Tag: trump policy

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USA 2020 Elections Politics The World

The depth of Trumpism is here to stay, even under a Biden Presidency

[Image Description: An image from a pro Trump rally with a woman holding a Trump 2020 banner] Via Canva
[Image Description: An image from a pro Trump rally with a woman holding a Trump 2020 banner] Via Canva

If we’ve learned one thing during this election, it’s that Donald Trump has defied the expectations laid out by polls and political pundits in the lead up to the national vote. He’s managed to seize 48% of the popular vote and gain more votes than he did in the 2016 election, reflecting the firmly rooted support for Trumpism ideology by Republican voters in the U.S. Trump’s political doctrine and style of governance has helped coin the term Trumpism we recognize today. Proudly spearheaded by the 45th U.S. President, his populist, personality-driven agenda will continue to dominate the Republican Party. The 2020 election has shown that even under the Biden Presidency, Trumpism will outlast Trump in the coming years. 

In the immediate aftermath of the election, Trump desperately tried to control the narrative around the election – prematurely declaring victory, complaining of corruption, claiming there were “tens of millions of unsolicited ballots” and announcing an investigation into the states Joe Biden won. His frantic attempts to hang onto political office undermines the election process and the very democracy he is president of. 

The 2020 election has shown that even under the Biden Presidency, Trumpism will outlast Trump in the coming years. 

Despite Trump losing his second term in office (and his subsequent unwillingness to accept defeat), he lost by a razor-thin margin, signifying that the power of Trumpism can and will be prolonged. His core support will undoubtedly remain a huge force within the U.S. and within the ranks of the Republican party. To voters, the GOP is synonymous with Trump. For the Republican party to hold onto the support gained by Trump, they will be reluctant to break away from the Trumpism agenda. Trump’s style of politics executed during his tenure in office is what Republican voters want in their leader – enforcing strict measures on immigration, aversion to trade deals, divisive foreign policy, cuts to foreign aid, ignoring budget deficits and attack on the media. His policies, statesmanship style, and white-identity politics are heavily affiliated with the Republican party, whether the party like it or not. 

What is more startling is that despite Trump’s diabolical handling of the coronavirus pandemic; (with over 230,000 deaths and 9.7 million cases at current count); mass unemployment and blatant exploitation of presidential power for his own political gain, 48% of voters still consider him worthy of serving another term in office. Trumpism has held firm in the U.S. and is more embedded in society than we realized. 

Trump’s power to the top has also validated and given authority to white supremacist ideologies. During September’s presidential debate, Trump refused to condemn one neo-fascist group, Proud Boys. The Anti-Defamation Group describes Proud Boys as misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic, and anti-immigration with ties to most states, Britain, Norway, and Australia. Instead of condemning the group in the debate, Trump addressed them directly:  “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.” 

Trump’s extreme right-wing beliefs have seeped through his immigration policies

Trump’s right-wing convictions have shaped policy areas. His aggressive opposition towards U.S. immigration policy led Trump to sign several executive orders that would diminish the U.S’ standing as a country that proudly stood for family reunification, asylum, and safe harbor of refugees. Trump signed executive orders on banning refugees, prohibiting citizens from Muslim countries travelling to the U.S, replacing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) which was later rejected by Congress and reviewal of the H-1B Visa Program granted to foreign workers. Under Trump’s “zero tolerance” directive, his administration ordered a clampdown on undocumented migrants crossing into the U.S, enforcing the separation of children from their parents. The heart-wrenching images of children being taken away from their parents at the border horrified the U.S. and world. These images affirmed Trump’s extreme right-wing beliefs which have seeped through his immigration policies, allowing crying children to be separated from their parents at the border and confined in detention centers.

Abortion is another policy area where he has enacted right-wing control. Before his presidency, he declared that women should face “some form of punishment” if they have abortions. Last year Trump banned federal funds going to organizations that provide abortions or refer patients to abortion clinics, resulting in Planned Parenthood losing millions in funding.

His four years in office has enabled Trump to appoint three Supreme Court judges, with the most recent appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett hurried through a week before the election, securing a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court. For decades to come, Trumpism will live on in the Supreme Court when it comes to the Court reaching judgments on politically divisive cases.

The extreme right-wing sentiment is entrenched within Trumpism. It’s out there in black and white through Trump’s policies and statements and cannot be overlooked. If the Republican party standby Trumpism ideology post-Trump era, they are allowing this sentiment to continue to thrive and evolve within the party. 

The disturbing reality is that Trumpism has triumphed, and it will affect the American life forever. 

