President Donald Trump gave his first State of the Union speech on January 30, 2018. He
began with restating his loyalty to Americans and how his job is to ensure he makes "America
great again". Trump covers many topics, but many believe he covered the wrong topics. He
gives examples of how Americans are strong,especially through all of the recent natural
disasters by glorifying certain people for their heroic deeds Trump reminds Americans
that veterans aren’t the only ones who can perform civic duties. Trump confidently announced
there are now 2.4M new jobs and minimum wages rose. He said his new tax reform will make
is possible for small companies to compete globally, for families to cut their tax bills in half, and
will provide “tremendous belief” for the middle class. President trump claims “for the last year
[the government] [has] sought to restore the bonds of trust between [the] citizens and their
Government”. He says he will focus on American interests when it comes to immigration andbegan with restating his loyalty to Americans and how his job is to ensure he makes "America
great again". Trump covers many topics, but many believe he covered the wrong topics. He
gives examples of how Americans are strong,especially through all of the recent natural
disasters by glorifying certain people for their heroic deeds Trump reminds Americans
that veterans aren’t the only ones who can perform civic duties. Trump confidently announced
there are now 2.4M new jobs and minimum wages rose. He said his new tax reform will make
is possible for small companies to compete globally, for families to cut their tax bills in half, and
will provide “tremendous belief” for the middle class. President trump claims “for the last year
[the government] [has] sought to restore the bonds of trust between [the] citizens and their
to detain terrorists. He wants to strengthen international relationships but clearly said “American
foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends”.
Trump introduces a 4-pillar plan.
1- Offering citizenship to over 1.8M people who were brought here by their parents
2- Securing the border
3- Ending the visa lottery
4- Ending chain migration (essentially limits the number of family members one can bring
into the country.
into the country.
Discussion Questions
- What are your thoughts on Trump’s Four Pillar Plan?
- Do you believe Trump could have talked about different topics to have a better State of the Union Address? If so, what should he have addressed?
- Do you think Trump had a successful year? Explain.
I think there are definitely some issues to Trump’s four pillar plan. For example, the chain migration pillar is weak. Chain migration is a myth because it takes to long for a chain to form. The United States is processing sibling visa requests for China that were filed in 2004, which makes the total wait for a visa just a little less than two decades. If Trump spent a little less time talking about the heroic deeds Americans have done in the past year, it would have allowed him more time to talk about the details of his plans. For example, he called the opioid epidemic “terrible” but didn’t talk of any plan to stop the many deaths caused by drug overdoses each year. According to The Hill’s news article, he also asked Congress to pass a bill to make $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure investments, but he offered very little detail as to how Congress would pay for the bill. It’s difficult to determine whether his economic policies attributed to the stock market’s growth. For example, for the last seven years the US’s GDP has increased by almost 2% each year. The stock market’s value has increased over the last seven years as well, therefore it would be difficult to attribute the current positive growth to Trump’s economic policy because the trend has been positive for the past seven years. Is it really fair to give him the credit for this?
ReplyDeleteI believe that Trump was not very clear or specific in his speech. Yes, he spoke about brave members of our country & how Americans are amazing and whatnot, but he failed to talk about specifics for America's future, and it was quite vague. Details of his plans were not made clear and left many questions unanswered. He also mentioned that during his time as President that he has cut black unemployment in half, when that was actually because of our former President, Barack Obama. Trump inherited Obama's economy & has claimed it as his own. Overall, I think he could be doing a much better job as President, as he is making some drastic changes (some not totally necessary) & still fails to pay notice to problems in today's society that should't even be considered a problem in our day and age.
ReplyDeleteTrump during his speech was some-what clear on his topic and he probably didn't write his own speech. Him speaking for 1 hour, 20 minutes and 31 seconds was regretful. Anyways, Trumps four pillar plan seems to sound just a little horrible. America, Land of the free home of the ... people. The thought of ending the visa lottery is making it almost impossible now to get a visa in the US. Making it impossible to get a citizenship in the US. Trump being known for "build the wall" might actually be doing so. But not really, if he is going to secure more borders thats great and all but for people who risk their lives getting in this country may not think its great. Overall Trump has the right ideas, (no he does not). The way he is taking however is a not so good one.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the things Trump talked about I feel that several items he discussed were made to look better then they actually were. I believe that he highlighted model Americans because he was unable to discuss several good things he did as an individual. When mentioning the rate of new jobs he made it seem like a good thing when in reality that number is very low compared to the last 10 years. The entire address was very patriotic and vague. It didn't inform the people of this nation and it didn't accurately describe the policies or outcomes of the Trump administration.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that during the speech, Trump was very general and did not go into many specifics. In his Four Pillar Plan, it may seem that he cares about immigrants and is providing many citizenship but he also claims that he will only serve "American interests". He is focused on securing the border and invests so much unnecessary money into it, where it could be used for more important matters. In the speech, Trump mostly boasted about his "accomplishments" and rallied the audience up instead of addressing the concerning conflicts. I think this is a way Trump tries to distract people from how exhausting his presidency actually is.
ReplyDeleteDespite being one of the longest State of the Union Addresses that a President has ever given, Trump hardly covered any of his policies and plans for the next few years of his candidacy. During his speech, Trump talked a lot about policies that only applied to the US and very little about policies that involved other countries, like Israel, China, and Russia. Trump could have talked more about healthcare, North Korea, terrorism, and climate change. One thing that Trump talked a lot about was his four pillar plan, which would only allow people who meet education and work requirements to become US citizens. However, some aspects of his plan lack specificity. Trump talked about building a wall along the border between the US and México, but he didn’t address how he’ll pay for the wall.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe President Trump has had a successful year. While he made a major point of complimenting his tax bill during his speech, it was one of the only major bills passed under this GOP-controlled Congress and took a very long time to pass. During his presidency, his approval rating has been dropping (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/) and many congressmen didn't even stand or clap for him. He may claim to be attempting to restore trust between the people and government, but for the majority of Americans, he has simply divided them more. In terms of foreign policy during his speech, he was quite vague and focused too much on the USA while the tension with North Korea that has recently been aggravated was not discussed enough in my opinion. Though this is only the start of his presidency, very little has been accomplished. By talking so much about American heroes, it reflected on how little has been achieved during the past year.
ReplyDeleteI in turn agree that there were not many specifics about how he was going to achieve said things, and he overall didn't focus on many key issues plaguing America today. Taking a step back and looking at what he has done so far, not much of what he promised he would do actually went into action. In my opinion, I definitely thing he should have focused more with his speech on the things that he has yet to accomplish. Especially what he promised to do for the citizens that he hasn't done yet.
ReplyDeleteI think that Trump had a pretty good first year as in terms of actual policy accomplishments tied to pledges he made on the campaign trail, he did a good job. Some of the policy he got accomplished include: enforcing the red line against Syria's use of chemical weapon's. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He got NATO to give in $12 billion dollars for America's collective security. He enacted historic tax and regulatory reform that has unleashed economic growth. This is only some of the things he got done whether one might support it or not they must recognize that he got what he said done possibly even having one of the best first years as president.
ReplyDelete