{"id":1656,"date":"2017-05-03T21:49:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T01:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1656"},"modified":"2017-05-03T21:49:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T01:49:50","slug":"trumps-first-100-days-good-bad-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/05\/trumps-first-100-days-good-bad-culture.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s First 100 Days: The Good, the Bad, and Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2019s \u201cfirst 100 days\u201d have certainly had their share of pitfalls and disappointments (at least for many of his supporters).\u00a0 This being said, they have not been nearly as bad as either the Democrats\u2019 media propagandists or even some of his supporters would have us think:<\/p>\n

(1)Corporations that would have otherwise relocated operations in other countries\u2014Bayer and Monsanto; Walmart; Amazon; General Motors; Hyundai; Sprint\/Softbank; and Carrier, to name but a handful\u2014have been motivated by Trump\u2019s election to remain in the United States<\/a>. They have also pledged to create thousands of new jobs.<\/p>\n

(2)Consumer-confidence has \u201csoared\u201d<\/a> under Trump to a high that it hadn\u2019t reached in 17 years<\/em>. Even the penultimate of \u201cfake news,\u201d CNN, perhaps the one network that despises the President more than any other, had to acknowledge this.\u00a0 In typical CNN fashion, however, it wasted no time in immediately qualifying this fact by noting that consumers\u2019 \u201ctrack record when it comes to predicting the financial future\u201d is checkered.<\/p>\n

As proof of this, the CNN article mentions that while consumer-confidence was sky high in December of 2000, it was precisely at this time that the stock market was \u201cin the midst of a massive plunge.\u201d<\/p>\n

(3)The big difference between then and now, though, is that within these first 100 days of the Trump presidency, consumer-confidence parallels historically unprecedented stock market highs.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 <\/em>This is another benefit of Trump\u2019s election\u2014and started to occur even before <\/em>he was inaugurated.<\/p>\n

(4)Trump\u2019s very election also affected small business optimism. \u00a0As Investor Business Daily <\/em>reported back in early January of this year, the optimism rate<\/a> soared to a level that it hadn\u2019t reached since 2004.\u00a0 In December, one month after Trump shocked the world\u2014or at least its elitists\u2014the National Federation of Independent Business\u2019s optimism index experienced the largest monthly leap \u201cin decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan: \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen numbers like this in a long time.\u201d\u00a0 She continued: \u201cSmall business is ready for a breakout, and that can only mean very good things for the U.S. economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n

(5)The President has issued a number of Executive orders that, relieving business operators of the burdensome regulation with which Barack Obama straddled them, have contributed immeasurably to the new economic climate.<\/p>\n

(6) Southern border crossings by illegal aliens have dropped a whopping 67%<\/a> since the beginning of this year.\u00a0 \u00a0The former Border Patrol Chief, David V. Aguilar, attributes the credit to the President, for the latter, he says, has boosted agents\u2019 morale by vowing to support them in their efforts to pursue invaders who make it into the interior of the country.<\/p>\n

(7)Trump\u2019s nominees for Attorney General (Jeff Sessions) and the Supreme Court (Neil Gorsuch) have been confirmed.<\/p>\n

Of course, Trump\u2019s and the Republicans\u2019 failure to repeal and replace Obamacare; their refusal to demand funding in this most recent Congressional budget deal for \u201cthe wall\u201d that the President promised would be built along the Mexican\/American border; Trump\u2019s attack on Syria, saber rattling with North Korea, and antagonism of Russia; and his utter silence regarding the overt violence that the Democrats\u2019 rental thugs and such leftist terrorists as \u201cAntifa\u201d have routinely visited upon his supporters are all lowlights.<\/p>\n

Some comments, however, are in order.<\/p>\n

First, Trump has no familiarity with political philosophy.\u00a0 Neither in theory nor practice had he ever subscribed to classical conservatism or libertarianism.\u00a0 For that matter, he speaks remarkably little about even the Constitution. \u00a0For most of his life, up until about five years or so before he entered the presidential race, most of the politicians to whom he donated were Democrats.<\/p>\n

Trump has always been, unfortunately, a man with \u201cNew York City values,\u201d as Senator Ted Cruz once described him.<\/p>\n

None of this means that Trump hasn\u2019t grown over the years, particularly since he\u2019s entered the political fray.\u00a0 Still, we shouldn\u2019t expect for his moral-political DNA to undergo a fundamental transformation.\u00a0 With this awareness in mind, no one should be terribly disappointed when Trump reveals himself to be more like a neoconservative or even liberal Democrat than Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan.<\/p>\n

Second, while I can\u2019t speak for anyone else, for nearly two years I have made my own reasons abundantly clear as to why I have been a Trump supporter from the start. Ultimately, it has had little to nothing to do with the policy prescriptions<\/em> for which he has advocated.\u00a0 Rather, just the fact that he espoused<\/em> these policies was a strong consideration in his favor.<\/p>\n

To put it another way, Trump exemplified great courage in articulating a resolutely politically incorrect, yet resoundingly pro-American, vision.\u00a0 He continues to get assailed to an extent and with a ferocity that is unrivaled in living American memory.\u00a0 Trump has had to battle…everyone, meaning Republicans as well.<\/p>\n

No other recent president, least of all his immediate predecessor, has had to reckon with such hostility from so many quarters as has Trump.<\/p>\n

Yet he prevailed over his enemies.\u00a0 And he prevailed over Hillary Clinton, who all of the fake pollsters assured us had virtually no chance of losing to her buffoonish rival.<\/p>\n

In fact, they were as confident then as they are now when they assure us that Trump\u2019s popularity rating is lower than that of any other president at this point in office.<\/p>\n

Trump, an unapologetic white, heterosexual man, whether he planned on doing so or not, spearheaded a movement and represented for tens of millions of patriots\u2014Hillary\u2019s \u201cDeplorables\u201d\u2014a symbolic or psychological victory the likes of which most Americans no longer thought was possible.\u00a0 To be accurate, the victory isn\u2019t limited to Americans.\u00a0 Throughout the Western world, the demoralized and alienated found themselves spiritually rejuvenated by Trump\u2019s and the Deplorables\u2019 victory.<\/p>\n

Policy-wise, the President is bound to disappoint those who remain convinced that society\u2019s salvation is to be found in politics.\u00a0 On the other hand, those of us who hold that \u201cpolitics is downstream from culture<\/a>,\u201d as the late Andrew Breitbart observed, that it is through its collective psyche or spirit that a society changes, can move beyond bad policy (however much we despise it) if the political actors are helping to move the zeitgeist <\/em>in the right direction.<\/p>\n

It is still early in Trump\u2019s presidency.\u00a0 Going forward, we should be as attentive to potential shifts in cultural trajectories as we are obsessed with individual policy prescriptions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2019s \u201cfirst 100 days\u201d have certainly had their share of pitfalls and disappointments (at least for many of his supporters).\u00a0 This being said, they have not been nearly as bad as either the Democrats\u2019 media propagandists or even some of his supporters would have us think: (1)Corporations that would have otherwise relocated operations in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump's First 100 Days: The Good, the Bad, and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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