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One Year In
Reflections on and Reactions to
Trump’s First Year

T. A. Silvestri, 1/20/18

W ELL, HERE WE ARE. SOMEHOW, DONALD TRUMP

has been the President of the United States for a year. More
than a few people (including me) thought we might not make it
this far, for reasons ranging from impeachment to rage-quitting to
death from natural causes. Instead, Trump still occupies the Oval
Office. In yet another twist that makes me wonder if this isn’t all
being scripted, a government shutdown began at midnight,
serving as a fitting welcome for the Trump presidency’s
anniversary.
It would be easy to outline a list of the near-weekly disasters
that emanated from the West Wing since Trump was sworn in,
but it’s wouldn’t tread any new ground, and it wouldn’t do any
good. Anyone who pays attention already knows things are a mess.
Instead, I want to focus on the lessons I’ve learned from Trump’s
first year in office, and briefly reflect on how I think we got here
and where I think we need to go.
At the outset, I need to say that the administration’s actions
over the last year have been, for the most part, unequivocally
wrong. I’ve spent the last year oscillating wildly between laughing
at what Benjamin Wittes has called “malevolence tempered by
incompetence” and being viscerally horrified by it. For most of
One Year In 2

the year, I cringed every time my phone buzzed with a news alert,
and more often than not, that cringe was deserved. With that in
mind, I want to begin with a reflection on the election itself, which
may well be the most controversial part of this.

On the Election
I voted for Gary Johnson. Upon further reflection, that was
a mistake.
The idea of voting for Trump never crossed my mind. During
the campaign, he was vile, coarse, and, quite simply, the antithesis
of what I thought a president should be. And whatever blame you
place on me and my ilk (much of which I think is fair), remember
that nearly 63 million people voted for Trump himself. I am proud
to not count myself among that number.
So why didn’t I vote for Hillary Clinton? There were a couple
reasons, none of which I think stand up to scrutiny anymore. In
an October 2016 essay discouraging friends from voting for
Trump, I wrote, “I can’t stand Hillary Clinton, and will almost
certainly not vote for her. She is a seriously flawed candidate, and
I don’t want her to be the president. Hillary Clinton represents
everything wrong with politics.” Unfortunately, because Trump
won, “everything wrong with politics” has a new meaning.
I felt safe. I thought there was no way that Trump could win,
and so I had the wiggle room to play around during an election
under the guise of some commitment to principles. But this wasn’t
the election to risk. This wasn’t Romney vs. Obama, where there
were two men I thought would be decent (if not good) presidents.
This wasn’t McCain vs. Obama, where each candidate was, as
McCain put it, “a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen
to have disagreements with on fundamental issues . . . a decent
person that you do not have to be scared of as president.” I
had good reason to be scared of Trump as president, and I
T. A. Silvestri 3

squandered the chance to stop him. For reasons I’ll get into
later, I won’t make that mistake again.
Sure, I was bothered by Clinton’s e-mails. Maybe they
compromised national security. But the current president is a
threat to national security himself. We live in a time where the
Commander-in-Chief actively escalates nuclear tensions with
enemies via Twitter. I understand why people called Hillary
corrupt, unlikeable, etc. But looking back on it, it’s clear that she
would have at least run a functioning, competent administration.
She was eminently qualified. I might not have liked all of what she
did (I certainly didn’t with Obama), but I could have tolerated it.
That’s more than I can say about where I am today.
If I’m being honest, I think there was a certain amount of
sexism that played into a lot of people, including me, not voting
for Clinton. I have very little doubt that I would have excused e-
mails or corruption (imagined or otherwise) had it been Joe Biden
or Martin O’Malley against Trump. I think that I have some
deeply-ingrained notions of what a president must be, and,
unfortunately one of those is that they be a man. That is wrong.
Really, most people couldn’t have explained why the e-mails
were a big deal. I’m not sure I could either. I certainly couldn’t
have explained why they were a bigger deal than Trump’s brazen
disregard for the Constitution, norms of American governance,
and general decency. For reasons that are unfounded, I let the sex
of the candidates color my perceptions of them, and that is not
acceptable.
At the time, I wouldn’t have admitted that, and would have
railed against any suggestion that it was true. But as I sit here more
than a year removed from the election, I can admit to myself and
to the public that an insidious, subtle sexism contributed to my
decision to vote against both Clinton and Trump. The past year’s
#MeToo movement, combined with greater exposure to serious,
hard-hitting female thinkers like Susan Hennessey, Tamara
One Year In 4

