Travels disguised as pivots

If Donald Trump played professional basketball, he would have already established a penchant for traveling, or moving illegally with the ball. Usually a staple in NBA post-game highlights, video clips of players aimlessly moving their pivot foot while holding  the basketball are subsequently posted on Instagram and Twitter with outrageous hashtags and plenty of reposts. Post-game coverages even include a “top plays” list of the most foolish on-court moments for the week. February's joint address received throngs  of approval, with some of Trump’s most vehement critics calling it a legitimate “pivot.” If campaign rallies press conferences, public addresses with no condemnation of white supremacist terrorists, or tweets threatening foreign countries  are any indication,  it’s safe to suggest that Trump does not at all pivot as a president. Instead, he himself travels, and does so blatantly.

Had the presidential election and its results been anything like a basketball game, Trump would have compiled enough clips of him “traveling” on the campaign trail and beyond to make a full gag reel. Successfully performing what a majority of the nation believed  was a true “act of presidency,” according to polls after Trump’s address back in February, by reading from a teleprompter and not spewing explicitly divisive speech does not make someone “more presidential”, nor does it establish a pivot. Switching tone has  been seen before--in his campaign speeches and public addresses; Donald Trump has craftily moved around with the ball, illegally, and has yet to really be called out on it by his staunchest constituents.

Trump readily resorts to lines that poll well, and listeners and viewers of his conferences and addresses waver between feeling his scripted approach as increasingly “presidential” or totally divisive. Ever the crafty salesman, Trump continues to shift his pivot  foot more times than those of us could count, and if there had been a legitimate referee in the audience of his conference where he disrespected another Gold Star family, then a whistle would have been blown immediately.

Despite the palpable responses that quickly follow Trump saying, “We have begun draining the swamp," he nonetheless receives applause by pundits who have been waiting to capitalize on their moment to promote themselves as proponents of fair play. Specifics on how  the GOP would pay for their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare continue to stumble in the dark, but Trump’s platitudes about healthcare in America, disrespecting our flag, or condemning all the wrong parties somehow garner support still.  

The response to Donald Trump’s press conferences are baffling to say the least, as some of his most ardent critics quickly shift their tone, adopting a pivot of their own. If Trump was in fact a professional basketball player, he would have gotten away with one  of his more egregious travels-disguised-as-pivots after his attempting to console Gold Star families. How quickly those now on board forget, a large part of 2015 and 2016, a period rife with the controversial and the appalling during his campaign. When doing the most simplistic, most mundane, most necessary job of president suddenly makes you president, then our issues with the current administration’s powers are only now beginning.

Jamal Michel is a Duke graduate and an English teacher at Northern High School. His column runs on alternate Fridays.