What to Expect and Why to Care

I am planning to do some lawn work this afternoon or tomorrow, I just refilled on date plan and have another to refill. I have aging equipment to repair and I will be subbing for an absent minister at Mass on Sunday morning.  All of that is more urgent in my life than politics. The inauguration is over and like many of you I need to get back to my life. But I also do believe in this things called the United States of America. I am interested in seeing what will happen in the next four to eight years and so in this brief post I am taking a little look around.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

Today is the first full day of work at the Trump White House. The Executive Orders and related documents are indeed flying around. A summary of his agenda for today is as covered here.  His agenda for the first hundred days is discussed here in relation to Obamacare and more specifically elsewhere on the FOX News site , both these discussions are in video form from the same source. there is a good bit of discussion about where we stand with regards to the Affordable Care Act. I have heard and read in snippets that Trump has already issued an executive order requiring the government not to enforce penalties for Obama care and to anticipate that the law will be repealed by April 15. The Patient Freedom Act put forward by Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has a chance of being the template for  replacing Obamacare. Given the nightmare that much of my situation has been for a long time I would like to be optimistic that this one issue which made a bad situation much worse will now be remedied. While I am not actually optimistic I am aware that things could improve in one aspect of my life which would be very much against the trend of recent years.  I just did a post which described the general downwards motion of my life and Obamacare’s individual mandate has been the icing on the impossibility cake of my life in this country for decades.

in addition to that, Donald Trump has been discussing the need to do something about NAFTA. He claims that he will start changing that trade deal very soon. He has been clear that it is his top priority to reverse the damage that he and many of his supporters see that the deal has done as regards the American economy. I will have to see what happens. However, overall I would describe myself as having mixed feelings and being apprehensive while still believing a renegotiation is a reasonable objective for our chief executive.

Trump has also begun the act of killing Transpacific Partnership Pact. That may be problematic but it has many effects. One could be that it may ease tensions with China in a time where we are bound to face some tensions with them. In addition Trump is likely more aware than most Presidents have been that his federal workers did not show up in large numbers to greet their new leader. I agree that this does indicate that some things need to change. I did not need anything to indicate that some things need to change. I already find much of the status quo nightmarish. but if this has something to do with Trump’s federal hiring freeze — then I say Hallelujah! Let a new broom sweep clean.

In the world of money issues, Trump has been sued by CREW over the supposed foreign emoluments and conflicts of interest involved in his daily business operations around the world.  The New York Times has discussed this suit here.  Meanwhile, Politico projects that another great business leader will be confirmed as Secretary of State in short order. Tillerson will divest himself of his Exxon-Mobil stock. Rex Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin seems to have been resolved and understood to the satisfaction of  most of his skeptics among Republicans in the Senate.

While the Women’s March that has shown such large numbers is largely pro-choice (as they call themselves) millions of women voted for Trump — including most of the white women who voted.  Many of them are pro-life voters. Trump seems to be using Executive Orders to get things done on their behalf as well. America will present a more pro-life face to the world.

One of the pictures in the group above is a very bad selfie of me greeting a couple of visitors to my hometown of Abbeville, Louisiana who had come from Abbeville, France. It was anice visit although my French is far from effortless and that was the only language in which we conversed. but it did remind me as many things do that while many ties bind us to the world the Presidency is a principal connection between Americans and the world. So, busy and overextended as I am, I take some time to care even though I feel very far from the corridors of power. Despite all that I do not have, I am an American and I know that the things happening in the White House matter.