Cofman Wittes, and Quinta Jurecic, has really opened my eyes on

this issue. In the future, I’m going to be better about checking my
implicit biases.
Having said that, I think the Democratic party bears a small
part of the blame. For a myriad of reasons, many of which are
unfair, not nearly enough of the American people were accepting
of Hillary Clinton. Had the party gauged the temperature of the
country better, they’d have known that, and not effectively made
Clinton the presumptive nominee before the primaries even
started. When your candidate can’t win against someone as
morally bankrupt as Trump, that speaks poorly to your political
acumen. Of course, this share of the blame is nowhere near as
large as that of Trump’s supporters.
A lot of things had to go wrong in order for us to get where
we are now, but it’s important that I take responsibility for my
part in it. I messed up, and I’m sorry.

On the Institutions and Future Elections

The Trump presidency hasn’t made me more liberal, at least
in a political sense. Instead, it’s turned me into a bona fide
institutionalist. I recognize now that there are important norms of
governance and politics that, while not written down anywhere,
are vital to our success as a nation. When they are ignored, as
Trump often does, our standing on the world stage is deeply
damaged, and our domestic credibility falls.
Trump’s reckless brand of governing, which regularly puts
American lives in danger, is not acceptable. Baseless and blatantly-
political attacks on the Justice Department, the press, and the
courts are dangerous; there is a difference between legitimate
criticism and a full-frontal assault on essential institutions of
American governance, and Trump has engaged in the latter.
Thousands of people have committed their studies and careers to
ensuring that the government runs in the best way possible. Even
T. A. Silvestri 5

when they have serious disagreements, they acknowledge that we

have a basic framework of democratic norms and principles that
shouldn’t be harmed. Exceedingly few of those people are Trump
supporters, who instead threw a match onto the political haystack
in the name of a vaguely-defined “change,” and then walked away
while serious adherents to American values put the fire out.
I am cutting ties with any Republican who was complicit in
Trump’s victory. I gave Rand Paul a $50 check during the
Republican primary; he will never receive another. Republicans
like Michigan Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley, Ohio Governor
John Kasich, and Arizona Senator Jeff Flake are laudable insofar
as they never supported Trump, and have not wavered from their
conservative principles. They believe in America, and recognize
that Trump is not a good thing for the long-term health of the
country. On that basis, people like them still have a chance of
earning my vote in the future. Republicans who actively
contributed to Trump’s ascendancy do not.
In the past, I have worked for both Democratic and
Republican candidates and legislators alike. I am by no means a
partisan. In the past, I voted for any candidate that I believed
would be beneficial to the expansion of human liberty, regardless
of party. But without basic norms like decency, objective truth,
and respect for a free press, liberty will never spread. We must
first have a base playing field for governance before actual,
constructive change can be Trump is such an existential threat to
those American values that I’ve changed my voting calculus. For
the foreseeable future, I will default to voting for the Democratic
candidate in any race, unless the Republican candidate is a.) not
an active opponent to most of the issues I care about, such as same-
sex marriage and criminal justice reform, and b.) openly and
unabashedly opposed to Trumpian politics. That sort of
Republican is a troublingly rare breed, and for that reason, I
suspect my ballots will look fairly blue for a while.
One Year In 6

On the windowsill by my desk, I keep a framed tweet by

Benjamin Wittes (from whom I’ve learned a lot this year). It reads,
“The fundamental fight is not between left and right, but between
proudly-ignorant, reckless, and incompetent indecency, and those
who oppose it.” Wittes is spot-on here. I count myself firmly
among the latter group, and no one who runs on any other basis
will not receive any support from me.

