May 22, 2017

President Trump, trailblazer

Back when Obama was first running for president, I warned some friends who supported him that less important than the first African American president would be the first successful African American president.  My argument against Obama was not based on race it was based on ideology.  Obama was a far left candidate with policies not suited to America.  If he was going to be a president that delivered uninspired results, he would make it more difficult for there to be a second African American president for a long time to come.  Perhaps the implications had a racial component, but the rationale for arguing against his presidency was strictly based on his policy positions.  While I believe a quality African American candidate with sound policies can still win the presidency, I don't think it will happen with a Democrat as the nominee.  Democrats have taken the wrong lesson from his presidency.  We are at the early stages of a Trump presidency but there are some remarkable similarities in terms of being a trailblazer.

On the heels of an historic deal with Saudi Arabia, president Trump is now in Israel and making a similarly big impact.  President Trump has an opportunity to be a trailblazer for a businessman in charge of the government. Big deals and a booming economy, jobs aplenty may not make a difference with the media but it will do so with the American people.  Conversely a failure on those fronts will matter too.  No attempt to delegitimize president Trump by the left will matter.  The American people can and will overlook that if president Trump is successful.  But a failure on the economic front will cause Americans to perhaps take to heart a bunch of those fake news stories about Russia, chaos in the White House, president Trump being ill-equipped to handle the presidency.  The stuff that won't stick now, will stick.

Both presidents Trump and Obama were trailblazers but there is the opportunity for president Trump to for it to be for different reasons.  For president Obama it was because he was the first African American president, for president Trump it can be for being the first successful outsider in the role.  President Obama was successful in his agenda but in the long run if president Trump is successful economically (and he is set to be so, policy-wise at least), the Obama's presidency will in retrospect to even his admirers seen as less than successful. 

A successful Trump presidency really threatens the status quo.  For a future businessman to run, he might need only surround himself with quality legal advisers and the American people might see the benefits of having someone with a sound business sense in the White House.  Instead of being run by lawyers, it can be run by common sense.  President Trump might be not only a trailblazer for business people but for any and all outsiders.  In that sense a successful Trump presidency would bring a real notion of democracy and equality of opportunity back to America.  How can you argue against a successful achievement of that outcome?

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