By Fritz Saint-Macary. Picture : Donald Trump wrapped in the American flag.
In a few hours, on Friday 20 January 2017, exactly at one minute past noon, Donald J. Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. Half of the electorate plus 3 millions voted for his electoral rival Hillary Clinton, and the rest voted for Trump, who got elected only by the Electoral College. Thus, while the majority (pro-Hillary) of this country is anxious, the other half minus 3 million (pro-Trump) is very hopeful.
This Friday morning I heard someone on the radio say : “Show me, don’t tell me!” Reinforcing that skeptical attitude let me add that I want to SEE actions, rather than HEAR words. And finally, as I have stated in a previous Facebook post (see below,) the most appropriate posture now is to wait and see before judging.
The usual length of the honeymoon period — i.e., a period of voluntary no criticism — allowed by the press to new heads of state is 100 days. Well, I choose to be more lenient than those “writers of history’s first draft” and endure a bit longer wait than three months before I pass judgment on Trump’s performance; aiming to judge on the basis of well-established facts, more precisely of concrete results of his administration. Following such a rule of thumb will permit me to decide somewhat objectively what kind of chief executive the U.S. (and the world!) has gotten.
To conclude, I was struck by what then President Barack Obama told then President-elect Donald Trump: “if you succeed, the country succeeds.” It is, indeed, a remarkably succinct and wellthought-out statement, not surprising since Obama is a remarkable man.
THREE DAYS LATER: After the swear-in ceremony and the inauguration festivities of last Friday 1/20/2017, Donald J. Trump is henceforth the fullfledged, politically legitimate president of the United States. This is a controversial opinion, by the way.
In any case, it can be said that a new countdown has started: for the next 100 days which is the length of the honeymoon period or “period of grace,” it may be fair to refrain from criticizing the new Chief executive. However, once that time period is over, I expect the press to begin a normal adversarial relationship with Trump. Indeed, the journalists’ constitutional duty will be to factcheck every statement made by the new administration, and also start judging President Trump’s concrete results, especially in light of his numerous campaign promises.
It’s an objective opinion, and I dare say it’s a provable not an ‘’alternative’’ fact.—
Found the original of this in P. 1, 3, PDF version of Haïti Observateur VOL. XXXXVII, No. 4 New York : at http://haiti-observateur.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/HO25Janvier2017.pdf
