Well, collegiettes, it has now been a few weeks since Donald Trump shocked America (and the rest of the world, let’s be honest) and won the presidential election over Hillary Clinton. Since that night, countless protests of all sizes and demographics have broken out across the country, people have taken to social media even more than usual, and lots of people are truly fearing for their lives. Thinking about a Trump presidency terrified me so I did a little research to ease my anxiety and found at least a little relief for the next 4 years. Here are the five reasons I came up with that prove we will survive.
5. Presidents are not omnipotent.
How many times did Trump whine that Hillary spent “30 years” in public service and “has nothing to show for it”? Countless. Hundreds. Probably thousands. However he probably doesn’t know that having one seat in the Senate does not mean you get to do whatever you want. And neither does being president. Thank god for checks and balances. Even with Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, Congress is still there to keep their eye on Trump. Even with Trump’s replacement for the late Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court will still be there to watch over everything.
4. Republican’s don’t have 60 Senate seats.
When it comes to the Senate, winning 60 seats is the goal of each party. In 2009, Obamacare was barely only passed because Democrats had 60 seats. Republicans only have 54 seats going into 2017. This means even if Trump has every single Republican in the Senate on his side, his policy proposals will collect dust without support from some Democrats.
3. Several Republicans aren’t even on board.
For months, elite Republicans in other offices have already stated their dislike for Trump and even said they were voting for Hillary Clinton over him. Can you blame them? You know that wall that Mexico is supposedly paying for? Yeah, they’re not. Mexico has rejected the idea of paying for it and it would take billions of our tax dollars to build a wall and deport millions of immigrants. That’s not flying with the fiscally conservative and small-government-types (aka Republicans). Even Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence has renounced some of Trump’s policies.
2. He’s already going back on a lot of his policy proposals.
Trump’s website no longer advertises his notorious idea to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. If he does that not even 24 hours after claiming his big win, I have a feeling he’s probably going to cave on other things once the reality of being President and having real problems to worry about hits him.
1. If we can survive George W. Bush for 8 years, we can pretty much get through anything.
Even though we were in elementary school during his presidency, it wasn’t hard for kids even our age to see the problems with our country. After being elected in 2000, he started two wars, mishandled the response to the infamous Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (aka the costliest natural disaster, and* one of the top 5 deadliest hurricanes), and invited the Great Recession to make itself at home in our economy for many years to come. However, since then, our economy situation has been alleviated (kinda sorta), unemployment is below 5 percent, and we’ve mostly recovered. What I’m trying to say is, no matter how badly one president screws up, we can turn it back around…again.