In mid-January 2018, when the U.S. federal government faced its first shutdown in four years, Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer blamed Donald Trump as the reason why the Senate had not been able to pass a budget. “You don’t know what he is or isn’t going to sign,” Schumer griped. “It’s like negotiating with Jell-O. It’s next to impossible.”

Jell-O is a frustratingly accurate analogy for the Trump presidency as a whole, which celebrated its first anniversary on January 20th, 2018. In the past year, American citizens have seen a businessman-turned-reality TV star-turned-politician transform the nation’s highest office into something they never could’ve imagined in their lifetime – for good and for bad. Donald Trump ranks among Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt as one of the most enigmatic presidents of all time – and with the one-year mark finally past us, it’s time to evaluate the president on the term he’s led so far.

There are two facets to Donald Trump’s presidency: the policy, and the person. Upon closer re-examination of his domestic and foreign policy, Donald Trump feels less out-of-the-ordinary than he might seem at first glance; he follows the same fundamental conservative principles that Republican leaders have espoused for years. Major accomplishments achieved under Donald Trump, such as the Congressional tax reform bill and the withdrawal of the United States from the international Paris Climate Accords, are monumental, but not out of line for the Republican party as a whole. Saamia Khan ‘18, editor-in-chief of Ridge’s political journal, writes, “I am surprised to see that Trump has actually achieved quite a bit in his one year as president… He has stayed true to his goal of decreasing immigration and increasing deportations, actions other Republicans are sure to appreciate.” When Trump clinched the Republican nomination in 2016, conservatives feared they would receive an untameable White House madman who would demolish the values they stood for. In that respect, so far, Donald Trump has not disappointed them – to an extent.

After all, that’s not to say that there have not been unexpected policy decisions that have bewildered domestic and foreign leaders. From Trump’s surprise travel ban on foreigners from seven Muslim-majority countries announced last January to his rash decision to end transgender service in the U.S. military, it becomes clear that all of the analysts and directors and chairs in the U.S. federal government are merely playing second fiddle to Trump’s own mind. Nowhere has this become more evident than in Trump’s foreign policy, which has involved a retreat from global commitments and, most notably, a dangerous war of words with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Repeatedly, Trump has undermined traditional diplomatic tactics – including those employed by his own Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson – in favour of aggressive nationalistic tweets that have left Americans pondering the possibility of nuclear armageddon more than they’d prefer to.  From the repeated rejection of the Iran deal (that the United States has still not withdrawn from) to his sudden choice to accept Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, Trump has kept the global order on its toes, a choice that some of his supporters have defended as one of his strengths as a leader.

From here, the line becomes increasingly blurred as to the role Trump’s personal motivations define his presidency; it is impossible, after all, to talk about a presidency without talking about the man who shapes it. Trump’s presidency catches the world off-guard because, to sum it up in one word, he is childish. Events that would have massively shocked the American public during other presidencies – such as Trump’s tweeting a GIF of him beating up a man with CNN’s logo photoshopped on it – have become everyday occurrences for the 45th president. (Other incredulous moments include inexplicably tweeting “covfefe” and calling Kim Jong Un a “short and fat” “Rocket Man”.) The president’s year in office has had an indescribable special something to it that made it feel radically different than previous presidencies – and as it turns out, that special something is Donald Trump not giving a damn about anything that he says.

The Trump White House is equally cluttered. The recently-released book Fire and Fury describes an administration that resembles more of a kindergarten than it does a presidential administration, defined by personal feuds, bullying, and an overwhelming lack of communication. While the book’s claims cannot be substantiated, it’s easy to see why the report has credence; the first year of Trump’s presidency has involved the resignation of humiliated Press Secretary Sean Spicer, the removal of Anthony Scaramucci, (who lasted all of three days after he insinuated that Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was very, very, flexible), and Bannon himself, who immediately turned his efforts to trying to sabotage his former boss’s credibility with disparaging comments. Meanwhile, members of Trump’s cabinet have proven unpopular with both the American public and the president himself, with widely-scorned choices selected like Betsy DeVos (who was chosen to head the Department of Education, despite never having attended a public school) and staunch conservative Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was nearly bullied out of office by the president after he recused himself from the Russia investigation.

