THINKING AND FEELING

I don't feel anything about the fact that Donald Trump is president, other than hopeful. Hope is my default emotion, both in a human and spiritual sense and in a civic sense. When I think about the fact that Donald Trump is president, I consider facts. To gather facts, I commit to reading several daily news outlets, then use my cognitive abilities of filtering and discernment in order to draw evidence-based conclusions. 

The facts as I see them portend success along an array of policies which he has outlined. Those policies align completely with his campaign promises. That campaign was successful due to his robust, busy schedule of hundreds of visits to Middle America, where millions of common, hard-working citizens finally heard themselves in his voice. They felt forgotten as economic and trade policies had exported their jobs and their ability to earn a respectable living.

The past 8 years of economic policy have attempted to retrofit a new progressive policy onto a 240-year old capitalistic chassis. The resulting vehicle has finally stopped running, as its core concept of promoting entitlements for millions was borne on the backs of workers who finally ran out of the will to pay for others unwilling to work. Their response came in the form of a populist outcry for traditional economic values... a citizen must contribute to the economy to reap benefits from that economy. 

My conclusion is that President Donald Trump is a pragmatic executive who will work tirelessly to be the voice of the forgotten citizens of this country who elected him. I will give his policies a chance. I owe that to my fellow Americans... all of them.

I ask those who oppose this line of thinking to simply think. I am happy to engage in lively discussions, where reasonable people can disagree, using fact-based arguments with reliable sources. I have found most opposing arguments thus far to sound like tirades about victimhood of one element or another, but can draw no direct correlation to any policy thus far. 

My first major was in journalism, and I can say honestly that most media outlets are editorializing rather than delivering hard news. Americans are suffering through scores of daily articles excoriating an administration which has barely had time to move into the White House. Not only has President Trump not enjoyed a respectful welcome, but he has been ostracized from the moment he took office. Has anyone I've met who criticized his inaugural speech, which outlined every executive action he has thus far taken, actually read it? I can say that in my discussions, the answer is no. Their responses are not fact-based, but rather emotion-driven, riddled with fear, anxiety, and vitriol. That reaction is understandable if they are listening to most press outlets, and not affording themselves the opportunity (and the civic obligation, in my view) of systematically reading and taking in news reports with a careful, critical eye, then filtering and discerning before drawing conclusions.

Thinking about facts regarding our country's political and economic news used to be much easier. Journalists held themselves to high standards, reporters corroborated stories before reporting them, and editorializing was verboten. Now we must become the thinkers, rather than following a profession more committed to selling airtime than proffering truth. I know reporters whose stories are never printed because they don't fit a preordained narrative to which their news outlets have subscribed. Therefore, I would pose an earnest question: How can a group mindset not set in amongst their audience?

America is a country of wonderful, diverse, critical thinkers. My hope is that we will take back the ability to think for ourselves and start honestly discussing policies, basing our arguments not on some celebrity's bullhorn histrionics, but on our own cerebral capacity.