Donald Trump: A Blessing or Curse to the Republican Party?

By: Jennifer Huang

POTUS. Businessman. Media mogul. Corrupt salesman. Loser of the popular vote. Liar.

No matter what you think of Donald Trump, there’s one thing he’s undeniably good at: deflection.

In primary debates, he avoided his dirty track record by mercilessly shitting on his opponents. In presidential debates, he eluded scandal with “alternative fact”, leaving fact checkers aghast when he labeled concrete reality as mere interpretation. And now, as president, he is taking advantage of the media’s profit hunger and its need for “shiny titles” to distract the American people from what’s really going on behind the closed doors of the White House administration.
To be fair, Trump isn’t intentionally using Russia as his distraction, but it certainly is facilitating the passage of his policies through Congress. With the media focused on his Twitter mishaps and his past track record, and the people meme-ing his use of “covfefe”, Trump has established a culture wherein media fights over stories covering his simple gaffes, and ignores the alarming changes being passed through Congress as we speak.

Mr. Trump is the media’s perfect fixation: easy to criticize with his strange speech habits and penchant for dumb mistakes in public settings. The Russia investigation is certainly (Fitting? Disastrous? Distracting? Dire? Bad?) for Trump, and yet the (single-focus?) focus is “shiny news,” with a catchy title, attention-grabbing for the common citizen.

While the media and the American people have been fixated on Trump’s Russia scandal and the power struggles in “TrumpCare”, Congress has forced some terrifying bills onto the floor, including a proposal to cut the EPA and a de-funding of Planned Parenthood, all of which received less coverage than Trump’s description of his chocolate cake.
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Trump is the face of the Republican party, but nothing more. And while the American people may cringe and laugh at his silly mistakes or be outraged by the scandal in Russia, their Congress is destroying our country under the radar. Maybe Trump has said a few things that go against the Republican platform, or blatantly lied about his political record. But it’s all vastly outweighed by the Republican Congress’s free reign.

Donald Trump: POTUS, liar, media fixation. A distraction.

Watch out.

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