #7: They Are Who We Thought They Were
It’s been two and a half years since the 2016 election and President Donald Trump has been the President many thought he would be whether they’ll admit or not.
While running for President Donald Trump had two and only two policy initiatives as far as I could tell - build a wall on the southern border and stop the “economic anxiety.” One of these two things was somewhat already in place.
Congress passed the secure fence act of 2006 https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6061, which reads Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security, within 18 months of enactment of this Act, to take appropriate actions to achieve operational control over U.S. international land and maritime borders, including: (1) systematic border surveillance through more effective use of personnel and technology, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, ground-based sensors, satellites, radar coverage, and cameras; and (2) physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful border entry and facilitate border access by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, such as additional checkpoints, all weather access roads, and vehicle barriers.
That second part is more important to this argument. As of today, estimates say that 700 miles of the 1933 mile US-Mexico border has fencing that separates the two countries https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/us-mexico-border-wall-photos-maps-2018-5. Fencing from the above law passes above.
Economic anxiety is real. People of all races, social backgrounds, states, etc worry about their economic future and that of the nation. There’s various organizations that conduct research on these factors. However, Trump conning his vase into thinking he was some kind of economic savant who would get them all jobs and money was just that, a con.
The economy was coming out of a recession and working its way back to where it was pre recession (stock prices, unemployment rate). Economic theorists have differed on its strength but it would be disingenuous at best to say it hasn’t gotten better.
That’s it. There was nothing addressing climate change. Violence was intertwined with a need for a wall, border security. There wasn’t an education plan such as “no child left behind”.
The First Lady Melania Trump decided that bullying would be the initiative she focused on while in the White House with her “Be Best” initiative First Lady duties and pick a cause to focus on. She chose bullying. Just in case you forgot, the President was accused of making fun of physically impaired journalists, questioning the citizenship of the prior president even though her initiative was to stop bullying.
It seems like every week there’s a new scandal.
There was the stormy Daniels hush money payments. There’s that pesky investigation into if he knowingly conspired with Russia to win the election. Not having his wife Melania live with him. The amount of time he spends golfing. There’s also been accusation of sexual harassment and misconduct by him before and while in office. Former staffers have turned on him coming out saying he’s a racist or bigot.
Most recently Donald Trump was seen watching the super bowl with the owner of a Florida spa that was accused of human trafficking women to work at the spa as sex workers. Should be noted Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots has been charged with two misdeamonars in connection with the spa.
Tweets like this have become commonplace on twitter and I have to wonder why people keep lying to themselves. This isn’t about the era of Trump, this is just America working.
I’m old enough to have already seen a presidential election be contested in this nation. It’s kind of funny because I’m almost far more positive of the cheating and illegal activity that took place in the 2000 election vs 2016 election and maybe that’s why I can’t get with all the outrage.
I mean at least in the Trump era you can ask if someone is racist that used to be super taboo. Maybe it’s the fact that this has always been a violent, racist & corrupt country and for the first time some Americans have to deal with it head on.
Four black teenagers and one Hispanic one can have a full page ad accusing them of a crime by a rich celebrity in 1989 - be exonerated by dna evidence, get a p$41 million settlement from New York and after all that have your innocence questioned by the same man who took out that ad 20 https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/10/06/politics/reality-check-donald-trump-central-park-5/?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww-nbcnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org%2F some plus years prior and eventually become president while along the way casting aspersions on your name..
The Trump era isn’t any worse than any other era, a lot of white people can no longer run from who they really are and I think that’s what’s frustrating the most. Trump and conservatives don’t necessarily represent America they represent white America and that’s what the country hates the most.
They hate the fact they are who they thought they were.