So, Trump won. Now will anything actually change?

I am quite happy that he won but not as over-the-moon as many of my more politically-inclined/obsessed friends. I say this because things were supposed to be "dramatically different" virtually every time that anyone has won the Presidency in my lifetime and I stood back and watched virtually nothing change in any sort of meaningful capacity.

There is also the question of how politics have become so dirty in the past 10 years or so that we now see the news inundated with legal challenges to virtually anything that a President tries to do. I don't pretend to understand how all of that works but I do recall many many times in which Trump dictated that something was to be done, particularly with the construction of the border fence, only to have various judges strike it down as unconstitutional. There were a lot of other things as well.

Will it be different this time? I seriously doubt it.

I would like to think that something, really anything will be different under a 2nd Trump term, but my political disbelief goes back more than 20 years to make me believe that there will be a bunch of grandstanding and talking but no actual results. This isn't to say that Trump makes idle promises, I don't know if he actually does - it doesn't appear that way from my perspective. For me, I tend to think that it doesn't really matter who is in charge of the United States in their position, that the real running of the country and the world is done by people or organizations that don't get elected.

When you look at how much money was donated to both candidates this time around (it was something crazy like $3.5 billion) you can't help but feel as though a lot of favors are owed to a lot of people and that this may tie the hands of Trump and others who were elected. I think it would be glorious if he were to not keep this unspoken promise because, well, he is already immensely wealthy and doesn't need their donations ever again.

This is something that I think people need to pay more attention to in all major elections: both candidates are given money by groups that you probably don't want to be beholden to such as the military and pharmaceutical industries.

I am hopeful that something could change for the better with a Trump presidency but we all need to recognize that the system is still very much against him and anything that he tries to do will be met with as much resistance as is possible - even if what he is trying to do is for the benefit of the United States. The media will likely continue to take things he says out of context and edit video to make him look bad. The fact that these edits end up being pointed out to the public later on doesn't really seem to matter to most people.

You probably remember the above along with many many other things where the media intentionally altered stuff to make the man look as bad as possible.

There is just one thing that I am hopeful and believe the man can accomplish and that is to end the conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East. In his last term he kind of proved that he has some sort of ability to de-escalate conflicts and even bring countries that hate one another together: Whether this is done via intimidation or just by being convincing is anyone's guess but it did seem to be effective the last time he held that office.

While a lot of my friends are just filled with glee over this victory I am a bit more reluctant to celebrate because I have so many years of experience where Presidents didn't really change anything and just put our country further and further into a mountain of debt. If they do actually follow through on putting Musk in charge of streamlining the government you can bet your bottom dollar that this will be twisted and vilified in a way that makes it appear to the public as if Trump was cutting jobs to hurt people that aren't his supporters and honestly, for all those people that are do-nothing employees of the federal government, it is easy to understand why they wouldn't support Trump. He is threatening to take away their meal ticket even though they are likely fully aware of the fact that their position and perhaps the entire division of the government is an unnecessary drain on the public tax fund. I am sure they will make it a race thing as well.

So if you are out there celebrating Trump's victory I wish you the best. Just don't get your hopes too high that anything meaningful is actually going to change. I hope it will, but I have been let down too many times in the past to put too much in the way of sunshine and rainbows on this.