President Monkey is no more.
Happy January 20, 2017 everybody!— FACLC (@FACLC) January 20, 2017
Or as future generations will know it:
The 1st day of Trumpuary, Year 1.#tcot #TrumpInauguration
As President-Elect Donald Trump becomes President Donald Trump, it's time to take a look at his first week of office.
Not unexpectedly, Sean Hannity on his radio show was very excited about that first week. It was "refreshing", he said, that Trump was getting stuff done. The problem with President Monkey though wasn't that he didn't get things done, it's just that every thing he did was evil and horrible. Meanwhile, Scott Adams says that Trump the Master Persuader (there are lots of pros and cons about Trump in office, but hearing another 8 years of persuasion and hypnosis talk from the Dilbert creator has to rank up there in the list of cons) is winning his first week because he's doing so many things to outrage the far-left media that it exhausts the mental prowess of the average human being and leaves them unable to express any concrete emotions about what Trump has done.
Meanwhile, I think there's one U.S. pundit who did a decent job explaining why Trump did what he did: Ned Ryun told Brietbart News that it was good that Trump was going full speed on his legislative agenda because the left will hate him no matter what he does, so he might as well be aggressive.
This is a good point, and it's a shame that U.S. pundits don't pay enough attention to Canadian politics because had they done so, they'd know there were already strong precedents about this: specifically, the Rt. Honourable Stephen Harper (pbuh).
As I have mentioned before, the biggest problem with Harper was that he moved too slowly. His plan was to not spook easily spooked Ontario voters and CBC followers, and maintain a slow and easy centre-left agenda. His most radical move was abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board, which was hugely popular with most western farmers and really only negatively impacted a small number of leftist fake farmers. Everything else was pretty low key really. And what was the result of this decade-long experiment with slow sensible moves that were never more than centrist or centre-right?
The left treated him like Hitler and wanted to murder him.
Sound familiar? Yes it's interesting that Trump started his first day in office at the same level of lefist outrage that Harper accumulated by the end of his reign. But the end result is that there's nowhere really left to go. They're going to hate him anyways, so he might as well go full bore from Day 1. That's the lesson that Harper should have learned: the media and the left will never treat conservatives fairly, they will never like what you do, so you might as well go full power. That's what Rachel Arab in doing in Alberta. And it's what President Donald J. Trump is doing in America.
And to do one final balance with the Canadian political scene under Harper, I do have to say one major issue I have with both Trump and Harper's agendas (agendum?) is that while they are doing the right thing, they aren't necessarily doing it the right way.
Note: I'm not the only one to notice this. Small Dead Animals commenter "first timer" posted the following:
Agree that the right needs to be united, and it cannot be under the PC banner. This is what happened in Sask. If true conservatives end up in leadership (and that means mainly Wildrose people) it could be a viable alternative. (Heck, the residents of the local SPCA would be a viable alternative to Notley.) The difference between the last attempt at amalgamation under Smith is that at that time, the PC's would have been absorbing the Wildrose. It would be the other way now. But they need a new name, and they need a clearly conservative platform, and to purge any who espouse "reaching out" to the left end of the spectrum. Brexit and Trump showed us that true, honest conservative platforms can win. No need to worry what the prog media calls you - just be what so many of the people have been longing for, and what the economy needs.
But we cannot take another 4 years. Word on the street here is that citizens will vote for ANYTHING that smacks of honesty, to get rid of Notley & co. So all they have to do is get their crap together and quite trying to appeal to some imagined middle ground.
Unfortunately, that elusive "middle of the road" platform is only defined by media pundits. As the left moves further and further into utter whack job territory, the middle point between them and common sense (socially and economically) shifts to the left, too. Witness the federal Liberal party, who attempt to brand themselves as middle ground. They are further to the left than the NDP was 20 years ago.
Forget them all! Forget trying to look good to the socialist media. Be what you need to be - honest about true conservative, realistic policies. Let the snowflake heads explode - they will hate you anyway. Remember Farage and Trump!
Years ago, I criticized Harper for his use of omnibus bills to achieve his legislative goals. There wasn't a single part in the omnibus bills I disagreed with, however I thought it wasn't proper to use them. Instead, each item on his agenda should have been individually brought forward in Parliament to be voted into (perfectly reasonable) law.
The same issue arises with Trump: his use of executive orders to achieve his goals is disappointing, even if you agree with every single one of the orders (which, with the exception of the money to build the wall, I do). If Keystone XL is being held up by excessive government red tape (as even President Monkey agreed that it was) then the solution is not to use executive powers of the Oval Office to "cut through them". The solution is to enact legislation through the House and/or Senate (and then approved by the President) to permanently remove the red tape, or the agency responsible for creating it. Abolishing excessive federal oversight of private economic matters is more legitimate and more effective if done properly. Executive orders may save Keystone but it doesn't help the next project coming down the pipeline, nor the next, nor the next.
Trump has a rare gift: the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate are all in Republican hands. He doesn't need to take any action through administrative short cuts. In a way, it's the downside of having a corporate CEO type in power (especially one as hands-on as Trump is famous for being): when the boss wants something done, he's used to just ordering it to be done. It can work in a corporate scenario because the boss has some legitimacy as the boss. However, in a democratic country the notion of the President as "the boss" is an unhealthy one. Democratic government is supposed to be of the people. The People themselves have hired a whole raft of people to represent them in this capacity, and there are clear ways in which all branches of government can be used to push an agenda forward. Trump's agenda is aggressive, it's necessary, and it's sensible. There's no reason not to do the right thing in the right way.
The left will still hate him. But his agenda can still go forward, and send a powerful message that the President isn't supposed to have all this power. The office does have this power, but unfortunately Trump is going with his business instincts and using it. A Peter David Star Trek novel once said "the correct answer when asked where to draw the line is to refuse to pick up the pen in the first place". It's good advice. Now that Trump is President, it's shame he isn't following it.
