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I was a student during the massive protests against George W Bush's Iraq war in 2003. Our anger was immense and authentic, borne of real and present death and destruction. It was the most appalling episode of our generation and its horror echoes still, even in places like France who also opposed America's war.
The anger and protests against Trump last week were comparably large, but when the reasons for them are stacked against an unjust war, they seem frothy and effete. Worse, they're anti-solidarity, a partisan movement against the democratic choice of a group of peers commensurate to theirs. Trump was elected legitimately by a flawed electoral system, which Americans hold dear.
A true democrat would support President Trump at this point. If they have concern for their children’s future, they should hope he is successful in boosting the economy and preventing terrorism; his two core promises and the two main concerns of US voters.
It might have been called the “Women’s March”, but it was really an anti-Trump protest made up mostly of pro-Clinton and pro-abortion activists. Some hailed it a new wave of feminism – an “alternative-fact” remarkably like those of the President they so despise. Their intolerance of divergent views, contrary to the ideals of liberalism, is also reminiscent of those they condemn. They ignore how the size of their protest was a tiny fraction of the 26 million women who voted Trump.
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Much of the sentiment against him is based on ignorant comments he made before the election campaign, some going back 12 years. The idealist in us may have wanted Bernie Sanders to win, but the realist knows Trump won and we need him to keep winning. As president he should only be judged on his actions in office and delivery of promises. Traditionally, presidents are first reviewed after 100 days. Trump has been reviewed and panned hundreds of times before his first day. Who remembers Obama's 100 day review? Don't forget he spent over 300 days of his presidency playing golf.
There is a constant refrain that we need more leaders with business experience to run government. In Ireland, Michael O'Leary is frequently top of that apparent wish list. For the first time we're about to see this in action. Trump has put together an impressive team of successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. Successful in the sense they've thrived in the unjust corporate market that governments provide and the public tolerates.
You can prejudicially pick through their pasts to extrapolate sinister intentions all you like, but only their actions in power matter now. If doing better deals and getting work done is the mandate, then Trump has chosen a strong team.
This isn’t the message conveyed anywhere. Correspondents in Washington have lost all capacity for independent thought in the subjective media room. This is clear from how their hard news reports read and sound like opinion pieces blooming with biased adjectives and gasping superlatives.
The maelstrom of comment about "alternative facts" in the White House makes it seem like such press briefings and presidential speeches were previously reliable channels of truth. Obama spent eight years neither speaking the truth nor pronouncing lies. He simply waffled to a doe-eyed press cooing over his mellifluous language that gave an appearance of verity to pure wind. In 2009, Obama won a major advertising award from an industry which, as Noam Chomsky puts it, "creates uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices". Obama's two campaigns contained no specific promises, unlike Trump's.
Those who underestimate the new president use his rambling Tweets and speeches as evidence of obtuse intemperance. These are however proof of his intelligent circumventing of the press. He uses distractions, whipping the press into frenzy about the nature of his lies rather than the substance.
A weekend of childish heckling over crowd stats led to far less scrutiny of his policies and how he plans to implement them. He’s led the media agenda for more than a year now. He lost it when the leaked tape of him making lewd comments emerged, but easily won it back with talk of jailing Hillary and refusing to accept the election result. This marks a failure by a media that hate his words but need his ratings.
Traditional press are clinging to old ways even though collapsing revenue and credibility tells them their way is over. It’s an industry lacking the creativity to challenge authority in new and innovate ways, while authority attacks and undermines them in new and innovate ways.
President Obama also used clever distractions, only his were attractive to the media, and known as “Michelle Obama”. From her maudlin speeches to her overacted disgust, the First Lady proved to be a powerful disrupting force to cover Obama’s long list of disappointments. While it was a virtue to have a scandal-free presidential family, it did not reduce inequality in society.
Trump has about a year to make progress. He is not going to be half as good as he says he will be. But he won't be half as bad as they think he'll be. It might feel good to be part of the popular trend and howl at the problem, but the only sensible approach is to wait and see. That's what Germany's Angela Merkel, that last symbol of dignity and restraint in our noisy political world, has chosen to do. Sorry Hillary superfans, but I'm with her.