I recently
read an article (actually an opinion piece) that claimed the Media are under-reporting Trump's successes and highlighting his failures.
Then, it lists a long list of Trump efforts that were successful (whether you agree with them or not) or had positive impact on USA (according to the author's opinions). I disagree with many of those "successes" or find them to be
negative things. But some (the economy, ISIS etc) are arguably positive and Trump doesn't take the credit for.
To be fair, the article
admits openly that Trump himself is much to blame for getting 90%+ negative coverage, which I agree with. But it also mentions Jimmy Carter openly admitting that Trump's administration is the most vilified by the media in his 93-years long life.
I.e. yes, Trump being a butthole and declaring war on the media is
part of the reason he gets negative coverage. Trump's policies like separating children at the border, leaving long time allies to be gobbled up by authoritarian leaders and other downright horrible decisions that ought to be exposed and discussed are
another reason of why he gets negative press: He does bad\stupid\evil things often.
But
a lot of people, even Jimmy Carter, admit that the press under-reports Trump's successes or what-his-constituents-would-consider-success because they are anti-Trump and Trump's
several successes simply don't fit the narrative that Trump's presidency is a horrid disaster.
So, I would like to have a discussion,
hopefully a tame one conducted in respectful tones about
:
- Trump's successes (things he did, started or partially did) that he said he would do
- Trump administration's positive things (i.e. which of those successes above are actually positive?)
- Whether Trump's successes are under-represented because the media dislike Trump
I will start with:
- Under Trump, Al-Baghdadi dies. And half the articles I see are more focused on how bad Trump presented this
great success than on the terrorist-boss that caused the death of hundreds of thousands and led to the displacement of millions of others being killed.
Yes it was a great success for Trump and yes, the Media should be much much more positive on their report than stick to how Trump talked about it.
- Under Trump, the economy reached
record heights. Sure, sure
it may come down like a huge tower of cards. But so far it hasn't.
By removing the breaks from the economy by deregulation, Trump's actions have contributed to historical heights of the stock market, record low unemployment (the lowest since WW2), sustained economic growth and sustained consumer confidence.
Very rarely has USA's economy seen such heights and the man at the helm is
catching flak for it instead of being praised.
What I mean is that the articles I see about the stockmarket are usually "Stock market horrid crush continues! At the lowest point since 2016!!!!11111" or "Fears of the Trade war keep markets in a downwards spiral!!!!!11111"
I have to actually look for the graphs to see that "the lowest point" since 2016 is not a big deal and the sustained horrid crush is 2-weeks long and was preceded by 2 months of raise. Or that the markets recovered from the downwards spiral within a week.
And I don't see articles of "Stock market recovers from tiny losses and makes huge gains. 2019 is another awesome year, following many awesome years".
- I don't think Trump is responsible for defeating ISIS. But neither was Obama.
And it remains a fact that ISIS was defeated during Trump's years and Trump doesn't get any credit for that.
- Under Trump
illegal immigration keeps being lowered. Of course, I had to do some search through various articles about Trump-the-butcher to get to one that mentions
inside the article, not at the title that illegal immigrations in USA is
at the lowest it has been for 13 years.
Do I think Trump went too far with the separation of children from their families? Yes. Do I think there were cheaper and more effective ways to combat illegal immigration than what he has done so far, or the wall? Yes.
But what Trump did worked. Sure, it could have worked better.
But USA illegal immigration is at a 13 years low. That's a success for Trump.
- He kept out of major wars.
Frankly, which this is something he has promised, I expect it will come to bite USA in the butt. But it is a success for him and I don't see many articles saying "Trump has been a butthole to our Kurdish allies but kept his promise to his constituents" or "World condemnation over Trump's treacherous uphold of campaign promise on Middle East".
Yes, I disagree with what he did and I am 100% sure there were far, far better ways to leave than simply blindside his own generals and foreign policy analysts.
BUT... if the USA voters didn't want someone that said he would do exactly that, they should not have voted for him. They would unfortunately have to pay the price in a few years, but that's what they voted for and that's what Trump delivered.