How We Benefited From Trump’s Presidency
Let’s look at the bright side
The curtain is slowly closing on the latest American presidency, which means that it’s time to look back and really think about what just happened.
Can anything really be all bad? I’d like to think that the world is a bit more grey than that.
Surely we didn’t just come out of the last 4 years empty-handed, there must have been some ways in which we benefited.
So with the spirit of positive thinking in mind, let’s look at some of the ways in which we may have benefitted from electing the host of ‘The Apprentice’ as president.
1. Low Stakes Distraction
Trump and his White House were relentless in their distraction efforts aimed at keeping us talking about the wrong things while he achieved his underhanded goals in places where we weren’t looking.
Reveal News conducted an investigation during which they discovered that more often than not, Trump would send out racist and offensive tweets because he knew how much we’d all talk about it.
He knew that we would be so distracted by whatever horrible thing he’d just posted online, we’d completely forget to discuss the truly terrible thing he’d actually physically done or signed into law.
A news cycle entirely taken up with people talking about a tweet has no room for coverage of a truly terrible incident or policy decision.
It was a pretty smart strategy, using our own weakness for distraction against us. But it hopefully now means that we’ve learned our lesson for the future.
Future horrible president
In the future we’re going to eventually get another horrible president.
I truly hope it’s later rather than sooner.
However this time it could be someone who is capable of far worse.
Rather than pussy-grabbing and being used by foreign leaders, this future president could actually be capable of nuclear level destruction.
Whoever this person is will probably use the same distraction techniques that Trump used to cover up his messes. However this time, perhaps what this person will be covering up could be far more deadly.
Unwittingly, Trump has taught us what a terrible person does to get away with terrible things. When someone tries it next time, perhaps we will be more ready and more likely to catch the distraction while it’s happening and do something about it.
2. Americans Aren’t the Only Ones Voting
Although Trump falsely claimed that he would have won the popular vote if it weren’t for the millions of illegal votes cast, he was right in saying that it wasn’t just Americans choosing the American president.
Because of Trump, we learned the worldwide scope of how many people were interested in and influencing the election.
We learned about how complicit Facebook was in allowing foreign powers to sway public understanding of political figures.
We learned about how invested Russia was in the outcome of the US election, and how deep their political corruption still ran.
We learned about the existence of and the power of Cambridge Analytica, especially when they came out and boasted of their part in securing the election for Trump.
There was a lot of shady and illegal things taking place during the years leading up to the 2016 election. Had Hillary won, those committing these crimes may have slunk back to the shadows and come back in full force for the 2020 election. They may have come back with more sophisticated strategies, and they may have implemented those strategies on electing someone even worse.
Facebook would still be in a position of trust within the general community. Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t have had to speak in front of congress, and would likely have had far less pushback in introducing Libra, Facebook’s crypto currency.
Where they may have released their currency on their own, they now have to do it under the watchful eye of reputable financial institutions (well, the ones who haven’t pulled out anyway).
History shows that criminals that don’t succeed in their crimes are generally not pursued once the spotlight leaves their corner of the stage.
Our forgetful nature allows them ample time to grow and come back stronger than ever.
We may have dodged a bullet by letting them commit their crimes, then spending 4 years reporting on what they’ve done.
3. We Now Truly Appreciate. What We Had
Hours after becoming president, Trump crippled the Affordable Care Act.
To be fair, he did exactly what he spent his entire campaign telling us he’d do. Despite his goons appearing on the news and claiming that Trump was being metaphorical or sarcastic, Trump was always telling us his honest plans.
Once Obamacare’s protections were taken away and Trumps tax bill was introduced, the country collectively began to understand what Obama had actually spent 8 years doing.
Suddenly things that sounded so trivial before were now heart-wrenching memories. Stories started coming out about how committed Obama was to reading and replying to letters he was sent by the public.
But most of all, we learned how truly difficult it is for presidents and people to do the right thing.
It’s truly difficult to do what needs to be done, it’s really hard to swallow your pride and say what needs to be said.
Perhaps we needed to see someone refuse to do or say what’s right to truly understand what it takes. Seeing someone refuse to take the difficult path serves to illuminate what it would really take to walk that path.
We didn’t know how good we had it, and perhaps that means we took our former lives for granted.
Taking our good fortune for granted meant that we lost perspective on what was truly important.
Had this not happened, it may have led to a future where we elect an even worse president. But surely we’ve learned our lesson now.
Trump has been impeached, which seems to show that we have indeed learned something.
Whoever the next president is, we now know what we want and what we deserve. We can see the difficult path, and we want someone who can and is willing to walk it.
We’ve been tricked, lied to, and abused for 4 years..
We’re not so easily tricked anymore.
