A Bumpy Ride Ahead

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Donald J. Trump is the 45th U.S. President. I couldn’t believe it. I thought he didn’t have a chance. Most pundits agreed with me. Interestingly, Trump felt he’d lose, too, and declared that the election was rigged shortly before the polls opened.

Trump is a living proof that, in America, anyone can become president. He doesn’t fit the profile. He’s boorish, narcissistic, and uncouth.

On paper, Trump’s chances of victory were virtually nil. He’s a 70-year old Washington outsider who had never held any elected office. He achieved fame as a businessman and reality star. But miracles do happen. Although he lost the popular votes by almost 3 million, he gathered enough electoral votes to win.

During the campaign, he did everything a politician wouldn’t do.

As the Republican standard-bearer, he didn’t mend fences after a grueling primary fight. Instead, he lambasted the GOP leadership for the party’s malaise causing him to lose their support.

He made outlandish promises such as building a wall on the southern border and making Mexico pay for it, replacing the Affordable Care Act with something better and less expensive, eliminate the $19 trillion federal debt in eight years, and deport 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

In addition, he had offended just about everybody outside his core of supporters with insults and abusive remarks. These included women, the disabled, African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, Muslims, and other minority groups. It’s amazing that the people who voted for him didn’t take them too seriously and dismissed them as locker-room talk.

Photo Credit: KHOU.com

It’s obvious that Donald Trump doesn’t share the kinder, gentler nation as envisioned by George H.W. Bush. It went with the former president in the Intensive Care Unit where he has been confined due to pneumonia.

I could see the country headed for a bumpy ride. To start, 2017 falls under the sign of the rooster in the Chinese zodiac. In an interview with AFP, Hong Kong soothsayer Thierry Chow said that the rooster is an animal that “likes to pick fights, loves to have verbal arguments and is combative.” As a result, we could expect the first year of his administration as contentious and polarized with battle lines drawn leaving hardly any room for compromise.

Unless the old man can learn new tricks, an impeachment down the road is highly likely. Perhaps it would help him survive if he reminds himself that he’s president not only of the people who voted for him but also of those who didn’t. That’s how democracy works.