Trump and the 100 Days
Published in Proceso
(Mexico) on 24 April 2017
by J. Jesús Esquivel (link to original)
On the 100th day of Donald Trump's presidency, the leader is set as the most unpopular executive in his country and the one with the fewest number of achievements in actual policy.
Since Trump arrived at the White House, and despite the representative dominance of the Republicans in the federal Congress, he has failed to achieve a single legislative victory.
All the successes he has attributed to himself and about which he tells the whole world are executive orders. In the Capitol, Trump has failed. The bill to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which Trump sponsored in collaboration with the Republican leadership, was a failure. It wasn't even put up to a vote in the House of Representatives in order for Trump to avoid the pain of its great failure when his own colleagues rejected it.
This week, Trump will try again to replace Obamacare with legislation that is not sitting well with Republicans and is guaranteed not to have any Democrats’ support. The president of the United States is stubborn, and the Republicans are terrified of what is likely Trump's first major legislative defeat.
One hundred days into the presidency, Trump arrives at the possibility of a government shutdown because Congress has not approved the budget he sent them. Of course, the federal government will not close due to lack of funds; the Republicans will approve the budget at the last minute. The budget Trump offered will come out watered down. For example, they will not give the slightly more than $1.5 billion that he requested to start building the first stretch of the wall on the Mexican border.
Paul Ryan, the Republican leader and the speaker of the House, has already shelved a budget request for the wall for this fiscal period that ends on the last day of September. "Later," Ryan notified the White House.*
The successes that Trump has given himself in the first 100 days are misleading. He affirms that, thanks to the executive order that he signed on the matter of immigration, the flow of undocumented immigrants entering the United States from the border north of Mexico has fallen by 60 percent since November.
The statistics and the reality of the flow of migration refute Trump. Since the government of former president Obama, there already has been a decline in the number of people trying to enter the United States undocumented. The reason: there are no jobs in the United States.
The palpable effect of Trump's immigration policy is fear. The force behind the deportations of undocumented immigrants is a reality, as well as the terror the undocumented immigrants feel in the United States. This community does not go out into the streets as it did before, nor does it go to the mall on the weekends, much less dare to travel by car on the interstate highways. Sowing dread among undocumented immigrants is the 100-day victory for Trump.
A poll from The Washington Post and ABC TV, released in advance of the 100th day of the presidency, reported that 53 percent of Americans reprimanded the President for his work. Only 42 percent said that he has done a good job in the White House.
Although opinion polls have ceased to be a reliable barometer for measuring what is happening in the United States, The Washington Post and ABC TV poll exposes that Trump, as president, is more unpopular than the country's last 11 leaders.
*Editor's note: This is not a direct quote from Paul Ryan but a paraphrase.
Since Trump arrived at the White House, and despite the representative dominance of the Republicans in the federal Congress, he has failed to achieve a single legislative victory.
All the successes he has attributed to himself and about which he tells the whole world are executive orders. In the Capitol, Trump has failed. The bill to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which Trump sponsored in collaboration with the Republican leadership, was a failure. It wasn't even put up to a vote in the House of Representatives in order for Trump to avoid the pain of its great failure when his own colleagues rejected it.
This week, Trump will try again to replace Obamacare with legislation that is not sitting well with Republicans and is guaranteed not to have any Democrats’ support. The president of the United States is stubborn, and the Republicans are terrified of what is likely Trump's first major legislative defeat.
One hundred days into the presidency, Trump arrives at the possibility of a government shutdown because Congress has not approved the budget he sent them. Of course, the federal government will not close due to lack of funds; the Republicans will approve the budget at the last minute. The budget Trump offered will come out watered down. For example, they will not give the slightly more than $1.5 billion that he requested to start building the first stretch of the wall on the Mexican border.
Paul Ryan, the Republican leader and the speaker of the House, has already shelved a budget request for the wall for this fiscal period that ends on the last day of September. "Later," Ryan notified the White House.*
The successes that Trump has given himself in the first 100 days are misleading. He affirms that, thanks to the executive order that he signed on the matter of immigration, the flow of undocumented immigrants entering the United States from the border north of Mexico has fallen by 60 percent since November.
The statistics and the reality of the flow of migration refute Trump. Since the government of former president Obama, there already has been a decline in the number of people trying to enter the United States undocumented. The reason: there are no jobs in the United States.
The palpable effect of Trump's immigration policy is fear. The force behind the deportations of undocumented immigrants is a reality, as well as the terror the undocumented immigrants feel in the United States. This community does not go out into the streets as it did before, nor does it go to the mall on the weekends, much less dare to travel by car on the interstate highways. Sowing dread among undocumented immigrants is the 100-day victory for Trump.
A poll from The Washington Post and ABC TV, released in advance of the 100th day of the presidency, reported that 53 percent of Americans reprimanded the President for his work. Only 42 percent said that he has done a good job in the White House.
Although opinion polls have ceased to be a reliable barometer for measuring what is happening in the United States, The Washington Post and ABC TV poll exposes that Trump, as president, is more unpopular than the country's last 11 leaders.
*Editor's note: This is not a direct quote from Paul Ryan but a paraphrase.
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