President Trump Looks The Part

I'm not sure what President Trump hoped to accomplish in his speech last night, but if it was to look Presidential he totally nailed it. Wow! Where did this guy come from. It's as if the crazy old man who lives next door and yells "get off my lawn" at neighborhood kids as they pass by woke up one morning and instead offers a calm, well worded explanation of personal property rights and the stresses placed on low growing vegetation by excessive foot traffic.  We can and will have our disagreements on a lot of things, but I tip my hat to President Trump today. He appeared calm, collected, and in control, and these are three things that had alluded him for quite some time.

At this point, I'm in the unenviable position of inciting the wrath from both sides, but let's be honest here. When Trump announced his candidacy and offered a string of insults to Mexicans who are crossing our borders illegally followed by "and some of them, I'm sure, are good people" I shook my head. It's not like what he was saying was wrong. There are rapists and drug dealers who enter illegally. It was extremely poorly worded. Most of them are good people who want to make a better life for their families, and some of them I'm sure are bad hombres. So at that point, I thought Trump was an interesting but inexperienced candidate who had some potential. It was the high water mark for my analysis of his prospects.

In other words, it was all downhill from there. He began to espouse conspiracy theories (like Rafael Cruz's involvement in the JFK assassination) and pseudoscience (like vaccines leading to autism) while rejecting sound logic (like the Generals know a thing or two about ISIS) and actual science (like earth's climate is changing). He said he needed to research the KKK before he could condemn them. He started talking about secret plans to fix problems, but he couldn't tell us about any of them because that would be tipping his hand. He had a top secret plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days, remember? 40 days in, and ISIS is still here. Perhaps he miscalculated the timing? Or maybe he's keeping them waiting. I digress.

As a Republican who opposed Trump, I get a lot of grief from my Republican friends and family. However, I didn't wake up one day and say "I don't like this guy". On the contrary, I wanted to like him. He pushed me away. The things I've listed above are a small sampling of the reasons I had to believe he isn't even altogether there. Senile? A little nutty in his old age? I don't know, but none of those things are consistent with a person who is in their right mind. And then last night happened.

As I've stated, I do have my share of disagreements with what he said. And yes, there are some problematic circumstances that have come up from the administration after the speech and related to things he said. That aside, this isn't the place to hash those out. He did extremely well delivering his message and presenting himself as a steady hand capable of rational decision making.

My hope is that President Trump has turned a corner here. Perhaps he was so caught up in the fight of the campaign that it took a big moment like this to offer him the opportunity to gather himself and grow into his new role. Remember, he is an inexperienced politician. Perhaps the heat of the battle, combined with the manner in which he won (without the popular vote) took him off of his game and made him overly defensive. It's possible that some well deserved praise for the speech last night will do him some good and help him gain his footing.

We heard so much about turning the corner during the campaign while seeing nothing that I would say at best I'm cautiously optimistic. Remember how many times he was supposed to be Presidential?

• He'll be more Presidential in the debates.
• Once the field narrows, he'll be more Presidential.
• He'll act Presidential once he secures the nomination.
• Now that he's won the nomination, he'll be more Presidential.
• Just wait until the Convention. He's going to be so Presidential he will be boring.
• Don't worry, he'll be Presidential at the debates.
• Once he wins, he'll be Presidential.
• He'll be Presidential after the inauguration.

And then last night happened. Is this a new leaf for the President? I hope so. I'm under no delusion that he will suddenly start espousing conservative ideology and be a President that I love and fully trust, and I'm ok with that. I disagreed with President Obama on pretty much everything, yet eight years later we are still here and to be honest, we're better off than I thought we were going to be when he was sworn in. For the first time in the Trump Presidency, I have reason to hope I will be able to say the same thing of him 4 years from now. I don't mind disagreeing with him. I don't even mind losing my fair share of political battles. I don't have to agree with the direction in which he takes the Country. Just keep the train on the tracks, would you please? I do have to sleep at night, and I will do that a little easier if he has indeed turned over a new leaf here. Congratulations on a great night, Mr. President. Let's keep this going and not make it a one time thing.