2017 American of the Year: Donald Trump

President Donald J. Trump, American of the Year

It's hard to imagine any first-year American President having to cope with partisan trials such as Donald Trump was forced to endure in office during 2017. 

Trump was sworn-in back in January as the first-ever President of the United States to not previously have been an elected politician or serve in the American military ranks.

The new President was under attack from the opposition Democratic Party and liberal-slanted media outlets from day one.

On the television airwaves, networks such as CNN and MSNBC, programs like "The View", and talk hosts led by Jimmy Kimmel continually bashed the President and his ideas and programs. While these same outlets and individuals had treated the last Republican President, George W. Bush, in much the same way, they chose to take it to a new level with Trump.

Meanwhile the Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren attacked Trump through their media friends as often as possible, and on every issue. Their hatred, and that is what it is, pure hatred, came largely due to their shock that Trump was in office at all.

They had collectively believed that their idol, the socialist-leaning Barack Obama, would be followed to the highest office in the land by Hillary Clinton. The first black POTUS to be followed by the first female President. Even more importantly to them, the liberal progressive agenda would continue on.

When it didn't happen, the Dems and the media were legitimately shocked. They responded by lashing out in an open, obvious, childish tantrum never seen previously. It is a whining, crying, stomping feet tantrum that continues today.

Trump had established during his campaign in 2016 that he was never just going to sit back and take it from the media. He continued taking to Twitter to get out his message unfiltered. Often those messages were direct counter-attacks at the media.

The media had never experienced anything like it. They were used to controlling the message heard by the vast majority of Americans. Here was a President not only going around them to deliver his program and policy ideas, but also his personal thoughts on a wide range of issues.

Donald Trump is the first POTUS to make such aggressive use of social media to reach the masses. It has backfired on him occasionally. He has at times come across as petty and vindictive. However, there is not doubt that he has also kept his base fired up. And there is no doubt that his Twitter account has been a major public relations and messaging tool.

Thanks to the President's past as a businessman rather than a politician, he is beholden to far fewer special interests than normally chip away at the energy of other administrations. His personal wealth allows him an independence of thought, speech, and action rarely seen in occupants of the Oval office. And his life experiences as a public figure for decades have left him unafraid of how he is perceived.

Because of the uniqueness of the man, he has won the year by successfully labeling as "fake news" that old school media. That the moniker has stuck is largely their own fault. The media has often gotten away from its reporting responsibilities to actually become a second form of opposition. So instead of simply battling Democrats, the President has to battle an ego-shattered media.

However, defeating a biased media that has largely abandoned any expectations of impartiality in reporting is not the reason that he has been selected as the 2017 American of the Year. That's nice, don't get me wrong, but it's really a minor factor.

There have been a series of big victories during this first year for President Trump that have led to his selection for the honor. In many ways, his has been one of the most effective freshman season's in POTUS history. Let's examine this substantive list of accomplishments.

We'll begin from the end: the President was a pivotal voice in getting tax reform done for the first time in more than three decades. As Sarah Westwood and Gabby Morrongiello at the Washington Examiner stated: 

"In addition to slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, the landmark legislation cut individual rates for all income tax levels, doubled the child tax credit to $2,000, and dramatically increased the standard deduction."

President Trump also began to change the face of the American judiciary, consistently and insistently pushing the courts toward the right with his nominations and appointments. This was led by the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, an originalist in the mold of his friend and idol, the late Antonin Scalia, to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Dems keep throwing curves, Trump keeps taking them deep

President Trump swings for the fences in rookie political year

Democrats have tried nearly everything within their power during 2017 to discredit President Donald J. Trump. Still obviously butt-hurt after Hillary Clinton's stunning (to them) defeat last November, they have refused to simply play the role of gallant opposition party.

The Dems could have decided to put forth their own agenda, their own vision for the future, pushing those programs into the public consciousness through their media cohorts.

They could have chosen to work with the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress to gain something, no matter how small, for their own constituents until the next opportunity to win control for themselves at the ballot box.

