New Year, Same Darn Drama: Obscenities from the Oval Office

Since Donald Trump assumed the office of President of the United States this time last year, the former host of The Apprentice has found himself in controversy after controversy in what many label as perhaps, the most chaotic presidency the United States has ever seen.
The latest scandal to grace front pages everywhere is a concerning one, Stormy Daniels and a steamy encounter she had with our Head of State in 2006, just after First Lady, Melania Trump, gave birth to their youngest son, Baron.
According to Daniels, she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006 in the state of Nevada,where she agreed to come back with Trump to his hotel.
In an interview with InTouch Magazine in 2011, Daniels described the encounter with the POTUS as “textbook generic” and “what you would expect someone his age to do”.
Prior to Trump winning the presidency in November of 2016, he and his lawyer met Daniels and hers to compose a nondisclosure agreement that would pay Daniels an excess of $130,000 not to tell anyone of their encounter years prior.
When this story first surfaced, the most shocking thing about it was that no one in the media or the public seemed to care, at least enough to say anything about it.
The reason behind this overwhelming sense of indifference left me bewildered for the most part, until I thought about how I felt about it personally. Personally, I didn’t care anymore that the president does these wacky things that would have slandered any other sitting president into isolation.
That is when I realized a startling truth to this story, and that truth is that we have become numb to the shortcomings of Donald Trump.
This realization brought other startling thoughts to mind, namely what this means for the future of his term and the future of the office of President.
In the past, when a president did something unpresidential, they were publicly shamed, and if the actions were heinous enough, maybe he would be impeached.
The thing with Trump is that he feels no shame for his actions or what he says, and the same could be said about his still-loyal followers.
Similarly, the idea of impeachment is laughable from the perspective that the majority of the Senate are Republicans who refuse to call out Trump on his policies and character.
I have always been one to put my faith in the kingdom, not its tyrannical leaders. The same applies with Americans and Donald Trump.
I understand the fear in the hearts of many that we are tumbling into oblivion at a record pace under the leadership we have had up to this point. But that reality shouldn’t force us to abandon the principles that have come to define us as a people.
As citizens, it is our responsibility to hold our leaders accountable and to a higher standard than we would anyone else. As citizens, it is our responsibility to stand by the principles of morality that our founders believed could stand the test of time.
The United States is perhaps the greatest empire the world has ever seen, but it is still, in fact, one of the many empires to grace the face of the Earth, and it will not be the last. So it is up to us, as a morally sound people, to show the world that having morals and holding ourselves accountable for our actions mean more than being a “loser,” as our president has grown fond of labeling his adversaries.
It is up to us keep integrity alive, and to keep the spirit of democracy alive so that the future of our people will be brighter than the darkness we have allowed ourselves to be swallowed up in.