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Trump's 2017 address to Congress
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
March 01, 2017
"My job is not to represent the
world," Trump said. "It is to be the president of America."
Problematic or not, the statement was self-evident and had
much to offer, just by itself and or watching how Democrats
reacted to Trump as he spoke to Congress on February 28, 2017.
Overall, it was deemed a great speech, but not for the
Democrats.
But let's
begin our review from the outside.
Part of the uncomfortable
part of Trump's speech was how it forced one to reflect back to
Africa to wonder when any president on this continent had
recently been this bold, in the attempt to be transformational.
Trump's spoke about a vision for a renewed America.
We need one for Africa.
For America, it was for creating
jobs, invigorating educational chances through school choice
programs, making dangerous communities safer for citizens,
building crumbling infrastructures and repealing and replacing
Obamacare.
With School Choice, the individual could pick
the school his child would attend and not leave that choice to
bureaucrats to decide, based on the deplorable school choice by
zip code assignments.
By repealing Obamacare and its
mandate, the individual gets to free himself from the current
expensive, bureaucracy imposed health insurance dispensing
system.
Under the intended Trump's health plan, the
individual could look to the market for solutions and not the
government. He could buy needed health insurance coverage
on market at less cost, which will be guaranteed by competition.
Additionally, government policy would assure that
pre-existing conditions are covered at the health market.
Health insurance companies would
compete in an environment called the market, where the customer
would be the determinant and not government issued mandates.
For foreign affairs, the consideration would be America
first, Trump said.
There could be some who might think
little of this statement. They would label it selfish,
isolationist, uncharitable and inward-looking policy that would
do humanity no good, just because it said America first.
But don't take the above complaints seriously. They are
complaints of convenience.
Many in this same group do already
protest that America was meddling too much in the affairs of the
world.
America the occupier. They didn't
like Bush meddling in Iraq. Nor appreciated the neo-cons who
thought the American ideal of democracy must be imposed on other
countries in the world.
Trump, in his speech, withdrew
America from the old America superpower worldview.
In
truth, many of Trump's foreign critics would prefer the
continuation of the old policy that provided largesse, that
doled out loads of cash like a drunken rich uncle, on the rest
of the world, instead of this America First policy approach.
Like it or not, it was the dislike of
that old American related policies that made the election of
Trump possible.
A big segment of American society,
like Trump, got tired of the old approaches for America
supremacy. No longer would they allow America to extend
herself as a super-power policeman for a world that didn't
appreciate her sacrifices of wealth and blood.
The expense of many foreign
interferences has been heavy on American coffers. Some 6
trillion dollars spent so far on wars in the Middle East alone
and nothing concrete achieved, as Trump observed.
The
interference fatigue produced has also resulted in Trump's
America First policy. It is apparent today that America is no
longer in the regime change business.
But if
America had to come to the defense of a distressed nation, Trump
would expect that nation to carry part of the cost. No
more free-loading at America's expense by other nations.
It is the same message for all.
The same also for NATO, in this case,
a preexisting understanding in the formation of this group, but
one that had been conveniently ignored by the other member
nations.
Now, they all would have to pay their
fair share of the NATO bill. Not surprisingly, the members
quickly agreed.
There were more surprises in the speech
about Trump's new approach.
He began by honoring Black
History month and seemed genuinely concerned about the plight of
civil rights in America; a refreshing feeling and not one driven
by political correctness. Make America great again would
be for all the races.
Many agreed that his speech was
“so thematic and consequential. “It was Trumpism "without the
affects," they claimed.
Some said Trump became truly "the
United States president' on the night of February 28, 2017," on
the back of his speech.
But Democrat members of Congress
were not so receptive to Trump's speech. Their reluctance
to honor Trump from the start was overt.
Only a few on the Democrat's side showed outward signs of
appreciation.
The majority watched
malevolently and hoped that Trump would implode on the dais.
Some said Democrats, by their reaction
to the speech, "did themselves a disfavor,” as Trump grew larger
with every word he spoke and every point he made, many vastly
unassailable.
Liberal stalwarts like Rosie O'Donnell, who
earlier before Trump's address at Congress was at a protest on a
park across the street from the White House, still maintained
Trump was undeserving of the presidency because he was
anti-woman and a pro-war advocate. She insisted that she was the
real anti-war personality and advocate of peace.
Rosie, the antiwar hero and of
non-specific gender, was now a declared champion for women.
Evidently, Rosie knew Trump hated women just as much as we
already knew about her feelings for a real man!
Bob
Woodward, another liberal icon of Watergate fame, surprisingly
claimed Trump “knows how to dominate a room.”
The reality
was, for once, Democrats in Congress were looking at a specter
they had feared; not the demon they had created in their
speeches - the Manchurian candidate the Russians bought for the
American electorate.
There on the dais was a man who
looked more presidential than ever.
The man they had fought against as
unfit, whom they hadn't given five minutes’ worth of a
presidential honeymoon, was standing there on the dais, speaking
sense credibly from the heart.
As elsewhere, Democrats in Congress were looking at an incarnation of
their worst fear, the strong possibility that a successful
Trump's presidency might unfold for the best.
And Trump did all this with one speech.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, March 01, 2017
Permission
to publish: Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with
credits, unedited. If posted at a website, email a copy of the
web page to publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
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