Donald J. Trump Political Career
Donald Trump, politician, entrepreneur, real estate developer, television personality and the 45th President of the United States, was once known around the world for his high-profile personality and the bold moves made by American presidents during his time in office. On 8 August 2022, Trump’s Sea Lake estate was raided by the FBI. A search warrant and a list of items to be searched were released by a US federal court, showing that the FBI was investigating Trump on three alleged federal charges. Some media reports suggest that the controversial former US president could face criminal charges. As the investigation into Trump continues, let’s follow the chronology of the super-rich man’s political career. Unlike other super-rich people, Trump does not come from an illustrious family. Donald Trump is descended from German immigrants and his grandfather Friedrich ran a small vineyard in his early years, mainly in the business of making and selling wine. However, the business went bankrupt and he had to follow the wave of immigrants to the United States with no hope of paying off his debts. In 1918, Friedrich died with hundreds of thousands of dollars and three children, after a long period of alcoholism had taken its toll on his health. Among the three children was Fred, Trump’s father. After graduating from high school, Fred began working as an apprentice on construction sites in the Quin Tucky area and aspired to become a real estate businessman. Using his father’s inheritance, Fred started building his own commercial properties in the Quintenary and finally made his first fortune. He then went on to specialize in the construction of commercial homes, which often sold out quickly because of their affordability. On 14 June 1946, Fred’s fourth son, Trump, was born in New York City, USA.
Thanks to his affluent family, Donald Trump was exposed to business from an early age and developed a keen interest in it. At the request of his parents, Trump had to transfer to military school in the hope of developing a strong physique. After graduating from military school, Trump applied to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and was soon accepted. Through the help of his father and Trump’s experience at Wharton, Trump decided to contract the Commodore Hotel in Grand Central Station, New York. From there, he continued to build his business empire. By 1999, his properties included not only real estate and hotels, but also culture, casinos, entertainment and sports.
In 1990, Jesse Ventura retired from professional wrestling and was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park in his first campaign, and in 1999, he went on to defeat the mayor of St Paul to be elected governor of Minnesota. This event, had a huge impact on Trump. Since then, he has been in frequent contact with Jesse Ventura and has developed a close personal relationship, trying to find out how he has succeeded in the political arena.
In October 2003, Trump was inspired by the successful election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood actor who starred in The Terminator, to the governorship of California. Since then, Trump has made several public announcements about his desire to run for president.
On 4 November 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama defeated Republican candidate John McCain to become the first black president in US history, and on 20 January 2009, he was sworn in as the 56th and 44th president of the United States. Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with Obama’s ideas and supported McCain on several public occasions.
In 2009, Trump rejoined the Republican Party and began preparing for the next US presidential election. Previously, he had first joined the Republican Party in 1987, and in 2012, Obama began seeking re-election on behalf of the Democrats, while Trump was poised to make a block on behalf of the Republicans. However, after meticulous and careful polling, his campaign team believed that his opponent was as good as gold and eventually persuaded him to abandon the race, which he had no chance of winning.
In 2016, with Obama’s second presidential term about to expire, Trump, who was already 70 years old, finally jumped in and announced his candidacy for the next president on behalf of the Republican Party. In the end, he managed to defeat his party rivals to win the final nomination and prepared for a final showdown with Democratic candidate Hillary, launching a sprint towards his life goal of the presidency.
Trump is a complete “political newcomer” to Hillary, who has been in politics for many years. However, this shortcoming has also become his selling point, as he continues to incite voters to “leave elitism behind” and “renew the face of politics” during the campaign. At the same time, Trump also used his business achievements to build up his image and ability to present himself as an indomitable and defiant “civilian hero”, quickly winning the support of a large number of lower- and middle-class people. Hillary, on the other hand, is the opposite, with her titles of “First Lady”, “Senator from New York” and “Secretary of State”, making her too high profile to be accessible and recognizable to the public. The Hillary Clinton’s Email Controversy followed. The subsequent email scandal forced Hillary’s team to deal with a series of judicial investigations, and Hillary’s original lead in the polls began to fall sharply.