So will Trump make a return to the presidential race in 2024? There’s a strong possibility that he will given that back in 2017, Trump filed to run for reelection on the day he was inaugurated. It’s safe to say that the Trump family will be with us for years, and Trumpism will last even longer. American citizens will continue exhibiting Trumpism, even under the Biden Presidency. Trumpism will truly divide the nation through its homes, classrooms, workplaces and social spaces. Trump’s re-election loss will trigger an outraged response by his loyal followers who firmly believe he has been robbed of the presidential office that was meant for Trump. They will obediently follow Trump and hang on to his every lie in the hope of delegitimizing Biden’s win. The disturbing reality is that Trumpism has triumphed, and it will affect the American life forever. 

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Press

It’s time to look policy right in the face, and The Tempest is doing exactly that

The Tempest, Inc.

At the close of 2016, many of us looked back on the year with a mixture of incredulity and sadness. We felt the deep reverberations of a changing political global landscape, riding the shockwaves through events like Brexit, an attempted Turkish coup, and the American election campaign. For many, politics took a dark and sudden turn the night Donald Trump was elected.

Donald Trump’s rise to power and ultimate capture of the White House was jolting for many. The rhetoric he used to incite support was divisive, destructive, and crass — but the sad truth is that he was merely capitalizing on the sentiments of his support base. He’s all of our childhood bullies personified: the ones who picked on us for our names, sexualities, clothes, lunches, appearances. Our bullies tried to make us feel small, alien.

[bctt tweet=”The Tempest is launching a new Policy vertical to kick off the new political era.” username=”wearethetempest”]

Donald Trump’s victory is an affirmation that those bullies don’t merely exist on the playground. And as of today, he was sworn in as 45th President of the United States of America.

That’s not something we’re going to take lightly.

We’re not here to participate in internet slacktivism — we’re here to assert our political presence. Which is why The Tempest is launching a new Policy vertical to kick off the dawn of a new political era.

We’re here to help people like you decipher laws and policies in ways that are easily digestible for everyone. In times like these, the most powerful thing we can do is equip ourselves with knowledge.

However, keeping up with politics requires time, energy, and (more often than not) an advanced dictionary/thesaurus. Truth is, many of us become discouraged with the seemingly daunting and clunky language of politics. Bills can be up to hundreds of pages long and full of legal jargon that’s difficult to break down. It’s all-too-easy to disengage from the endless bills that flow through the congressional labyrinth.

[bctt tweet=”We’re not here to participate in internet slacktivism .” username=”wearethetempest”]

This section is going disrupt that flow, take out the haphazard fluff and get straight to what matters. We’ll walk you through some of the hottest bills, what they aim to do, and whether or not they’ll disproportionately affect you.

Given that this is such a crucial time for politics, it’s extremely important that we understand the policies which govern us. Practicing active citizenship is the best favor we can do for ourselves, regardless of whoever’s in office.

And we’re here to shake things up.

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Press

Senior News & Society Editor Asma Elgamal launches Policy channel to face the new political era

The Tempest: The Future of Policy
Property of The Tempest, Inc.

2016 was a tough year. In looking at the global political landscape, 2016 presented us with events like Brexit and the Trump administration, propelling hate groups into mainstream platforms and frankly terrifying the hell out of some of us.

[bctt tweet=”In times like these, the most powerful thing we can do is equip ourselves with knowledge.” username=”wearethetempest”]

Social activism hit a new high, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat – all became tools to resist and to make our voices heard. But even that sometimes, isn’t enough. As horrific as it is, a lot of the awful things that have been happening are completely legal. It’s like Hydra has infiltrated the highest levels and we are playing a very tricky game of dismantling policies while pretending that evil isn’t currently reigning over us.

“In times like these, the most powerful thing we can do is equip ourselves with knowledge,” Elgamal noted.

Like most things governmental, policies are shrouded in technical language, used to make things complex and drawn out. Some policies and legislation are incredibly long and honestly, that kind of information is not appealing to read. Although it’s super important to know what laws govern us, who really has the time to go through all these new documents to ascertain what is going on?

It’s hard to speak out against something that we don’t really understand.

So to help us deal with the aftermath, Asma Elgamal, our Senior News & Society Editor at The Tempest decided to approach things in a different way, launching the Policy channel at The Tempest.

Elgamal said, “The sole purpose of this vertical is to target and help decipher laws and policies so that everyone knows exactly what is going on. The aim of this is so that it is easier to understand which policies affect you and what they set out to do. In turn, preparing us for doing whatever is necessary to combat these policies.” Read more about The Tempest’s Policy vertical here.