While in baseball a 400 average makes you an all-time great, for a President-elect making appointments, it is problematic. When you bat only 2-out of-5 on your first appointments, even if one sets the low bar of minimal acceptability, you are on the cusp of major difficulties.
Donald Trump’s appointments of alt-right champion Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist, Muslim-demonizing and fact challenged former Lt. General Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor and hard right Senator Jeff Sessions(R-AL) as Attorney General raise serious questions about whether he was just giving the American people lip service when he pledged to be President of all the people in his victory night speech.
As the winner, President-elect Trump has earned the right to make these appointments and it is not surprising that he is selecting people who were strong and loyal supporters and who he believes are best capable of implementing his policy choices. But the Businessman and Former Reality Star, also earned a perception shared by a majority of voters that he is racially biased and divisive.
If he truly wants to dispel that impression, he needs to go the extra mile Taken together, these selections are a big step in the wrong direction, reinforcing Trump’s reputation as someone willing to divide the nation along racial and religious lines.
It would be wise of Donald Trump to keep in mind that, despite his victory, a majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of him. At this moment, he is the most unpopular person to be elected President at least since the beginning of modern polling. Additionally, he is going to end up losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, by nearly 2 million when the count is finalized.
With most of his key appointments still ahead of him, there is time for Donald Trump to fix the problem he is creating for himself and the nation by making more mainstream selections—ones without a history of racially and religiously incendiary remarks and attitudes--- and by adding women and members of minority groups whose absence so far is glaring.
I share President Obama's view that we should root for Donald Trump to succeed and give him a chance. But it is up to him to capitalize on the good will that most Americans-whether they voted for him or not- extend to a new President. If the President-elect continues on his present path, that goodwill is bound to dry up pretty fast.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, elected official and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at University of Rhode Island.
.
Related Slideshow: Trump’s Win - What Does it Mean for Rhode Island?
"We don't really know what a Trump presidency means for the nation, never mind the smallest state. One of the unintended consequences of last night's results is that Sen. Jack Reed won't be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Chalk that up as a loss for RI."
"Trump’s win means that his signature issue, illegal immigration, could have a big impact on RI, hopefully reversing our course as a sanctuary state and saving the state taxpayer millions of dollars. While we agree with his 'repeal and replace' Obamacare stance, we have no idea what that means to the RI debacle known as UHIP. It is not a stretch to believe that federal funding for this kind of system will be off the table so, will RI be stuck with this massively expensive system that still doesn’t work and that is expected to cost another $124 million to fix?
Trump's belief that there is significant fraud in the Food Stamp program and the policies that may come from that belief could have a negative impact on RI's local economy since there are businesses in certain cities that rely heavily on this program, fraud and all. On the upside, we may be able to ditch the UHIP program if there is significantly less need for processing welfare program requests (ie. Medicaid and food stamps) resulting from fewer illegal immigrants and less fraud. While we are ambivalent about his touted child care policies, if enacted, it may force our legislators to revisit the ever growing state cost of subsidies in this area and possibly reduce the fraud and abuse in this system."
"The RI congressional delegation just became even less powerful than it was. With unified government, Trump doesn’t need to quell Democrats’ concerns or acquiesce because he’s worried about a Democratically-controlled Senate.
His appointments will reflect that. His executive orders will affect that. And the conservative policy agenda he puts forward will affect that."
"Well there's a few things -- because there's not going to be gridlock, that's a big difference if it had been Hillary and a GOP Congress, in which nothing would got done. We'll at least get a half a billion in infrastructure that's going to pass which will have an impact.
I think you'll see there will be reduced reliance on government nationally -- and that's where we'll stick out like sore thumb. We've relied way too much on government -- and our government is highly inefficient and ineffective. Maybe, just maybe, in this who cycle of things we might be forced to be small and more efficient for once.
A couple of other things -- interest rates jumped. The one to follow is the ten year government bond rate -- which is tied to mortgages. It went from 1.7% to 2.05% in one day. The point is -- if the ten year stays high, mortgage rates will start going higher -- and in the short time people will run to re-finance.
That's the short term impact -- but then if rates stay hight, that will make mortgages more out of reach. And we just passed a bond issue to limit open space -- housing has limited upside here.
The next thing -- the Fed Reserve will go ahead with tightening next month. A strong dollar will hurt manufacturing. When the dollar is strong our exports become more expensive overseas.
Our goods production sector -- manufacturing and construction -- in the near term will do a little better, but as time goes on will be more limited. But something you won't hear, is there are lags in fiscal policy, of six months to year. So we won't really see the effects until the third our fourth quarter of 2017, going into 2018."
"As the unbelievable turned into reality this morning, it struck me that the presidential election was not really all about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was about a fed-up people, revolting against a corrupt system - the "beast" - that relentlessly favors insiders. Hillary personified the beast, while Donald personified the slayer.
Sadly, based on election results in our state, Rhode Island's version of the beast lives on. I fear our political class has not learned the lessons from the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump movements - and will continue with their government-centric, anti-family, anti-business status quo."
"A Trump Presidency means the validation of the ugliest part of America. In RI, as with the rest of the country, the hammer of his hatred will fall hardest on minority communities. Being a blue state doesn't make us immune from this danger.
Trump won over 35% (39.5) of the vote here! We need to look in the mirror, and not lie about what the reflection shows us. No more hiding underneath a blue blanket. I expect those who claim Democratic values to be true to those values. The gulf between words and actions have turned into fertile ground for Trump's message to grow here in RI. If you call yourself a Democrat, if you claim to stand in opposition to Trump, now is the time to prove it. Show up and fight back."
