If you were to survey Americans today by asking “what is the most unfortunate effect of Donald Trump’s decision to enter politics, run for President, and win the White House?”, I’m sure that you would get a wide variety of answers. People with a liberal political bias would focus on the regressive steps are being taking in terms of protecting and promoting justice for minorities and women, along with the harsh treatment that immigrants (especially Latin and Moslem immigrants or wanna-be immigrants) are now experiencing and the reversal of progress in facing the impending crisis of global climate change. <\/p>\n
Others, including many doctrinal conservatives, would regret Trump’s populist political commitments and his general incompetence in the politics of governing. Others still will object to his generally boorish character, his lack of diplomatic finesse, and the bad name that Trump is generally causing for our nation throughout the world. Obviously, his supporters would reject the premise that Trump’s Presidency has ANY unfortunate effects, or would provide a snide remark saying how the most unfortunate thing is that the media, the intellectuals and the “deep state” still cannot appreciate the need for the shake-up and clean-out that Trump is accomplishing.<\/p>\n
There are a handful, including myself, who indeed find many unfortunate aspects to Donald Trump’s ascendancy to national leadership. However, our biggest concern would be the deep political divisions that Trump is causing between people who identify as Democrat \/ liberals and those who feel closer to the Republican \/ conservative point of view. It seems as though every Trump story develops into a “dueling narrative”.<\/p>\n
This seems especially true regarding Trump’s “Russian connection” issues (I have an example of that below). Both camps develop story narratives around a particular fact (e.g. the firing of former FBI Director James Comey) that seem plausible, but then assume completely opposite motives and effects on the nation. Both sides sincerely believe that they are right. And thus, both sides sincerely believe that the other camp is either badly deluded or has gone over to the dark side.<\/p>\n
Throughout the Bush and Obama Presidencies, commentators were talking about the increased political polarization of the nation and the negative effects it was having on the art of compromise, which is ultimately required to get anything done on a national level. Trump seems to have taken this polarization and kicked it up a notch. In fact, Trump needed to exploit these divisions in order to get where he is. <\/p>\n
To the degree that anything does get done in a politically polarized nation, it will make a whole lot of people unhappy. For example, Obama’s health care reform bill was imposed using heavily partisan political tactics, and the result was a slew of unhappy Americans and the rise of the Tea Party movement. If Trump finally gets his own counter-reform to health care, it will surely make a similar number of Americans unhappy. <\/p>\n
Or perhaps it won’t get done at all. It may be best that Trump-care gets squashed, but the process by which it would be squashed does not bode well for other proposals that could generally help improve things for our nation. E.g., infrastructure projects — our roads and airports and water facilities and electric grids, for example, need a lot of improving to maintain our prosperity and improve our lagging economic growth rate. But given the increasing divisions between the major political parties, big initiatives on the part of the federal government may not happen again.<\/p>\n