What's with Trump — Good or Bad?

Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material.
— American writer Susan Sontag

MAYPAJO, Caloocan City — After officially a month since Republican Donald Trump took office at the White House, a new CNN poll indicates that majority of Americans believe the United States 4th president is abusing his power, once again.

The new poll shows that 52 percent of Americans believe that he has "gone too far" when it comes to "using the power of the presidency and executive branch."

Overall, the results hint that most Americans are dissatisfied with Trump's first month in office, as 47 percent of Americans approve of his performance as compared to 52 percent who disapproved of it.

But although the poll leans negative, Americans included in the poll think Trump—who was branded a 'fat, sweaty, smelly, scared, sissy'—is doing a better job within his first month as president now than his time as the 45th president of the United States in 2017 to 2021.

The poll also shows that majority of Americans also believe Trump has "gone too far" when it comes to cutting federal government programs with 51 percent of people conducted in the poll agreeing with that statment.

The poll also shows that Americans believe that Trump can do more in terms of reducing the price of everyday goods, with 62 percent saying he has "not gone far enough."

Optimism for the Trump administration has also dropped since he's taken office, with 32 percent of Americans saying in December 2024 that they were optimistic when asked "which of the following best describes your feelings as you look ahead to the rest of Donald Trump's second term as president?"
This isn't the first time that Donald Trump has been accused of abusing his power as President of the United States.

The House of Representatives impeached President Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, making him the third-ever president to be impeached following Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998.

“The president is impeached,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared after the vote in December 2019, calling it a “great day for the Constitution of the United States, a sad one for America that the president’s reckless activities necessitated us having to introduce articles of impeachment.”
With all these in view, let me include here comments from my dear friend Romy Morales, who is now in Anchorage in the northernmost state of Alaska . . .

"When my good buddy Tracy asked me to write my reactions to the poll that says that Trump is abusing his power again as a president, I burst into laughter, nearly spewing out the hot coffee I was enjoying for its aromatic taste.
To be honest, I don’t care if Trump is abusing his power or not for the second time or even again and again. In my opinion, let him do what he wants and then just see what happens next.
He was given a mandate to do it; let him.
But on second thought, let me have my two cents on this. Now as to whether he is abusing his power or not, it is too soon to tell. However, because of his conduct, we are coming to that conclusion sooner than we expected.

What do you expect from a man who believes he can get whatever he wants, or even shoot someone and get away with it? (Is he sounding like our very own ex-president Rodrigo Duterte?)

Without restraint, he thinks he can do anything. He even expects loyalty from his men, so no one ever dares to contradict with him. And he will punish anyone who doesn’t make accommodations for him either by making them inconsequential or lambasting them to the hilt, just as he did to Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine.

And he has exhibited this kind of behavior—his sense of self-importance that only he and he alone can achieve his goals. He has a strong sense of entitlement to whatever he accomplishes as a result.
This brings us to the word 'narcissist'. This type of person (referring to Trump) could only be a narcissist.
(But) is he a narcissist, then? Well, that’s up to you to figure out.

When he proposed to develop Gaza into a Riviera in the Middle East, did he even have any compassion for the millions of Palestinians who have been displaced by the ongoing conflict? He even had the audacity to force them to leave their own land after decades of cruel treatment they have been subjected to.

Did he ever feel any sympathy for individuals who were accidentally included because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time while the immigration was scooping up all those illegal immigrants and deporting those who had committed crimes while in the US?

Did he ever have empathy for the millions of Ukrainians affected by the Russian invasion or Zelenskyy, who felt deceived by his exclusion from the negotiations, when he declared he would put an end to the war in Ukraine and then arranged a meeting between Russia and the US without Ukraine’s participation?
(So), is he a king abusing his power or is he a king without clothes? Take your pick.

Well said . . .

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