A short list of all the reasons I'm glad I didn't vote for Trump in 2024. During his first year he:
- Tried to get ATC to remove even more employees when they're already short staffed, and after an airliner / helicopter crash, killing everyone, at Ronald Reagan in Washington D.C.
- Emptied reservoirs in California to supply water to fight the fires, when there is no path for the water to reach the areas that would benefit, combined with draining water that would have been used for summer irrigation for farmers.
- Everything Musk related - whether his takeover of OMB or desired takeover of Treasury payments systems.
- Withdrew from the World Health Organization
- Withdrew from the Paris accords
- Revoked regulation to limit PFAS chemicals in the nation's water supply
- Temporarily blocked Bush's PEPFAR which attempted to reduce HIV and AIDS globally
- Froze research grants through the NIH, at least temporarily
- Pushed to move Palestinians from Gaza - although there is an acknowledged vast amount of reconstruction that needs done.
- Implemented tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China - note for those who haven't been paying attention - we really do pay the tariffs ourselves, and our exports are frequently met with reverse tariffs.
- Rescinded non-discrimination order for federal contractors
- Called for an end to Birthright Citizenship
- Fired career diplomats who did their job in prosecuting Trump's actions taken during his first term
- Made many poor choices for cabinet picks, but particularly RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth, not that the Trump 45 cabinet picks were stellar either.
- Fired independent inspector generals without going through due process
- Started mass deportations. We're a retail economy, and many industries rely on undocumented immigrants. We need young workers as the replacement birth rate will be below the needed level to prevent our population from shrinking shortly. We're about break even now. No objections to expelling criminals if they have an offense other than illegal border crossing, but beyond that, getting them established as citizens should be the focus.
- Pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists, particularly the 720 who were involved in violence.
- And just to include the plainly stupid, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America and Mt. Denali back to Mt. McKinley.
- The whole let's release everything - no wait, we need to sanitize it first - ordered to release everything - well we'll maybe get it all out by the end of Trump's term - mess surrounding Epstein.
- Pardoned a good many convicted criminals because they were good Republicans or good Republican supporters
- Pardoned a leader convicted drug transporter who was the former head of a country.
- Blew up a good number of purported drug runners who weren't even delivering drugs destined for the United States.
- Decided to go on a spree of capturing rogue oil tankers on the high seas.
- Snatched another leader of a country for having drug ties - hint it's about the oil.
Yes, the stock market is up and all that, but it would have been up even more with Harris in office. Inflation is still a thing, and growing. It was dropping before he took office. We've had a weak year for the job market, and getting worse. There was a long government shutdown. And he seems to want to get into a war with people we've been at peace with (if not happy with) for a long time like Venezuela or Denmark for that matter.