Instead, they chose a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scorched Earth policy of no-holds barred, relentless attacks against the Trump administration. They did so in some cases knowing full well that it would mean some of their own stars would fall, such as U.S. Senator Al Franken. It has been a year of nothing else but "take down Trump, at all costs" for the liberal progressive Democratic Party.

They have pulled one trick pitch after another out of their arsenal. Trump collusion with the Russians helped enable the November 2016 election upset. Trump's anti-immigration goals would prove reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930's. His reversal of Barack Obama regulations, as well as ill-conceived tax reform, would benefit the wealthy while hurting the "little guy" and prove devastating to both the economy and the environment.

Relentless attacks on Trump on these and many other issues, all aided by their liberal media sycophants, were sure to eventually wear down the President. There would be a major slip-up, some irreversible damage would occur. This would lead to a Democratic Party takeover of the U.S. Senate and Congress in 2018, and then the White House in 2020.

Heck, perhaps the inevitable Trump gaffe would be so major that it would lead to impeachment, and a Nixonian resignation. Then a weakened Pence administration would be dominated by the new Dem-controlled congress over the next couple of years.

That was the plan as inning after inning, the Dems took turns on the mound making their pitch, tossing curve balls and spit balls at the President and his team.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Jimmy Kimmel. CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post. Much of their pitch financed by deep-pocketed ownership in the person of George Soros, along with other wealthy liberals.

And yet here we are, more than a year after that election, and Donald J. Trump is still standing, perhaps stronger than ever. Nearly every exaggerated curve tossed by the Dems to date, every fabricated spitter that has slipped from their grip, has been taken deep by POTUS.

Russian collusion on the election? About as big a nothing burger as has been offered up on the liberal menu in decades. When the liberal progressives couldn't nail Trump with that one, they went after his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Then his son, Donald Trump Jr. The result? Two more wild pitches in the dirt.

Immigration? There is still no wall, even though the President continues to tout it's inevitability. Big city liberal mayors such as Philly's Jim Kenney continue to thumb their noses at federal immigration law by establishing their municipalities as "sanctuary cities" while taunting the President with vitriolic rhetoric. But there have also been huge wins.

An empowered and emboldened ICE made more than 143,000 arrests, with a 92% "win" rate. The proportion of removals resulting from ICE arrests rose from just 27% in FY2016 under Obama to 36% in FY2017 under Trump.

ICE has taken down hundreds of members of the notorious MS-13 gang. The CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Patrol) has stated that due to President Trump, we have seen a "historic shift" in attempted illegal border crossings. Also, SCOTUS just upheld President Trump's travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries. All of these moves are helping make America more secure.

Who Are These Federal Judges?

Judge Derrick Watson of the 9th Circuit Court

Much frustration has been visited in recent weeks upon those who support President Donald Trump in his efforts to better secure our nation.

The source of that frustration has been certain federal judges, who have squashed the President's executive orders to ban immigration to the United States from particular nation's deemed as security risks.

Many are wondering: who are these judges? How did they get their jobs? Can they be replaced? Why do they decide the issue, instead of the Supreme Court?

A quick primer of the U.S. federal judicial system is in order to help fully understand the issue. Congress has established 13 courts of appeals, divided up based on geographical regions of the country. These are often referred to as the "circuit courts" in the media.

It is the job of the circuit courts to hear appeals of civil and criminal issues brought before them. This is what has been happening with the President's executive orders. Attorneys General in state's that disapprove of the orders are appealing their legality to the circuit courts in their geographical area of the country.

For instance, the Attorney General in Hawaii appealed the President's most recent immigration executive order to the Ninth circuit court, which covers the western region of the United States. 

The Ninth is generally known to be one of the most historically liberal circuits as to their rulings. It is also the largest circuit court, covering some 20% of the U.S. population. It is divided, as are each of the other circuits, into smaller geographical "districts", which oversee any actual federal trials.

The 13 circuit courts do not actually hold trials. Instead, they hear arguments in the form of "briefs", the arguments presented by lawyers for both sides of any matter brought as an appeal based on decisions in the lower courts. The circuit court judge hearing the case then makes a ruling.

Those circuit court rulings are not necessarily final. Any party not satisfied can appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) by asking for a "review" of the case.