“People want change.”
“President Trump is delivering that change.”
If we didn’t know better, we’d credit those words to Josh Earnest, the Press secretary to the Obama-led White House but these were Sean Spicer’s, the Trump-led White House Press secretary.
The words ring true for both Presidents; although from two incredibly very different angles. Obama had actually run for office and won on the “Change” mantra but Trump is the one who has spent his first double-digit days in office delivering both surprising and not so surprising changes to America as the world knows it.
The 45th President of the United States has squeezed so much activity into his first 2 weeks in office. He’s reinstated and expanded the global gag rule, banned refugees from entering the United States, dropped a few fibs, barred immigration from seven Muslim countries and fired acting attorney general, Sally Yates, when she refused to defend the order. He approved a counterterrorism raid in Yemen. He’s ordered a federal hiring freeze, made active efforts to erase his predecessor’s legacies by demanding two regulations be undone for every new one issued. He’s withdrawn from a multilateral Asian trade deal that other allies have agreed to. And he’s generally managed to get the world to dislike him a little more than ever before.
However, beyond the implications of his flurry of activity and the kind of reception they have met with, is The Donald so different from those who have occupied the office before him?
We think not.
The graph above shows the executive orders and memos signed by Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton within their first 12 days in office. It shows Obama signed more than Trump in the same time frame by 1.
While there’s an argument that Obama’s policies were not as controversial as Trump’s are (and this is true), the fact remains that everything Trump has signed so far has not been too out of line with his campaign promises. Even the dismissal of Sally Yates – he did promise to “jail” Hillary, didn’t he?
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
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