In the weeks preceding Donald Trump’s swearing-in and his inevitable unveiling as the 45th president of the United States, there were debates on whether his demeanour would change. Donald Trump the businessman, Donald Trump the campaigner and Donald Trump the president, would they all be different personas, or would Donald Trump just be Donald Trump, the brash, larger than life, say-what-I-want, when-I-want man, who uses his Twitter account to fire at just about anyone he wishes to?
When Trump stood outside the Capitol, harangued Washington and its penchant to use its power to make money at the expense of the people (his words), and then basically outlined his ‘America First’ agenda, everyone saw the Donald Trump that over 50 percent of America detests and didn’t vote for.
Let’s face it. Donald Trump doesn’t really care what you think of him. If he did, he would have toned down his rhetoric. He promised the American people that he would scrap Obamacare, professionally known as the Affordable Care Act, so he signed an ordinance that would restrict certain facets of the Act with immediate effect. With the ordinance to restrict penalties on people who don’t have health insurance, Trump managed to throw a spanner in the Obamacare works but to change the entire Act would require a bill to be passed. That is not going to be easy.
Even before he became president, he attacked car companies who manufacture outside US borders but sell in America. He slammed General Motors for selling Americans Chevy Cruzes that were made in Mexico and threatened to levy a big ‘border tax’. As a result Ford Motors cancelled plans to invest billions of dollars into a manufacturing plant in Mexico.
This doesn’t mean that Trump managed to get Ford and GM to manufacture cars within America; they were doing that anyway. He has managed to shake up the auto industry a bit, an industry that is probably America’s crown jewel when it comes to manufacturing. Companies, even in other sectors, will now think twice about manufacturing products for Americans elsewhere.
Institutions trump personalities, and this is what people will soon realise about Donald Trump. It’s easy to stand on the outside and criticise and berate the government. But running a government is not the same as running a business. Every move that Donald Trump makes will be watched closely by the two pillars of democracy that were built to serve the people “ Congress and the judiciary.
Donald Trump can tweet what he wants and make statements that defy logic. But he will not find the Oval Office as easy a pulpit when it comes to running America. This is where actions speak louder than words, and actions is what Donald Trump needs to prove himself.
