Brace yourself, folks. I know it’s been fun and light-hearted thus far, but it’s time to get political.
We, being myself and my audience, are not yet on terms to jump into the hard-hitting stuff like abortion and LGBTQ rights. While I do have opinions on those things, it’s not yet the time. Gathering an audience for a column is like taking antidepressants; you have to ease yourself into it and it’ll take a while before you see any results. That being said, today, we’re starting easy with Donald Trump.
 
“Start with a headline-grabbing demand, beat chest loudly, then accept whatever is actually practical and call it a win.” That is a quote from Donald Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal.” I have not read that book, but I read the brief in which the New York Times quoted it, so that has to count for something. However, even just reading this single line explains Trump’s presidency better than any political analyst I’ve seen.
Think about the examples. During his campaign, he promised a border wall, the destruction of North Korea, fewer taxes and consistently called his opponent “Crooked Hillary.” All of these things certainly caught headlines, so consider that step successful.
His nickname for Hillary Clinton and call for her imprisonment may have just been an over-the-top tactic to gain what was actually practical: her loss. It makes sense when you realize that he hasn’t perpetually asked for her to be arrested since his election.
These steps of demanding too much and getting just enough almost seem to actually be working. His demands for border control almost got him funding for his border wall with a bipartisan deal back when Congress was still debating the country’s budget. The deal was DACA for Democrats and border wall for Republicans, which would have gone through if Trump hadn’t decided to “beat chest loudly” a little more. Who knows what he’s actually going for if he didn’t consider that deal “actually practical?”
That brief Twitter war with Kim Jong-Un about nuking each other that scared the living daylights out of Americans might have just been his way of bringing the Singapore summit to fruition. Maybe even this trade war with China and NAFTA is some sort of strategy to negotiate something that Trump sees as beneficial to the US.
It was said back in 2016 that people were voting for him because he wasn’t a politician.  That’s still true; he’s not a politician, he’s a businessman. People laughed at that then, but, whether you agree with his goals or not, Trump’s means might actually be working.
Undeniably, there’s something sketchy going on with Russia and the election that needs sorted out. God bless the special counsel, Robert Mueller in his endeavors, but, by all intents and purposes, a business model of asking high and getting reasonable might have some success in the political sphere. Who knew?
The ironic thing is, as much as this plan might work, it’s unlikely anyone else will ever pick up that model. When it comes time to elect someone else, I doubt the country will be immediately willing to elect another businessman and jump right back onto the wild roller coaster ride this political season has been. This presidency has thrown political analysts for a complete loop, and the unpredictability of negotiation is not very reassuring to the press and public when their elected officials are negotiating with their tax dollars and livelihood.
The truth is that no one has any idea what’s going to happen including Trump himself. That’s the beauty and horror of business, and now political, negotiations: even those most involved don’t know what the endgame is until the game is ended.