Trump: Two Months In Review

Photo via Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons license

It has been almost two months since Donald J. Trump was sworn into office, and a lot has happened since then. Trump’s first 100 days as president are far from over, and they are bound to be full of drama. To say the least, Trump’s unfiltered nature made the election very “entertaining” to watch, and every bit of it has carried over into his presidency so far.

In just these two months, Donald Trump has created a war with the media, had sensitive military strategy plans discussed in an unprotected area (his dining room at his resort in Florida), tried to pass an immigration ban on Muslims, backed away from decades of U.S. foreign policy on Israel and the two-state solution, had further complications with the scandal over Russian involvement in the election, accused Obama of tapping his phones, and so much more. Moreover, Trump’s Twitter feed has been a continuous flow of rather unpresidential messages; he has not changed since being sworn into office. The past two years have shown that Trump’s most dangerous weapon is his mouth.

The major issue with Trump that a lot of people have is not what they fear he can do, but rather what he can say. Trump can go ahead and make executive orders all day, but Congress is not likely to actually pass his ideas and enact them (like building a wall on the Mexican border). However, Congress cannot control what our new president says on his own and on Twitter. Consequently, Trump has the potential to severely harm foreign relationships that the United States government has been trying to build up for decades. The example of backing away on the two-state solution with Israel and Palestine is a great example of this; while Trump did not actually make the situation worse (he basically said that he would accept any solution as long as there is peace in the region), he backed away from decades of U.S. foreign policy in seconds. Trump doesn’t have to pass a law to insult a foreign diplomat or world leader, and we have already seen some of this happen already.

Donald Trump may not be the type of president many people want as shown through his current approval rating of 44%, but he hasn’t screwed anything up majorly so far. For the sake of us all, let’s hope that he doesn’t screw anything up. After all, we are all in the same boat, and there is no “I told you so” in foreign policy; everyone suffers consequences from every action. If Donald Trump can manage to not do anything ridiculous, and maybe not follow up on some of his election promises, he can manage a fairly successful 4-year presidency. This outcome may not be what everyone wants but an impeachment would be even worse in terms of the future of the nation. All things considered, he is not that bad of a president and he has the potential to do some good things. But if this is ever going to happen, Trump needs to show some restraint and hold his tongue on sensitive matters; the presidency should not be about creating drama and publicity stunts.