Why We Ask: Our mission and operations are funded 100% by conservatives like you. Please help us continue to extend Liberty to the next generation and support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today.

November 8, 2017

Trump’s America: Year One in Review

Trump has had some significant wins, and some major setbacks in his first year.

Today marks the one year anniversary of Donald Trump’s surprising election victory. Thus we now take a brief look back at Trump’s first year — the successes, the failures and the bit of both.

The successes:

Trump’s most improbable and therefore impressive feat was winning the election. After the vast majority of the mainstream media and commentators on both sides of the political aisle had given him almost no chance to win, Trump not only did win, but won decisively, proving that his campaign was much more in tune with the nation’s concerns at large than was anyone else, especially Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s nomination and the Senate’s subsequent confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is clearly his biggest achievement, and it’s potentially his longest-lasting impact on Washington. Gorsuch has proven to be an intellectual power with a deep commitment to the Constitution. Trump gets a positive grade for Gorsuch alone.

Trump has also strongly held to his commitment to drain the DC swamp via his deregulation crusade. Thus far he is on pace to outdo Ronald Reagan in slashing the scope and size of Washington’s bloated regulatory overreach, which is proving to save Americans billions. And his administration is proving to be fairly adept at making positive changes.

The failures:

The biggest and most obvious failure for Trump and quite frankly even more so for congressional Republicans is the inability to repeal or even moderately overhaul ObamaCare. In fact, Trump has yet to see a major legislative achievement despite the GOP controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump has failed to win over and build a united front with congressional Republicans, which has derailed much of his first year’s agenda and threatens future accomplishments.

The bit of both:

Honestly, this is where most of Trump’s first year should be classified. On foreign policy, Trump has proven to be surprisingly much more adept than most believed he would be. He has seen success in beating back the Islamic State and positively pressing the U.S. presence on the world scene, but the growing threats posed by North Korea and Iran as well as relations with China remain more of an open-ended question.

Trump’s relationship to the mainstream media has also proven a mixed bag. While he has successfully exposed the leftist bias and fake news propagated by the MSM, he has also frequently engaged in distracting and needless Twitter spats. Americans’ trust of the MSM is at historic lows, but trust in Trump isn’t much better.

As for immigration, Trump has successfully empowered law enforcement to crack down on the problem, which has produced a significant decrease in the number of illegals crossing the border. However, the construction of a border wall has been stymied by Congress’s slowness in getting a budget put together.

Every administration has its ups and downs and growing pains, and Trump’s is no different. On balance, however, despite suffering through historically negative press coverage and facing entrenched resistance from the opposition party, Trump has had a relatively good first year.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.