2016: The year it happened. Yes, the year Donald Trump was elected officially as president of the United States. A majority of the right was astounded and excited for the win. The left had decidedly less enthusiasm about it, going so far as to insinuate his achievement would mean an entirely new and regressive conservative America. I am not sure if it was desperate hoping or ignorant nonchalance that made me doubt such possibilities, but I currently sit in USC's Annenberg School for Communications completely dumbfounded.
Never before has a president come under such microscopic and petty scrutiny as Donald Trump. Minor spelling errors become the newest internet joke, the "fake news" cannot seem to let him go for a single day, and childish mockery from everywhere are just a few of the things that plague his administration. Trump's Twitter presence does little to reconcile this, serving more as cannon fodder for everyone to continue on this self-serving cycle of discrediting our president. As much as I dislike his public persona and believe he is entirely out of the realm of professionalism, I think some of us are doing nothing but throwing gasoline on the fire when we call him out on something unprofessional.
The best example I can see of all of this is the recent "feast" of fast food for the Clemson Tigers who recently won the NCAA championship game against the Crimson Tide. A picture of Trump reveling behind his haul of fast food spread throughout the internet, and he accompanied this initial photo with an apt caption. "Great being with the National Champion Clemson Tigers last night at the White House. Because of the Shutdown I served them massive amounts of Fast Food (I paid), over 1000 hamberders [sic] etc. Within one hour, it was all gone. Great guys and big eaters!" The glaring spelling mistake inspired Burger King to respond jokingly saying they were all out of "hamberders" and would only be selling hamburgers.
What was impressive for Trump to wiggle in there was the truth about why the White House couldn't serve a feast of home prepared food. He recognized that the shutdown just made it impossible to have cooks and servants prepare a feast without pay, so he bought all the food. I respected the sentiment but felt he lost points with his aside stating that he paid, which just screams arrogance to me.
The final observation about this tweet is more anecdotal. A few high school friends and I were discussing the actual purchase of fast food as opposed to more notably healthy choices and how that reflected his position as president. Opinions seemed divided, to say the least. A number of friends were confused as to how Trump actually thought this would be a good political move, but I felt this was to be expected by him now two years into his term. Had this happened at the very start of his presidency, I would have been equally outraged and befuddled, but because of the political landscape Trump has redrawn, nothing surprises me anymore. Professional convention and proceedings have evolved or devolved based on political association, and we cannot simply complain about these changes. We must work to alter how we conduct ourselves, for complaining only encourages more radical behavior.
