Orange is the new President

Well we went from our first black president to our first orange one.  What strikes me as sad is that I don't think he ever actually expected to get elected but I could be wrong about that. 

In a month when we set aside a day to celebrate our prior presidents, many of whom were in charge during turbulent periods of our history, we see a stark contrast with the current one.

Now, its not even a full month and one expects that the administration might get over a rocky start, although that is by no means certain.

I want to point out that by no means were all previous presidents great.

Its also noteworthy that over time the power of the president has tended to increase but there's a reasonably good chance that we will see a bit of a reversal there based on overall disinterest with the business of running the Government.

It is possible that something will happen that will result in this president rising to the occasion and becoming one that is looked back on with high regard.

I myself don't see that, but predicting the future is uncertain.  I do think that many of his supporters will become disenchanted with him based on the fact that he is easily capable of changing his positions since they seem to be based on very weak foundations.

Not being a politician until recently he was free to come up with positions and espouse them.  Because he was rich enough and famous enough people listened to him and a certain number probably said they agreed with him, even if they really didn't.  Now of course he is going to get data and facts.  He may try to ignore them but they will keep popping up.

You see a certain development taking place in his foreign affairs.  Its easy to think the United States should just boss the other countries around, except when you find out you can't.  He needs to realize that our diplomatic positions were based on actual reality instead of late night fantasy.

Similarly in domestic situations, you can't make everything magically delicious.  Business is going to do what is profitable and if adopting technology is profitable (and it is) they will continue to do so.  Electricity generating plants that are using abundant, cheaper natural gas aren't going to go back to coal. 

Concerning defeating ISIS which is simply a short term thing since a new organization will simply spring up, the roots of terrorism are deep.  There is no better way to get attention for a cause then to commit an act of terrorism which despite some fantasy by the administration gets a ton of coverage.  Actually, it would be a great strategy to not cover them since they serve no purpose if they don't get coverage.  Of course our media is going to follow the "if it bleeds, it leads" rule.

Its clear even after a short time that we have an administration that has a steep learning curve.  Sometime the lack of knowledge is amazing.  Concerning refugees and immigrants he throws around the term extreme vetting, but the way he has vetted his cabinet appointments shows that he has no idea what that is.  We already have the most stringent vetting process in the world. 

Campaign motto's don't translate well into policy and the final measure of how we remember this administration in future February's remains to be seen.

Unfortunately the one thing that is almost definitely going to be associated with this administration is the fake news phenomena and the term alternative facts.  Not the best start.

Alternative Facts?

We now have a new term for lies, but I guess it isn't surprising since the whole campaign was based on it.

Its not the first time that we were told black is white or up is down.  We just seem to believe it more.

The crowd size at the inauguration is a trivial matter but of course the despot has to be the best and biggest.

We see the same behavior in countries like North Korea and of course I read today that he will hand pick what press has access to his press conferences.

I would think the entire press should refuse to attend under such circumstances but well see if they have the courage of their convictions or not.

Trying to control the press is something all tyrants attempt.

Its interesting that he is so blatant about it, thinking he got elected with some sort of mandate because a few people in some rust belt states believed his lies.

The press let him get away with a lot of this by allowing the right, the Russians and the fake news organizations with some FBI assistance to force alternative facts to be promulgated about Hillary Clinton.

The things the press harped about were in fact nothing at all, emails, charitable foundations, and Benghazi.  It was not fake news but the facts were pretty clear and the alternative reality presented by the press was ridiculous.

Of course they are now going to have to live with those transgressions.  They treated these alternative facts as valid so they will get more and more of them.

When they reported alternative facts without pointing that out they were lies they gave them validity.

The press has demonstrated its lack of backbone and its lack of ethics.

They fall for staged media events and ignore the very real scandals in front of them.

They are easily manipulated, look how much attention they gave to the women Trump paraded from Bill Clinton's past, who certainly had nothing to do with Hillary's campaign and allowed the sexist statements by Trump to be well trumped. 

 Of course its a free press, who would pay for this crap?