On 8 November 2016, Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States, defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump received 306 electoral votes from the states in the presidential election to Hillary Clinton’s 232; On 19 December, the US Electoral College will vote to officially confirm the winner of the US presidential election.
Since entering the White House, Trump has made a series of reforms to US politics and can be broadly summarized in several areas.
On the economy, tax cuts across the board, in September 2017, the Trump administration unveiled a detailed tax reform plan, reducing individual income tax brackets from seven to three, repealing the estate tax and doubling the amount of tax-free income; and changing the top corporate tax rate from 15% down to 20% out of the April outline. Financial deregulation and increased investment in infrastructure.
Politically, reduce US control in international organizations. As of 2020, Trump has withdrawn from a number of organizations and associations, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement, the Iran Nuclear Agreement and the UN Human Rights Council. The announcement of a US-Mexico border wall to reduce the number of foreign migrants and smugglers. On 25 January 2017, Trump signed two executive orders at the Department of Homeland Security aimed at strengthening border security and tightening immigration policies, claiming that he would use federal funds to start work on a wall at the US-Mexico border within a few months. After frequently stirring up trade disputes and the official start of his term, Trump turned the first fire of trade remedies on Canada, with initial rulings in April and June 2017 and a final decision in November to impose countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood products. Since then, the Trump administration has issued trade sanctions and trade investigations against major economies such as China, South Korea and Japan.
These political and economic moves have weakened Trump’s support to some extent, but they are far from enough to affect his re-election campaign. What really brought Trump’s administration to an end was the Trump administration’s performance in response to the Covid-19 outbreak and his own inappropriate comments.
In March of 2020, the Covid-19 virus began spreading around the world and was certified as a Pandemic by the WTO. But the Trump administration’s precautions against the New Coronavirus were not strict. Across the US, the Trump administration did not pursue a large-scale construction of Coronavirus testing sites and mandatory social quarantine measures. The poor response up front has led to an economic and demographic hit in the U.S. More than 18 million people were diagnosed and nearly 320,000 died in December 2020, with a 7-day average of more than 200,000 new confirmed cases, and this trend continues for some time. At the same time, the epidemic hit the US retail, leisure and hospitality sectors hard and unemployment rate soared to 14.7%, the highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The previous political moves combined with the trigger of epidemic sent Trump’s approval rating into the worst level in history. On 15 December 2020, a total of 538 electors in the US Electoral College cast their electoral votes in accordance with the results of the state elections, confirming Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the US election and the next President of the United States, on 14 December 2020 local time.
Trump’s supporters and Trump himself then seemed unhappy with the result, and on 6 January 2021, Trump’s supporters held a massive demonstration against Biden’s election in Washington, DC. Hundreds of protesters gathered in the US capital, Washington DC, to put pressure on the ongoing joint session of Congress. On 7 January 2021, a joint session of Congress confirmed that Biden had won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 and that Biden had been elected as the next President of the United States. The furor died down after the confirmation by the joint session of the US Congress was made, but the incident left a total of five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer, and some 140 law enforcement officers injured.
On 8 January 2021, the social media Twitter announced that it had permanently blocked Trump’s account, marking it the end of the Twitter-loving president’s first term in the White House against a backdrop of great reluctance on himself. On 25 January 2021, Trump established an official “Office of the Former President” in Palm Beach County, Florida. This office will manage Trump’s correspondence, public statements, appearances and official events.
Although former President Trump himself, who has been “raided” by FBI agents at his home and has a lawsuit on his hands, has not yet made a clear statement on whether he will run in the 2024 US presidential election, as recently as 16 August 2022, Trump’s endorsed lawyer Hagman won the US midterm elections by a massive 66% to 29% margin. 29% in a huge sweep of veteran politician Liz Cheney, formerly the number three Republican in the House of Representatives. Trump’s support among Republican voters rose further to 58% after the FBI raid on Trump’s Sea Lake estate, reaching a peak since his defeat in 2020. All the signs seem to indicate that Trump has the condition to re-enter and win the presidential race. But that will only be possible if the FBI investigation ends to the satisfaction of both himself and his supporters.
By JIN Kaiwei
