Many things have come out of Trump’s first months in office: a dysfunctional travel ban, a terrifying health care plan, a love-affair with Russia, and a lot of drama.
For the past year, turning on the news has been like turning on the telenovela channel, except it’s much less entertaining to watch when you realize you're watching your government and society devolve before your very eyes.
There have been many issues with this administration, and from a conservative liberal’s perspective, most of those issues exist because of the views Trump is preaching.
However, no matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, one thing can be agreed upon: this administration is a failure.
The truth is, Trump and his people have not managed to successfully, in an appropriate manner, implement any policy thus far. The Travel Ban was one of the first policies of this so-called “Trump era,” and it failed from the start. After widespread protests took place across the nation’s airports, it was struck down by judges in Hawaii and Maryland and it has yet to go into effect again.
Not only was the ban morally wrong -- the world’s most powerful country should not be turning away the needy -- but it was a legal mess that caused chaos and shook foreign relations with the Islamic world.
While some Trump supporters like to blame such incidents on those “damn liberals,” this was not the fault of the opposition, this is the fault of an incompetent administration. Perhaps if the constitutionality of the ban would have been checked before it was passed, and if Trump could have refrained from saying he wants a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S.,” there would not have been so many issues.
On one hand, Trump failed his supporters by being unable to keep his promise to pass the ban. On the other hand, he humiliated and offended the opposition. Either way, no one is satisfied.
The ban is just one example of the shortcomings of Trump’s presidency in his first couple of months. Another dark cloud that is looming over his term is Russia.
Dubbed as “Trumpgate,” Trump’s administration is showing more and more dubious ties to Russia each day.
The recent firing of FBI Director James Comey as he was investigating the administration's ties to Russia further solidifies the trend, and Trump’s Twitter threats to stop holding press briefings only make it more obvious that this administration has no plans to be as transparent as the last.
Democrat, Republican, or neither, this should be seen as a big concern.
In fact, this reveals once and for all that this administration is its own worst enemy.
Trump has an unfortunate inability to take blame and responsibility for things, and he is clearly too paranoid to handle any sort of contradiction to what he considers to be “facts” in his “alternative fact” filled mind.
Every time something hasn't worked, it has been someone else's fault: a “so-called judge,” the evil media, a nasty woman. In reality, what is happening is a lovely system called checks and balances, established by the same Constitution which Republicans view as holy for giving them the Second Amendment, which is meant to keep the power of the president in check through the two houses of Congress and an independent judiciary and media.
What Trump and his supporters don’t realize is that nothing in the government is broken because his executive orders are being overturned and his bills aren’t passing through Congress. In fact, the government is working great.
Unfortunately for our new president, America is the world’s strongest democracy, so simply showing up and signing an order into law does not mean that order will instantly be followed without opposition.
This country's government was built in such a way that it is the responsibility of the party in power to gain enough support for their bills through discussion, compromise, and persuasion, and if they cannot do that, then they are the failure and they are to blame, not the opposition.
This administration needs to realize that if it anyone’s fault for their shortcomings, it is their own. If they will continue to refuse to be transparent about their policies and if they will continue to act in irresponsible and impulsive ways, their four years in the White House will be a tremendous disaster for the interests of both parties.