Trump Inauguration: Democracy Exits the White House
After a short and not so inspiring inaugural address speech about the same old Trump chants of making America great again by reopening the relic rusted up factories and transferring power from Washington to the people that voted for him, the clapperboard has dropped down and action has been called. No more excuses, it is time to be measured and make good on promises. Only this time the decisions will be tougher than choosing between firing Gary Busey and Meat Loaf.
Trump went on to say that the downtrodden now had everyone’s attention and that change is on the way. He painted a picture of mothers and children trapped in poverty in the inner cities, a drug problem, a flawed education system, and his undying pledge to secure the borders, and bring jobs back to America.
In a world long led by automation the new leader of the free world has convinced the average American that he will bring back the old assembly line jobs that long left for countries that are mired with low level factory jobs that Americans do not want to fill any more.
On the world theatres biggest stage arguably the highest office position on earth is officially occupied by a man with not a day of experience in managing the most forward thinking country in the world. Now President Trump assumes an unemployment rate that sits at a nine-year low of 4.6 percent.
Mr. Trump once boasted that his reality TV show The Apprentice was the best business TV show ever produced. Viewers of the show watched the new President of America vet the best business leaders that led their respective teams to bring in the most money selling a $1000 glass of lemonade.
It is now time for Americans to sit in the boss’s chair and measure the performance of Mr. Trump in a reality show with a lot more at stake. My hope is that his short 17 minute and 17 second inauguration speech that painted a gloomy picture of the state of America is not a sign of what is to come.
The new President went on to say “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” Here to the rescue is the self-proclaimed saviour that takes on all who challenge or question him.
If you look up old video of what Donald Trump was saying back in the 80’s you will discover that he is repeating today what he was saying back then. Surely America has not been in the abyss since the 80’s. But then again, he did declare bankruptcy four times and this can be a little more palatable if you can stir up the animal spirits by saying the country has been in a tailspin for more than thirty years.
Watching the now former U.S. President Barak Obamas helicopter slowly hover away from the White House, I realize more than ever that we were fortunate as a generation to listen to him articulate his direction as Commander and Chief. We learned how to speak, we learned a little bit about ourselves, and most of all we learned how to be more accepting of one another regardless of our differences.
But the biggest lesson Barack Obama taught us was that in a world that is moving forward and advancing at a rapid pace it is okay to accept that attitudes, including his own as president, can evolve on issues as the country itself evolves on these same issues.
Back in 2010 President Obama spoke about his changing ideas towards gay marriage saying “My feelings about this are constantly evolving. I struggle with this.”
Fittingly DJ Trumps “Make America Great Again” comes across as being somewhat self full-filling and a job only he can rescue the Nation from. The newly chosen voice of the poor has a slogan that implies that the country is down and out. DJ Trump has no “we” in his vocabulary as in “Yes We Can.”
If Democracy is about people’s freedom to disagree, I think that the 45th President of America, Donald Trump has set a most polarizing tone that delivers yet another blow to democracy as we know it.
The Emperor has new clothes and I can’t help but feel that a lot of what really makes America great; humanity, democracy, and freedom escaped in the wind as the doors to the White House closed behind America’s 44th President.
The new President of the free world looks like a man that is winging it and his hubris is the biggest threat and risk America now faces.
Michael Lewis’s latest book, The Undoing Project opens with a timely epigraph from Voltaire – “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”
– Will Pimenta, CAVU Investments
