For anyone who remained skeptical of Donald Trump’s ability to truly create change for the country, his first week as president has to be looked at as a major vote of confidence. Trump came into the White House with promises that seemed all but impossible to keep. No president in our lifetime has arrived in Washington with a plan to remake America in such a way that would erase not only the last eight years of liberal policies, but the last thirty years of increasing globalization and national insecurity.
Surely, some thought, he would wind up like all the rest of the big talkers – overwhelmed and overpowered by a bureaucratic machine that has simply grown too large to change in any significant way. Yes, we would get dramatic improvements over the Obama years, but there was little chance that we would get the revolutionary progress Trump had campaigned on.
But even the skeptics have to admit that President Trump is off to an amazing start. If he can keep up even a quarter of this pace, he won’t just keep his campaign promises – he’ll over-deliver in a way that not even his fiercest supporters could have dreamed possible.
This is what happens when you put someone in charge who actually has experience…being in charge. It’s one thing to be a senator or a congressman. Hell, it’s one thing to be the governor of a state. It’s a whole different thing to run a business – and a whole different thing again to build a business empire from the ground up. Trump knows how to make decisions. He knows how to lead. And that’s a species of knowledge that has been sorely missed in the executive branch.
Democrats are going to push back hard – this we already knew going in.
What we want to see now is how Republicans are going to react in the coming weeks and months. Since election day, top GOP leaders have gone from “Uh, yeah, I guess we support him” to pretending like they agree with Donald Trump on every issue down the line. They are so thankful that he rescued them from certain electoral doom. But how long will the honeymoon last? Pretend as they may, Trump’s agenda is not a clean match for the Republican Party platform. And we’re already starting to see some friction develop as it pertains to the immigration ban.
One thing is certain: Trump didn’t come to Washington to be a rubber stamp for Paul Ryan’s agenda. And judging by his first week – and comparing it to the GOP’s ability to stop Obama’s policies – we’ll put our bets on Trump if the early friction turns into an all-out battle.
This guy came to win.
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