The two most common things I see about Trump online are either things that make fun of the way he looks (specifically, the bad hair, orange skin and silly pout) or scandals about his personal life, usually him saying something he shouldn't have whilst being secretly recorded. This means that what he has actually done as president comes third. I don't think there is anything wrong about making fun of the way he looks or enjoying one of his many scandals but surely he should be judged more on his actual actions and decision making as president. If I was to put on my tinfoil hat for a moment I might say that the endless commentary on his looks and personal life might be a way of distracting people from what is actually happening during his presidency. Just to clarify, I DON'T think the earth is flat, vaccines cause autism or the Queen is secretly a six foot lizard.
Personally, I'm interested in the way politicians present themselves and what they say when they don't know they're being listened to but I ultimately think they should be judged on the actual political decisions that affect their electorate. What I wanted to do was look at some of what he has actually DONE during his presidency and pick out anything that seemed particularly bad or good. To make it clearer I've put the good things in green and the bad things in red. Spoiler alert: there is a lot more red. Although, of course, whether something should be green or red is completely down to individual opinion. Also, so much has happened that obviously there is loads I've missed out. So,
- Reduced money given to the affordable care act.
- Restricted immigration from certain Muslim majority countries, also known as 'The Muslim ban'.
- Diverted funds from the Environmental Protection Agency to increase military spending.
- Removed restrictions on fracking.
- Signed a large arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
- Withdrew from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
- Developed policies making things more difficult for transgender service members.
- Donated one million dollars of personal funds to relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey and allocated much more.
- Denounced peaceful national anthem protests in the NFL.
- Allocated two hundred million dollars per year in grant funds to the study of science and engineering.
- Withheld millions of dollars worth of aid to Pakistan.
- Signs order to keep Guantanamo Bay open.
- Bans devices allowing semi-automatic rifles to become fully automatic.
- Removes ban on sport-hunted trophies of elephants.
- Proposes teachers having guns in schools as a response to guns causing deaths in schools.
- Authorizes air strikes in Syria that kill civilians.
- Meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
- Trump administrations own zero tolerance policy helps lead to 1,995 children being separated from their parents in just over one month at the border.
- Advises Theresa May to "sue the E.U." during Brexit negotiations.
- Refuses to recognise US intelligence agency assessments that Russian intervened in the 2016 election.
This barely skims the service of what he has done during his time in office but overall, the majority of what I read about his presidency made pretty unpleasant reading. How has this affected his approval rating? Well, not much. It has dropped but only by less than 4%. It seems that despite all the memes, scandals and harmful policies, most the people that liked him at the start still like him now.
After all that I need a laugh. Guess I'll just go back to looking at Trump memes.
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