January 27, 2017 Update, the First Week

The Polls leading up to the Inauguration

Two polls out on January 17, 2017 — one by CNN and ORC and another by The Washington Post and ABC News  — found that just 40 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Trump’s performance heading into his Inauguration on Friday. NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, in a poll from mid-December, reported 54 percent of adults saying that they are either uncertain (25 percent) or pessimistic and worried (29 percent) about how Trump will perform during his presidency, compared with 45 percent with either an optimistic and confident view (22 percent) or a satisfied and hopeful view (23 percent); a significantly worse outlook than Americans expressed after the elections of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

He is the first modern President whose popularity and confidence numbers have gone down between the Election and Inauguration. This indicates that his non-plurality Election Day “victory”—winning 41.6% of the votes cast, could represent his high-water mark at least in the near-term. The unprecedented vitriol and absence of comity before the Election has, if anything, gotten worse.

It’s not a Poll, but I just discovered two awesome Rap videos on YouTube from the campaign season in 2016, causing me to seriously re-evaluate my low opinion of Rap: YG & Nipsey Hussle "FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)" (WSHH Exclusive - Official Music Video), and Barack Obama Rap Song Dissing Donald Trump. I’d need a whole different blog to address all the social media associated with the divisive and unprecedented 2016 Presidential campaign. (Sounds like a future Political Science, Sociology, or Media Studies Masters or PhD thesis topic.)

The First Week

It’s been a rocky start. Same Trump we saw during the entire campaign season, save a couple disciplined “New” Trump days leading up to the Election. The same outrageous tweets in the middle of the night. The same stubborn denial and deliberate dissembling—‘My Inauguration crowd was one and a half million, huge, the biggest ever’; ‘The media created a fake conflict between me and the Intelligence community’; ’This is the first time a meeting like this—of business leaders with a President in the White House—has happened’; ‘I won the popular vote, save for millions of fraudulent votes for Clinton’; ‘We’re going to war with the News Media’; and on and on. His administration has been rightfully and mercilessly hammered right out of the gate: Trump's Press Secretary Tries For A Reset, But Goes On To Lament Negative Narrative, and Donald Trump dogged by insecurity over popular vote, media coverage.

Trump’s inaugural Speech was classic Trump; a divisive, delusional shout out to his supporters, roundly denounced by the mainstream non-Fox News media and press, prominent Republicans, and thoughtful conservative opinion leaders, for example George Will: Donald Trump Inaugural Address Dreadful.

Trump and his enablers are demonstrating that Trump’s disdain for reality or even facts, on display during the campaign, will continue in the White House: Sales of George Orwell's 1984 surge after Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts', and Lies, Damned Lies, and Amazing New Euphemisms for Lying. Some are even drawing parallels between the Trump Administration’s approach and views on the mainstream non-Fox News Media, expressed by Trump and his enablers, with the role of Media in present day Russia or China: ‘We’re Not Supposed to Be State Television’: CNN’s Gloria Borger Fires Back at Steve Bannon.

The anticipated chaos within the Trump Administration has already started: Mattis, Pompeo stunned by CIA 'black sites' report, Trump administration asks top State Department officials to leave, and Trump pressured Park Service to find proof for his claims about inauguration crowd.

The growing Resistance is already inside the walls of the Castle as career public servants set up media accounts outside of official channels: There’s Now an Unofficial National Parks Account Tweeting Against President Trump, and NASA scientists join resistance with rogue Twitter account. Open defiance from official channels has also begun: Internet Suspects U.S. Department of Defense Made Veiled Reference About Trump In Tweet, and NASA just made all the scientific research it funds available for free. Talk about ‘A house divided…’.

Resistance is already having an effect, as researchers inside and outside of the Federal government scramble to archive and preserve scientific data before Trump appointees can scrub government-funded unpleasant truths. Internal opposition and Media attention prompted the new Administration to back down from at least one outrageous directive: Trump officials suspend plan to delete EPA climate web pages.

The massive Women’s March, the day after (and dwarfing) the Inauguration, a growing Not My President movement, and promises of sustained resistance to the nascent Trump Administration, this is just the beginning. Just as the election of Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 not only re-energized the Republican Party resulting in the purging of Republican moderates and Nation-wide Republican gains in mid-term elections in 2010 and 2014 and Republican majorities in the Congress, but also emboldened formerly small and mostly below the radar racist White Nationalist (recently re-branded the “Alt-Right”) and xenophobic groups and undercurrents, setting the stage for Trump’s rise last year and non-plurality election in 2016, we will now see a massive resistance to Trump’s Administration and Republican over-reach, a re-energized Democratic Party uniting women, minorities and other out-groups, workers, environmentalist, true conservatives, independents, and progressives on the Left. Secular Humanism will thrive just as Right Wing ideology and Christian Fundamentalism gained traction with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Newt Gingrich with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. He has not only united America, he has united the World, in opposition to him: Protesters rally worldwide in solidarity with Washington march, Trump sparks protests, celebrations worldwide. Trump touted the few celebrations, failing to mention these were from Russia and other non-democratic countries Trump has said positive things about.

Donald John Trump’s boast that he would unite the Nation and Make America Great Again will come to pass. By setting the stage for a Secular Humanist and Democratic Party renaissance, he has unleashed forces which will move America forward, not again, but keep it on the relentless path of increasing social justice, diversity, and inclusive.

Trump has already begun to create international discord and raised concerns about his admiration for and possible connections with Russia’s Vladimir Putin: Mexico’s President Cancels Meeting With Trump Over Wall, Donald Trump Could Be Starting a New Cold War With China, British Prime Minister Theresa May warns Trump he cannot trust Putin, and Journalist: Russia's Interference Is An 'Assault On The Western Liberal Order'

Concerns about Trump’s mental fitness to be President were raised during the campaign season, for example: Neuroscientist explains Trump has a dangerous mental disorder,  Psychiatric Professors wonder if Trump is mentally ill, and Is Donald Trump a Sociopath?. But now, only days into his term, more voices are raising the issue of his mental health: Temperament Tantrum, Insider: Donald Trump, exasperated by protesters, yells “Don’t they know I’m the f—ing president?”. and Keith Olbermann Takes On Trump’s Sanity In Epic Rant (VIDEO).

The Bottom Line

Trump’s first week in Office has been breathtakingly unprecedented; the confirmation of the worst fears of the mainstream News Media, most pundits, and his many detractors during the campaign and the eleven weeks between His non-plurality Election and Inauguration. The only silver lining that I can see is this: a failed Presidency is a real possibility.

When he brought in Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager in mid-August, 2016, she struggled to right his faltering campaign. It took over two months, but she somehow reached him, a few days before the Election. My bet is that she figured out the only thing Trump fears; failure. She told him that he faced a humiliating defeat, at the hands of a woman, if he did not reign in his excesses. He was only able to do it for a few days. He obviously hated it—mocking the advice out loud at his rallies: ‘Steady Donald’, ‘Stay cool Donald’, ‘Don’t blow it Donald’, but he listened.

If the people around him candidly tell him that he faces a failed Presidency if he does not start sounding and acting like The President of the United States, he may listen. That’s a big if, because it presupposes that at least some of his enablers can see outside of the alternative reality bubble of Trump World and would have the courage to speak truth to their delusional Leader. And, obviously, even if The Message is delivered, Trump, suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, may be unable, or even worse, incapable, of hearing or heeding it.