Kremer’s Corner: Trump fails test of time after 2 1/2 years

Jerry Kremer

For almost three years, America has been witness to one of the oddest and most confusing spectacles in the past 50 years. That aberration is the tenure of Donald J. Trump as president. Depending on your age, most of our readers have lived under either a Bush, Clinton or Obama. We have seen them on their best days and their worst days and have drawn our own conclusions on what type of person we want occupying the Oval Office.

Despite being a partisan, I have tried hard to understand what motivates Trump, what he has done and what he has failed to do. I have a number of friends who are staunch Trump supporters, but even they are weary and mystified over the conduct of a man who came to office as a real estate power, a television star and a candidate who pledged to make America great again.

Trump supporters praise the rising stock market, low unemployment and claim that the country was never in better shape than it is now. But I see an America that is more divided than when President Obama left office. His advocates talk about his legislative successes, but when you look closely, there are no Trump victories that emanated in the House or the Senate. He swore that he would not govern by executive order, but his every claim of success is based on some document he signed that was never approved by Congress.

A great day on the stock market may help your 401-k plan, but nationally, wages for the common person or woman are stagnant. The Trump tax law enriched the one per cent of Americans and helped corporations buy back trillions in stock from the shareholders, but it didn’t help middle-class citizens with their struggle to survive. Unemployment is at an all- time low, but it was decreasing dramatically when Obama left office so the downward trend didn’t start on Jan. 20,2017, when Trump took office.

Trump entered office sitting on a pile of pledges that he would “drain the swamp,” make everybody prosperous and would undo all the political evils of the past. Over 2 1/2 years he has seen many of his appointees resign due to conflicts of interest and his so-called base is worse off now than ever before. Most of his key campaign aides have been convicted of some form of criminal acts and his Cabinet is made up of almost a dozen “acting” heads, due to the massive turnover in their departments.

Can you name any successful deals that have been concluded under the Trump tenure? Reduction of the nuclear threat by North Korea? Last I looked Trump and the Korean dictator were still writing love letters to each other at the same time that Kim Jong-un is building new missile sites. Peace in the Middle East? Well into the Trump term, things have gotten worse in the Israel- Arab world. Pledges of cash to the Palestinians for development are useless without some type of autonomy.

Remember all of the campaign promises to residents of the red states? At this point in time, farm bankruptcies are at an all-time high, coal mines are closing and manufacturing is rapidly declining. New rounds of layoffs have eclipsed the promised jobs. The only business that seems to be growing is the sale of MAGA hats, the proceeds of which go to the Trump campaign.

Can you name one recent president who used foul words or threw insults at a political competitor? Trump has reduced the level of political conversation to its lowest level in history. Every person who Trump dislikes is subject to taunts, name-calling and verbal abuse. Whether it’s a Bette Midler or Nancy Pelosi, no one is spared from the Trump tweet. One of the reasons former Vice President Joe Biden is leading in the polls is because voters view him as a welcome contrast to the current president.

I am not a young man anymore and time is precious. But if the next 18 months went by in the blink of an eye, I would be very happy.

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