February 13, 2017

Obama Accomplished Way More In His First Month Than Trump

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I’m jumping the gun a little here, but I’d like to remind everyone that during his first month in office, Barack Obama:

  • Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
  • Banned torture.
  • Signed a $787 billion stimulus bill.
  • Sent 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
  • Ended the month with a net job approval rating of +27 percent.

Donald Trump still has a few days to go, but so far he has:

  • Signed no legislation.
  • Mostly signed executive orders that are either routine (pay freezes, a halt to new regulation, reversing the Mexico City rule) or little more than PR messages to his base (cracking down on drug cartels, financial regulatory reviews, rebuilding the military, etc.).
  • Signed one executive order that was important, but rolled it out so incompetently that it caused massive chaos and was promptly overturned by the courts.
  • Sat idly by at dinner while aides discussed a North Korean missile launch and then failed to respond in any way at all.
  • Has presided over a White House so epically leak-prone and amateurish that people are already taking bets about which senior officials will get fired within the next few weeks.
  • Ended the month with a net job approval rating of about -8 percent.

This comparison extends to the new Republican Congress too. Obama’s Congress was busy immediately with serious legislation. Trump’s Congress is struggling to confirm cabinet nominees; is completely at sea about how to tackle Obamacare; and can’t seem to agree on how to handle corporate taxes and tariffs. I assume that big tax cuts for the rich are still on the agenda, but it’s not yet clear what else is.

Obviously Trump has done some genuine damage already,1 and both Trump and Congress have plenty of time left to wreak a tsunami of even more. But for a guy who was elected to shake things up, he sure hasn’t done much real shaking yet. Just a lot of big talk.

1In other words: don’t let your guard down. That’s not what I’m suggesting here.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate