What grace period should a president presume?
Grace is earned … and squandered
This president started off his campaign using insults and lies. He kept that up through the election, through the inauguration, and through his presidency to date. He is, and has been, disrespectful to others. He is, and has been, disloyal to those who try to help him. He treats, and has treated, his critics and his friends with contempt. And he is, and has been, arrogantly ignorant of how to work with others.
All of this has been exposed over the past two years. It has made him ineffective as a negotiator, as a deal-maker, and as a leader. In short, no one can trust anything he says, because he says so many false things so often, and because he does not hold to what he says. He is easily influenced by the last person he hears from and thus changes his decisions like a leaf blown in the wind.
He has had a chance to demonstrate his ability to lead, his ability to negotiate, his ability to command, his ability to help. And he has demonstrated weakness, ignorance, and arrogance instead.
It is not about giving him a chance. It’s about honestly assessing what he has said and done, how he has behaved, over these past 2 years. He has been weighed, he has been measured, and he has been found wanting.
That is what I have noticed. His grace period ended when he got elected.
And yet … much has been done
Over his first year in office, this president has implemented many of his ideas.
Consumer protections are being routinely stripped away in the executive agencies – the FDA, the FCC, the CFPB, the DOJ, and all other departments are replacing consumer protections with corporate giveaways.
The state department and diplomatic missions have been relegated to secondary status, many positions left vacant, as diplomats and the Secretary of State are mocked by the president himself.
The ACA has been hampered, bit by bit, to the point of this president declaring it “dead”.
The Attorney General is openly mocked by the president until the AG is cowed into submission.
Hundreds of thousands are being rounded up and deported, routinely, by a deportation force.
Promises made by the government are being broken regularly, without discussion or apology.
People who have been working off their student loans suddenly lost all work credits when the federal loan forgiveness program was canceled, retroactively, and without warning.
The federal debt will rise by $1.5-$2.2 trillion dollars while taxes for the wealthy and for corporations are cut.
The Congress is now looking into reducing benefits for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and all services helping low-income families in an effort to offset the tax cuts.
The military is looking for more opportunities to use nuclear weapons, exactly as this president asked during the campaign and during his presidency.
And the military is looking for ways to hold a “dictator-style parade”, in the model of North Korea, Russia, and China, in order to assuage the president’s feeling of inadequacy.
All this has happened, while his namesake businesses are making quite a bit of money from both his own government and from lobbyists, foreign entities, and foreign governments who are currying favor with him.
I’d say he has had well over a year of “grace” and has implemented many of his “ideas.”
Grace, like respect, is earned … or squandered
Should any president presume to be respected? to be given a grace period? Like respect, grace is earned, not given.
