It has been almost one year since Donald Trump’s 2017 presidential inauguration, and while many Americans were initially split on the decision, throughout the past year Trump has faced much criticism. Throughout his campaign, Trump has continued to make promises on changes to immigration policies and repealing the Obamacare system, but one year later almost nothing has changed. While there was the infamous travel ban in which refugees of seven predominantly Muslim countries were prohibited from entering the United States for 120 days, no major changes have been made to the overall policy.
His appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State has left the state department full of vacancies, as Tillerson chose to downsize rather than appoint new positions. Prior to his appointment, Tillerson was a non-diplomatic businessman, feeding more into the widely perceived notion that Trump plans to run the country as a business.
There was also his controversial decision to fire former FBI director James Comey, after they decided to lead an investigation against him and his alleged Russian ties. Many Americans were shocked to hear Trump fired Comey, with the new director Andrew McCabe seemingly putting the investigation on hold. Ever since his election, the Trump administration has been under much scrutiny for these alleged Russian associations, with new leads and developments emerging on almost a daily basis, the most recent being former national security advisor Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
“He had never been in office before, any office of any kind before, and you saw that for a while. It was chaotic,” said Michael Duffy of TIME magazine during an interview on PBS’s Washington Week, “He clearly didn’t fully understand what the presidency was, and he’s learned that it has checks and balances, and that Congress gets a big say. The courts have a big say, and you sometimes get the impression that he thought it would be a little bit like running a family business, that what he said would go.”
But quite possibly the most controversial aspect of Trump’s entire first year was his frequent use of Twitter. “Jimmy Carter started having news conferences every two weeks, saying it’s part of my job, I’ve got to do it. Ronald Reagan had his own version of Twitter. He had – he invented the Saturday radio address. He had five minutes live from the Oval Office. He could say anything he wants, and the networks would carry it. So every president has had kind of the technology, but Donald Trump ran a campaign of busting up the furniture and shouting out on Twitter,” said ABC News veteran Ann Compton. Twitter has seemingly been Donald’s favorite method of voicing his own opinions on almost every major political event in the nation, from undermining the efforts of his own Secretary of State to go after a certain “crooked” rival of his, to going so far to call the leader of North Korea “rocket-man.” His unconventional use of Twitter has now become a staple of his presidency and has been subject to much debate about its overall effectiveness with regards to communication with the general public.
“When we talk to Trump voters in red states, they might still vote for him, they still support him, but they just think he’s not presidential. They don’t like him on Twitter. They don’t like the attitude. They don’t like him lashing out at people,” said Andrea Mitchell of NBC News.
But while Trump’s actions have yielded controversy, they have also managed to yield results. Unemployment rates are the lowest they have been in over 17 years, and the overall stock market is currently booming.
This past year has been full of surprises, with its fair share of pros and cons, but this is only the beginning of Trump’s administration, and only predictions can guess what will happen next.
Joey Menendez // Editor-in-Chief
