Trumpagonia

I am stationed only feet away from a sophomore fraternity bro, adorned in all brand names; Patagonia, Adidas, and Nike, filling up a metallic water bottle ornamented in his frat’s greek symbols and a MAGA sticker. I wonder if he knows that every brand he’s wearing right now has publicly denounced Trump. And then I wonder if he even cares.

·      Patagonia founder: 'Trump is the perfect person to take us to the apocalypse'

·      Adidas "…took a stance against Trump…releasing a company-wide email to all employees in which they denounced his actions."

·       Nike President and CEO: "Nike believes in a world where everyone celebrates the power of diversity…Those values are being threatened by recent executive order in the U.S. banning refugees…”

The interesting thing about Donald Trump is that he transcends conventional politics. Lacking political experience, party loyalty, and having little more to show than a background in business is only the beginning of Trumps 'unusual' candidacy. Party kingpins have criticized him, international leaders have condemned him, and celebrities rebuke him. Nonetheless, he soared in the primaries, he won the republican nomination, and he won the presidency.  Despite all of the criticisms and condemnations, the electorate, the Republican Party and the Electoral College still elected Donald Trump. I guess frat bros really don’t care if their MAGA sticker contradicts their fratagonia sweater.

An August 2016 Pew Research study states “Just 27% of registered voters say Trump would be a great or good president; 15% say he would be average, while 12% say he would be poor and 43% say he would be terrible.” And according to RealClearPolitics as of Jan. 29^th, 2017, Trump’s approval rating is at 44%.

For comparison, “Barack Obama’s first disapproval rating was only 12 percent. Even George W. Bush, who was elected after a protracted and controversial recount, opened with only 25 percent disapproval. Bill Clinton won just 43 percent of the vote in 1992, but only 20 percent disapproved of his job performance at the outset of his presidency in 1993.” (politico)

This poses a lofty threat for our President. As seen by Press Secretary Spicer’s freak out over crowd sizes at the inauguration (here), and Trump’s denial of approval rating data here,

...it is clear the Trump administration is very concerned with public opinion.

        While the administration seems to care a lot about being viewed in a positive light, they choose to DENY, DENY, DENY, negative attitudes instead of changing their approach. This proves problematic for those public dissenters, as this Vox article points out; approval ratings are one of the only avenues by which the public can restrain a president’s actions.
         Of course, the perception of Trump goes far beyond quantitative means, and is perhaps more striking when demonstrated anecdotally. Trump is widely condemned for comments he has made about women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, and other marginalized groups. Members of the public as well as government circles have given him titles such as “racist, sexist, and xenophobic”. While all of these criticisms should be staggering for anyone in public office, it does not seem like the administration has made pushes to deny accusations of bigotry, but rather, change the narrative to one that labels accusers as delicate and easily-offended.

Though I hardly see a future where this is the case, if Trump and his staff decided they want to improve the administration's image, they must start listening to their constituents. No more flipping the narrative, or minimizing claims of bigotry. When the numbers tell you that under half the public supports or approves of you within the day you assume office, as Winston Churchill once said, "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." 

I really like to avoid using absolutist phrases such as “never”, “always”, “none”, or “all”, but this election, and this campaign have left me with little other vocabulary to describe the events of the last several months. So many things about the 2016 presidential were unprecedented in our history, Donald Trump himself being one of those things.   

Never before has a president of the United States starred in a reality television show.

Before Trump, it was always customary for U.S. presidents to play by the conventional rules of political correctness.

All previous presidents have had some amount of political experience before entering Executive Office.

None of the previous U.S. presidents in the past 40 years have had as low approval ratings as Trump upon entering office, and that’s considering that these are comparatively less contentious times.

He is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, and I guess that’s what people like about him.