On Each Other and Moving Forward

That sentiment, however, does not extend as far as the people
in my life.1 For a time, I was virulently critical of anyone I knew
who voted for Trump. This year has made it clear to me that I
need to separate people from their politics.
A large part of Trump’s victory can be credited to a perceived
hostility against conservatives. While I think a lot of that feeling is
unfounded, the fact remains that it is sincerely held by millions of
people. If we want to return to decency, we have to be decent to
them. Calling them stupid will solve nothing. They were wrong,
but so was I, and so were a lot of us, even if it wasn’t about this
particular issue. We have to remember that there are well-meaning,
thoughtful people who made the calculation that Trump was in
their best interests. We need to address that.
Eventually, the Trump presidency will end. It could be as a
result of the Mueller probe, or it could be some other way. As
Daniel Drezner wrote in his excellent Washington Post piece,
“How Donald Trump needs to exit the White House,” I’d prefer
that exit be brought about by the ballot box. But when it happens,

1My ideal government is full of people that we have decided are the
best of us. While I recognize that this is rarely the truth, it can’t hurt to
aspire. I look to the Founding Fathers, who exhibited an intellectual and
moral fortitude that is sorely missed, and I long for those days again.
On those grounds, I treat politicians more harshly than I treat voters.
T. A. Silvestri 7

(and even before then) the way Trump supporters are treated will
be critical to making sure this never happens again.
It’s in this vein that I’ve been so baffled by negative liberal
reactions to Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. He is a conservative who
votes for conservative things, whether the president agrees with
them or not, and he calls Trump’s inadequacy out. This is exactly
the kind of Republican that anti-Trump folks should love. If
Congress had more Republicans like Flake, we’d be in a lot better
place.
Moving forward, we must truly sit down and listen to those
we disagree with. A few months ago, a friend asked me for my
opinion on something, as I was “the most conservative person”
he knew. While I admired that he was seeking out opposing
viewpoints, I found it deeply troublesome that I was the most
conservative person he felt like he could talk to. If I (a pro-choice,
pro-gay, pro-trans, pro-drug legalization, pro-immigration, anti-
war, New York Times subscriber) am the conservative person you
know, you should get to know more conservative people. Unless
we truly understand our political opponents, we’ll never get
anywhere constructive.
Furthermore, we absolutely must avoid resorting to the
tactics that Trump employs. The recent trend of criticizing the
president’s mental fitness on the basis of some alleged dementia
distressed me. Obviously, if the evidence supported the claim, it
would be a problem. But it’s been entirely armchair speculation,
and some have doubled down even after the military doctor who
performed Obama’s physicals assured the public that no such
affliction ailed Trump. As Michelle Obama so perfectly expressed
it, “When they go low, we go high.” As of late, there’s been a
troubling lack of Democrats going high.
If Trump teaches us one thing, I hope it’s that a respect for
the truth is paramount to a thriving democracy. Follow the facts
where they take you. This means not assuming the Mueller
One Year In 8

investigation will reveal collusion with the Russians. This means

not spreading baseless speculation about the president’s health.
This means doing our due diligence to verify stories, even if the
result is that something we like didn’t happen. And, most of all, it
means supporting institutions, people, and organizations that
stand up against reckless lies.
We are at a critical point in American history. In order to
come out on the other side of this intact, I offer a few simple
recommendations:
1. Take stock of your role in creating the Trump presidency,
whatever it may be. I doubt anyone is blameless.
2. Subscribe to a good newspaper. No more Google
Incognito to get around the paywall.
3. Read more primary sources associated with news stories
instead of hot takes reacting to them.
4. Continue to stay engaged. The one political thing I’ve
been delighted by this year is the degree to which the
average American knows the name of Cabinet members
and other important political figures.
5. Hug your loved ones, even if they voted adversely.
6. Call out racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms
of indecency whenever you see it, even if by those
aforementioned loved ones. Take care to do so in a way
that is not alienating or offensive; this causes more
problems than it solves.
7. Don’t stoop to Trump’s level. Ever.
America was already great, but it has its issues. With the right
attitude, this year (and however many subsequent years follow it)
can be one more issue we eventually overcome.
But if he gets re-elected, I’m moving to Canada.2

2 This is mostly a joke. Mostly.