I’m trying to get a handle on this, so thought I’d turn to conservative 'dopers to ask what, in your opinions, has Trump accomplished thus far in his presidency. You don’t have to like him, but of the conservative or just general Republican agenda, what do you see as things he’s managed to do in his term? The only thing I can think of is his appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the USSC. Other than that it all seems like a clusterfuck, but that might just be my perception.
Gorsuch isn’t even really anything Trump did. That’s all McConnell, for managing to stymie any possibility of the proper president at the time naming any one to that seat. If it weren’t for Yertle, Gorsuch would have had to show up and sit on Garland’s lap.
This is a good question and I am genuinely interested. Trump himself keeps touting his first six months in office as “the most successful, with few exceptions, in the history of the presidency”, but I would like to see something a bit more factual.
The question seems – a little odd, to me.
To the extent that I’m a conservative, what I want from a president is, I guess, defined in the negative: I don’t, for example, want him to do anything when it comes to my right to own guns; and I don’t want him raising my taxes, either; and I don’t want him cracking down on my freedom of speech, and I don’t want him requiring my boss to ratchet up racial preferences that’d put me at a disadvantage; and so on.
To the extent that I’m a conservative, I really just want him to – well, cheerfully veto wrong-headed legislation, and nominate folks to the Supreme Court who’ll strike down wrong-headed legislation; and enforce existing laws that aren’t wrong-headed, as per the oft-heard argument about illegal immigration.
To the extent that I want more, I wouldn’t be much of a conservative, would I?
You might want him to lower your taxes, or build a border wall, or ease up on restrictions on gun ownership. I’m not saying you do, but I can imagine some conservatives would want such things.
Emphasis added. Only Congress can do those things. And they would have to fund a border wall.
I am thankful that Trump has made healthcare more comprehensive, less expensive and more inclusive than it was under President Obama.
That wall that Mexico paid for is fucking magnificent! It’s like the Grand Canyon, only *UP *instead of DOWN.
(record scratching sound)
Hold on a minute, I’m not a political Conservative. Per the OP’s scope I’m not qualified to offer an opinion about Trump’s promises that were obvious bullshit, and should have fooled no one. Nevermind me.
My understanding is that the EPA is taking it in the throat. I don’t think many of his base supporters would really care, but some larger corporations might be happy. Or I should say the heads of them.
eta: oh, looks at OP. I’m not a conservative myself. Moderate leaning left.
Many of things in the post I was responding to were Congressional in nature as well:
Centrist chipping in.
As I understand it, the principal thing that Trump has done is to rollback a bunch of regulations that Obama passed in the last 6 months of his Presidency. Though, I’ll grant, it’s unclear how much of that was Trump’s idea versus the Legislature’s.
I was momentarily a bit surprised that Trump had directed a warship towards North Korea. Once it was revealed that there had just been a miscommunication (genuinely), that changed my impression by quite a bit.
In about the last week, there seems to be a little more discussion of (more) bipartisan legislation. Granted, this is against Trump, not for him. But as a sane member of the public, I would probably vote that this is a good thing.
There was one thread about Trump voters, where they described what most of them were hoping for from Trump and, like you, I can’t help but note that they seemed to be talking about Libertarian policy not Conservative.
Just came by for a chuckle or three. No guffaws, sadly…
Carry on.
Yup, only 42 exceptions. And really, nobody can deny that he’s been more successful than James Garfield or William Henry Harrison.
I am not a conservative, but I try to think like one from time to time (it’s hard but I think it is good for me). If I were, I’d probably point the following as Trump administration accomplishments:
[ul]
[li]Gorsuch[/li][li]Pulling out of the Paris Agreement[/li][li]Partial success on the “Muslim ban” (he hasn’t got everything he first asked for but he has some of it)[/li][li]Signing lots of legislation to prevent various Obama-era directives from being implemented[/li][li]Foxconn, Carrier, Apple, whatever - job growth[/li][li]Healthy performance by the stock market[/li][/ul]
Now, I am not saying that I personally believe in all this - as a general matter, either I don’t think it is good for the country, or I don’t think Trump deserves the credit, or I’m not sure it’s real (ex, Apple plants). But I think it is entirely plausible that a Conservative would be happy about the above and would give Trump credit for it.
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Absolutely. Because nobody could ever expect a President to initiate legislation he wants and send it to Congress. Utterly unprecedented. Totally non-presidential. Presidents never make campaign promises and then expect to have them fulfilled. Only Congress can do those things. That’s why Trump always refers to Congresscare.
I think you’ve pretty well summarized how a conservative would see things from the right-leaning contrarian point of view. Gorsuch was Trump’s finest hour, but his aircraft has pretty much stalled ever since and he’s losing altitude.
As much as I don’t want to, I will give credit for something I disagree in principle but the results do speak for themselves: he has discouraged illegal immigration. The problem is, he might well be discouraging legal immigration as well. And some industries depend on under-the-table migrant workers, legal or otherwise. Americans may soon be paying the price at the grocery store. Even so, he’s made good on his promise and if you’ve been masturbating to the idea of a tough-talking blowhard sheriff coming in and stopping illegal immigration in its tracks, Trump has delivered the goods.
There have been several threads like this seriously asking Conservatives to come forward and say good things about DJT. I realize there are more liberals on the SDMB, but even so, our few resident Conservatives usually don’t bother to reply. Some of them seem to prefer to drone on in multi-page pissing matches with liberals in other threads rather than make coherent statements in non-combative threads like this one.
Our president is not a dictator or king. In most cases the president needs congress to achieve policy goals (there are some executive order things and commander-in-chief things that can be done without congress).
Fairly or unfairly we tend to hold the president accountable for getting legislation passed.
The presidency is the bully pulpit. We expect the president to push and cajole and arm twist and compromise and and make deals and whatnot to pursue an agenda he/she sets to see it done. Failure to do so lands at the president’s door.
He seems to be doing a bang-up job of inspiring a nation of leftist political advocates to remain active after the election is over, rather than retreating for a couple years until the next election cycle begins. You could say that Mitch McConnell is helping him on that one, too.
Really? They have at least one achievement in common that Trump could still aspire to match.
Er, poor use of language there - I should have said “measures” rather than “legislation.” A lot of this has been via Executive Orders, rather than showing enough leadership to get bipartisan support for actual bills passed by the House and Senate.