Speaking of which – the investigation hangs heavy over the administration’s senior officials. While Robert Mueller spearheads a comprehensive investigation into potential collusion with Russian officials in 2016, Trump has responded in a poor fashion, rebuking the investigation so harshly that Democratic senators even attempted impeachment for obstruction of justice. In normal Trump lingo, the president denied all accusations, likened the ordeal to a “Democratic witch hunt” and, as usual, attempted to turn attention back to his greatest pride and joy, his electoral victory over Hillary Clinton. The decision to fire James Comey from the FBI and continued Trump Tower investments keep the American public suspicious, and the Trump approach of “deny, deny, deny” has not garnered any results.

However, sometimes the president’s words veer from “unpresidential” to “dangerous”, especially regarding his policies towards women and minorities. Mothers all across the United States stood terrified in 2016 as a man who had claimed that with women, he “could do anything” and “just grab them by the pussy” won the presidency. The rise of the #MeToo movement in the latter half of 2017 has led to recent revelations that Trump administration paid huge settlements to over one hundred women accusing the president of sexual assault, resparking demands for Donald Trump to resign. Unfortunately, so far, it appears as if the office of the presidency remains too far out of reach for women’s rights activists. In addition, Trump’s policies have teetered on the edge of blatant racism (with a notable recent incident, involving Trump labelling Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as “shitholes” and questioning why their immigrants were being let into the U.S.). Trump notably failed to condemn white supremacists after the violent Charlottesville alt-right rally in August, and defended the presence of Confederate monuments across the country. Other moves, like labelling Mexicans as “rapists and criminals” and rescinding protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, have worried the Hispanic community. With the alt-right movement gaining momentum in the United States, the Trump presidency has undoubtedly marginalized minorities and created an atmosphere of fear in the country’s public environment.

Perhaps the most alarming lasting impact of the Trump presidency is the administration’s attack on the media – and by extension, their attack on the truth. From the very first day of his presidency, senior officials made blatantly false claims about everything from inaugural crowd sizes to accusations of Obama having wiretapped Trump Tower. However, conservative media has spun this in the president’s favor, alleging biased, anti-Trump news media of being the real liars. The concept of “fake news” allows Americans on both sides of the aisle to entirely ignore facts that do not support their narratives as being untrue, only willing to unplug their ears and stop chanting “la la la la la” once they find evidence that reaffirms their pre-decided policy positions. The president’s support of such a mindset has closed off the far-right from reality (and led to a similar movement in the far-left), allowing them to absorb biased news sources such as Breitbart and Fox News as the only torchbearers of truth – possibly even entailing the demise of democracy.

In Ridge High School, where anti-Trump liberals constitute the majority (or at least, vocal majority) of the student population, reception to the 45th president has not been warm. Derrick Ro ‘19 complains that “nearly everything he does is just wrong” – a sentiment shared by most of the students interviewed. Even conservative moderates, such as Jeffrey Li ‘20, who supported Trump during the election, have now changed their minds. Li remarks angrily, “My opinion has changed because of Trump’s irrational actions and lack of judgement… I don’t think he’s done anything.” For Li and numerous other disillusioned Trump supporters, the clueless, swaggering demeanor Trump conveys to the American public – outweighs any good that he has achieved for the conservative agenda as a policymaker.

One year may have passed, but there remain still three more to go. There’s no telling what could happen in 2018 and beyond (after all, Trump’s presence in the White House in the first place tells us that political predictions in our day and age are entirely futile). Trump has a long road ahead of him; in that time, the Jell-O that makes up our current president could harden, double down and solidify – or it could collapse entirely.