By Robert Pembroke
Is Donald Trump a good president or a bad president?
I have no idea how history will treat Trump. During the Truman presidency, I remember that people were saying that he was a bad president. History proved those people to be wrong and Truman turned out to be one of the greatest presidents that our nation ever had.
I am not going to bore you with all the negative things that the media is saying about Trump. But what I am going to try to do is to show you how a simple act can eliminate all the stress and anxiety that the American citizenry is presently going through because of Trump.
The solution to our problem is to just take away Trump’s bully pulpit — with the exception of his tweets. There is no way to stop Trump from tweeting because of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
According to Wikipedia, a bully pulpit is a conspicuous position that provides an opportunity to speak out and be listened to. The term was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt, who referred to his office as a bully pulpit — by which he meant a terrific platform to advocate an agenda. Roosevelt used the term “bully pulpit” as an adjective meaning “superb” or “wonderful.”
Trump claims he reaches 44 million people with his tweets. Since he was elected president, he has sent out over 10,000 tweets. Once he has tweeted, the media immediately jump on the bandwagon and make sure that millions and millions more people know about Trump’s tweets.
Never before in my lifetime have I seen the divisiveness and partisanship that is going on now in our great country. Great leaders like Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy could mitigate the divisiveness and partisanship and calm things down. In my opinion, Trump is not the person who can or will want to do this. Trump is a master at using divisiveness for his own personal gain.
Let’s all step back for a moment and try to see what is going on. Economically, America is in great shape. As evidence of this, just take a look at the stock market. Despite recent setbacks, it is booming and unemployment is at 4.1 percent. I’m happier and I am sure that I am not alone. I think it is wonderful that all the people that own a share of Americana are benefiting. Hopefully, they’re putting away a part of their net worth for their golden years and they’re able to fund a good education for their children.
It’s about time that Trump go to a corner of the room, sit on a tall chair facing the wall and put on a dunce hat. Is this going to happen? I don’t think so, but all of us better try our darnedest to insulate ourselves from Trumpism.
The Fourth Estate must generate revenue to pay for the content that it releases. The more eyes that are looking at this content, the more the revenue. Trump’s tweets — and also Trump himself — get more eyes to look at the millions of pages that are produced by the press. So how in the heck are we going to be able to reduce the Trump effect?
I used to watch television news almost all the time. Then, my wife told me that I was not allowed to watch Fox News in her house and since I was getting free rent and living in a pretty nice abode, I have not been watching Fox News. I must admit that when my wife is at the beauty salon or out of the room, I do take a peek at Fox. I now use my mobile device to pick and choose the news that I am interested in and thus can filter out Trump.
This simple act has made my life bearable.
Robert Pembroke is the former chairman and CEO of Pembroke’s Inc. in Salt Lake City. He can be reached at pembroke894@gmail.com.