Our presidents; your future

We rarely get political on this site, seeing that its primary objective is to teach probability and risk theory.  However today we’ll provide a small number of select viewpoints about our recent presidents and our future.  This adds context to topics that extremists are inundating us with on social media platforms.  Of course, this is by no means a complete representation of the many viewpoints that people worldwide have.  They are instead only our select perspective and ones that align the middle.

There is a large contrast between President Obama and President Trump.  I enjoyed for over three years working closely with the most senior officials in the former administration and have good friends who worked in the White House of the latter administration.  It’s fine to be in the middle yet exposed a bit to how policy making works.

President Obama had an enormous task, which I helped guide, on the large economic recovery following the global financial crisis that the previous conservative president left us with.  There was massive economic destruction and no clear recovery path.  Not as many historic proxies for global governments to lean on for learning.  In the second term he was able to pivot on many social justice issues that allowed breakthroughs for minorities to enjoy greater equality.  There was a bungled healthcare reform slammed somewhere in the middle there.

Not everything went perfectly, and there are indications that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have continued some of the bad and latent aspects of the policy formation from President Obama.  Still the overwhelming trajectory of President Obama’s presidency is one of improvement and cautious guidance.  Contrast this with proposals in China right now for their president to continue to build a 3rd term instead of start with a fresh plate, as Saudi Arabia has recently done.

Many people continued to feel both left out and left behind during President Obama’s terms (and perhaps prior to that).  Donald Trump, in his own “unique” way, was able to tap into that repressed fervency.  Sitting in a bubble of her own creation, Hillary Clinton missed the mid-Atlantic states completely.  Donald Trump meanwhile was present and much better sold a case to those marginalized voters that there would be a better way under his tenure.  We worked closely on polling analysis, critiques studied and leveraged from both 2016 candidates.  He barely won, but that’s now in the past.  Rehearsal is over, and now this is his show.  Voters in 2020 may ultimately decide based on his actual performance as a political leader this term, more so than relying on the sales promises he made previously as an "outsider" candidate.

There is a burgeoning new element of this country, and around the world, who are angered by the political commentary and policies from President Trump and his close allies.  Broader approval ratings are also quite weak, which should be surprising given the strength of the economy.  There is also far greater instability being pushed through the country and world.  Starting with immigration policies, foreign aid, tariffs, mad tweets directed at other foreign leaders, etc.

It seems highly unclear where this all goes.  There has been tremendous resiliency and momentum over the past year, but the risks (some of which would have been there anyway under a Hillary Clinton administration) are mounting quickly.  There is a high probability that the underlying performance of President Trump is just a little better on average versus the highly critical reviews we keep seeing in major news outlets.  He would probably be better served if he were more consistent and more compassionate, but in the end that might be too much to ask for (and it’s not the only measure of a President relative to underlying results).  It’s also possible that he successfully achieves much of his agenda in the first term, many benefit even if we do see an eventual recession, and a country still doesn’t vote for him in 2020.  There is after all, a little bit of randomness to this all.