The song was one of the greatest by classic 60s singers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel which not only marked a generation, but also treats a theme we all know. “I am a rock” is the song that best describes our fear of loneliness and how no person wants to be alone. This song could well describe the occupant of the White House.
Electoral Colleges
During the presidential campaign between Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and eventual winner Republican #Donald Trump the population as a whole, beginning with the newspapers, took a running count of the Electoral College votes that would ultimately decided the results.
As the polls seemed to indicate a win for the first female candidate for the highest Office in the land the Republican made a comment that would haunt him as we went into the White House. On a number of occasions he stated that the popular vote was the only one that counted and that he would not accept the result if Clinton won on the Electoral Colleges and he on the popular vote.
His impression was constantly reinforced by what he saw as overwhelming attendances at his campaign rallies that he offered as proof that he was the more popular candidate. Fate is a fickle thing and gave him an answer that almost nobody foresaw and he certainly did not welcome.
Final result
On the night of November 8th the tally of the Colleges gave the victory to the businessman turned politician, but the popular vote went to the Democrat.
The very result he had stated he would not accept.
The new President had seen the election campaign as a high school popularity contest and he saw the final result as a personal snub. Since then he has repeatedly offered conspiracy theories of voter fraud to explain that he had been robbed of victory.
To make matters worse he took personally the crowd numbers of Inauguration Day on January 20th when the newspapers and the media as a whole stated that the attendance was below that of his hated predecessor Barack Obama.
These numbers then became a subject of controversy for the President ordered government departments to furnish photos to prove that once more the Press Corps was providing what he still considers “fake news”. This too proved a vain undertaking.
The Apprentice
In the middle of these waves of tweets and press announcements from the Oval Office about his popularity Donald Trump even tweeted about what the ratings of the new season of ‘The Apprentice’ with Arnold Schwarzenegger and here too he had to emphasize that his programme was even more popular than the new version.
In addition, the staff he chose for the White House has made the situation even worse.
Choosing staff for their capacity to unquestioningly back his claims of popularity only reinforced his own impressions and desires but the political realities and the challenges to his decisions have provided solid evidence that this desire is not being fulfilled.
In the weeks since the Inauguration the man who wants to be popular has begun to realize that the office of President on the United States is not a place to prove his popularity.
Growing up
Like high school the election is over and the student come candidate must now grow up and undertake the tasks that life and the election have given him. Even more, he has begun to understand that the popularity is not based on personal desires, but on the results of his decisions and actions that all too often, like Obamacare, directly affect the daily lives of the country’s citizens.
Yes, we all want to be popular, but the Oval Office is not a place to prove it. The White House is a place of work where the product is the country’s quality of life. Personal popularity is not the final the measure of success, only the results do so.
It is a painful step for anyone but one that Donald Trump must now take because the occupant of the Oval Office is always the loneliest man in the world, no matter who the President is.