Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Grading President Trump's First Fifty Days


Ever since FDR’s famous (or infamous) “First Hundred Days”, filled with the rapid implementation of dozens of new government programs in response to the Great Depression, the first three months in office for a new president has been seen as critical for setting the tone of the rest of his tenure. The Daily Signal has a good recap of the major actions President Trump has taken so far here, as well as comparing them to his promises on the campaign trail.

Overall, if I were a Trump voter who agreed with every one of his campaign promises, I would be enormously pleased with the record so far. As it is, I am, quite frankly, surprised that Trump has shown as much commitment as he has to fulfilling campaign pledges. As I said many times during the campaign, one of my major issues with Trump was that he simply hadn’t given voters any reason to believe that he would actually follow through on many of his more conservative proposals—securing the border, for instance, or pushing to defund Planned Parenthood—based on his history.

But in areas of policy, Trump has actually stayed remarkably consistent. And, he has actually surrounded himself with many good people—Jeff Sessions and Betsy DeVos, to name two—despite the mocking of that particular claim by myself and others during the campaign.

Of course, he’s had some missteps and done things I disagree with, some quite strongly—embracing Obamacare Lite being only the latest example. And his Twitter feed is another matter entirely.

But on the substance, I would have to give Trump a solid B for his first fifty days in office. May his presidency have many more such days, without the missteps (both overblown and real) which have plagued the administration thus far.



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