ALBERTO GONZALEZ
Special to the Lampoon
How long has Donald Trump really been in office, one week or one year? Honestly, it is hard to tell.
It seems impossible that in one measly week he could already have made such a mess, but he did it. In an effort to prove everyone wrong who told him he was not going to get things done, he has already managed to sign more executive actions than citizens can keep track of. As to whether or not any of those actions will benefit literally anyone other than himself and big corporations is debatable.
When President Barack Obama was still in office, he halted the Keystone XL pipeline. On Tuesday, Trump resurrected that pipeline, as well as gave the go-ahead on a pipeline through the Dakotas that has been fiercely denounced by Native American activists. Trump, we understand you thought Obama was a part of ISIS, but he wasn’t.
It’s contradictory that Trump thinks the best first steps of action are to undo what Obama has done, and he wants to work on areas that don’t need fixing. That is how the tiny-handed man works though. A perfectly good building is not complete unless he adds his asinine touch to it; it seems probable that Trump would say, “This needs my name in giant huge letters so I know it’s mine.”
The employment rate is at an all time high, yet Trump wants to make more jobs because it’s a “problem.” The Dakota pipeline will create more jobs, he claims. He is not wrong, but a closer look at the types of jobs created shows that there will be a huge influx of temporary jobs and only 50 permanent jobs. Wow! That’s totally worth all of the environmental damage and the destruction of what little Native American land remains!
There has been a cancelled meeting with the president of Mexico because he seemed to use common sense and realizes that his country shouldn’t pay for the U.S. putting on a giant, racist-fueled art project in the form of an overpriced, underthought, non-effective wall.
The best news that has come out of the White House in the past week has come in the form of leaks. All of the leaks that have already accumulated in the first full week would be enough for months — if not a year’s worth — of leaks from any other administration.
The leaks have to do with staff complaining like a mother who has a child who has just learned to say no. Constantly telling of all of the times they have to tell Trump to stop watching TV, don’t tweet, pay more attention, stick to the topic. What better thing to hear about the leader of the free world? Get back to work, and stop being so lazy! One story tells of a staff member requesting an office on the second floor, knowing the probability of Trump walking up the stairs to be very slim.
Also, everybody in the country has to get used to the hearing and speaking the phrase “President Donald Trump,” which is not normal and may never feel totally okay.
The first week seems to have packed into it all of the horrible worst case scenarios that many of us have imagined, and he crammed them all into one week. What does this mean for next week? Who knows, but if we are lucky, maybe by then Trump will get bored, miss his mansion with all his big boy gloves and he will resign, leaving us to a horrible few years with President Mike Pence.