Blog Assignment 7

President Trump, for one of his negotiating strategies, tends to take a very extreme position which sometimes turns into a complete different position. It seems like Trump is hoping that the others to break their wills and move into the direction that Trump wants. If his strategy does not work, he reverse his own policies.

For example, Trump argued that "NATO is obsolete, because it's not taking care of terror" in 2016, and he changed his word in 2017 to "It's no longer obsolete." Regarding Syria civil war issue, Trump mentioned that "Syria is not our problem" before his election, but in 2017, he takes some action to Syria and ask other nations "to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria." Again, in 2015 he mentioned that he simply does not like export-import bank because "it is unnecessary", but in 2017 he changes his position by saying "Actually, it's a very good thing." 

In my opinion, Trump often makes remarks that comes out of his mouth without filter that are very extreme, and which are very likely to bring an issue and attention. I wonder if he is even taking his presidential position serious because, from one of his interview, Trump says that he loved his previous life, and he now has "so many things going. This is more work than in [his] previous life. [he] thought it would be easier." I find this an absolute nonsense. What kind of person thinks that President life is easy? This is not a game... Trump needs to watch out these extreme remarks unless he has a clear position.

Blog Assignment 6 - comment

Hello Kat,

First off, I really enjoyed reading your post! Your writing made me chuckle few times :) It was a very interesting topic and I agree entirely with your point. When I first learned about redistricting and gerrymandering in high school, it was really shocking to me at first because I grew up in another country where the president is directly elected by plurality vote. It definitely is a problem that the legislatures are abusing their power for their own benefits. I feel like this system makes some voices not to be heard. The minorities in each district might think that it is meaningless to vote because they know that they would not be able to win. So I agree that redistricting is deterring people from voting.

One thing I was worried is how to solve this problem. I thought it was a good solution to make a law that states the district lines are drawn based on population only, not on politics. However, the legislation is proposed by a member of the Congress, and the Congress consists of more Republicans than Democrats. So it is questionable whether there will be some sort of political factors when regulating this problem. Anyway, like you said, redistricting and gerrymandering are really needed for well-functioning democracy.