Two Lessons Taught By The Trump Political Years

There are lessons to be learned in every era, and from every source imaginable. So, it should come as no surprise that there are lessons one can learn from the Donald Trump presidential or political years. Unfortunately, the biggest lesson is one that democrats haven't learned from, and it could hurt them in the long run.

Besides the obvious questions, people often question the authority of the President of the United States. For the past four presidents, skirting the constitution at times, and making up rules as they went along, was business as usual. They say we're a nation of laws, but there have been times that we were a nation of executive orders.

Hmmm? If only the no kings protests had started about twelve years before they did, maybe it would have made a difference. But it didn't, because conservatives don't appear to have time to hit the streets constantly, protesting everything in sight.

But I digress.

No, the biggest problems to come out of the last twenty plus years of politics aren't the executive orders, or fancy work arounds avoiding the constitutional roadblocks and hurdles to achieving their goals. The biggest problems came in the form of other issues, and they were issues that popped up repetitively.

So, let's get into the lessons that should have been learned by the Democrats, from the Donald Trump years.

Lesson #1: Transparency

Each presidency makes massive claims about how they were or are so much better than the last. Unfortunately, in the United States, there are no internet protections to keep the information from the hands of the public. Well, that's unfortunate if you are spewing lies and nonsense, using misinformation, and forget that the internet connects anybody willing to use it for more than porn, or social media, to every piece of information ever recorded.

Example: Politicians clamoring for justice against ICE, after an ICE agent shot Renee Good.

This was particularly problematic because as the information continued to flow, and more angles appeared, Renee Good, for whatever her reasoning may or may not have been, did put her foot on the gas and her 2,000 pound motor vehicle moved toward the position of a law enforcment official. This, is an act of violence, placing a person in front of the vehicle in a reasonable fear of severe bodily harm or potential death.

Our law makers made the laws regarding self-defense. And some of them went on their soap boxes, swearing it was a lawless act. It was actually an act, compounded by another criminal act. Good was being ordered out of her vehicle by a federal law enforcement agent. Moving away in her vehicle, was an attempt to flee or elude arrest. That's a crime in any jurisdiction. By using a motor vehicle and placing someone at risk, she compounded the problem. But, people like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, used it to attack the Trump Whitehouse.

The claims of demanding transparency and then being deceptive aren't helping their case. Trump claimed to be the most transparent president in history, and while he was transparent about some things, I'd suspect he was no more transparent than any other president. Democrats, who could flip the script and actually tell the truth are too afraid of their base to be honest and admit things like the Renee Good shooting was justifiable. So much for a bunch of people who are typically lawyers. Maybe that's why the go to D.C. and rarely get much done.

Lesson #2, Violent or Incindiary Rhetoric

Does anybody remember the violent and incindiary rhetoric used by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz? No? How about the January 6th speech by then Pesident Donald Trump? Most people do remember that one, and some tend to forget the incindiary statements from members of the Democratic party, particularly the ones calling for uprisings, confrontations, and assaults. But, not to get off the subject, the January 6th speech by President Trump was a banner moment.

I remember watching it from home in Illinois. Why Illinois? For a couple of reasons. At the time, in 2020, I was still very connected to law enforcement circles, and following bulletins on those subjects. One of the most popular bulletins made the news, and that was that January 6th was likely to turn hostile and violent. Behold, the truth was that it happened.

While people have to be held accountable for their personal actions, because speech is, well...speech, there's no denying that as I listened to the president's speech that day, I cringed. He was using the same hostile sounding rhetoric, and told his followers to take the fight to the capital. And, there's that word, fight. Now, that's something that is open to interpretation, what he meant by that. And there remain many questions about why it got as ugly as it did, but we'll stick to the point. Violent rhetoric by our leaders is bad for the citizens, particularly the more emotional, hostile, and prone to suggestion members fo our population.

So, the biggest one that they haven't learned, is not to use Violent Rhetoric. And, in Illinois, it's very apparent. As J.B. Pritzker pounds his drum before a highly contentious 2026 governor's election, he had this to say.

(Trump) “going to try to call out ICE and CBP and scare people away from the polls, everybody. He’s going to make it seem like you shouldn’t vote. We need to go with purpose and push them out of the way or at least tell them to get out of the way and go in and vote. And all of us as governors need to protect your right to vote.”

-Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Chicago Tribune

Takeaway

For years, the Democrats complained about the events of January 6th, even though some accounts, by record, were proven fake. Their complaints weren't all without merit. The one complaint that made sense, to anybody who listened and paid attention, was that Trump's rhetoric was inciteful, regardless of what his meaning was interpreted. If I could figure out it was a bad idea to word his speech that way, then the rest of the world should have been, but as we saw, wasn't.

That's because the country's been polarized into a place it wasn't. With all of our collective differences, the distrust, hate, and cultural incompatibilities have become more apparent than ever, even though the Democrats want to embrace members of cultures who are incompatible with Americas culture. But, that's a different problem entirely, and one that will play itself out in due time.

In the meantime, we must recognize the dangers of violent rhetoric. Whether it comes from the left or the right, from the blue or the red side of the aisle, people no longer can be depended upon to ignore statements that are of an inciteful nature. People will continue acting on statements that include words or phrases that are meant to be confrontational in nature, and when those things are uttered by our leaders, the extreme sides will take it and run with it, be dammed the consequences.