I'll start this with saying "El Caudillo" is a Spanish term that roughly means "Strongman" a nationalist demogogue not much different from many of the Latin American presidential dictators through the last century.

Anyway I haven't written a journal in about a month....as I watch in horror a trainwreck of an administration...like it's barely been a month and it's stressing so many people out,looking at my newsfeed makes my blood pressure go up and scream internally. I'm not sure how to make of this, I mean there was so much stuff he did or attempted to do and so much crap being thrown it's hard to single one thing out and talk about how wrong it is. I mean, at first I was thinking ok maybe it won't be so bad, maybe he'd tone down the bullshit but nooo he doubled down and doing exactly what he said he would do, and more.

There's too many to count, but the recent conference...oh my God, Trump was blatantly proven wrong and he still tries to lie around it. He claimed that he had the largest electoral college win since Reagan, when actually Obama beat McCain 365-173(that's 192 vote margin) in 2008, and HW Bush beats Dukakis 426-111(that's a 315 vote margin), vs Trump's win over Hillary 304-227(a 77 vote margin not even half of Obama's), a reporter used this information and blatantly proved him false and in his defense he claims that's the information he's given, I'm like...this is easily searchable, I mean holy crap it took me 2 minutes to find the information for the 2008, 1988 and 2016 US elections, something he could've done instead of being on fucking Twitter all the time but nope, he's never wrong, anyone who disagrees with him is fake news(which he tweeted btw), to me that was one of the most blatant examples of him talking of his "alternative facts".

The whole ban against people from 7 Muslim majority countries was a complete and utter fuck up as well, with the ACLU and the Judicial branch coming to the rescue, reading the text of the executive order, sure it doesn't blatantly say Muslim ban but the fact they made exceptions for religious minorities and other such things kinda is making it lean towards that, and the fact people with green cards and translators who helped our military overseas were getting blocked, was just an example of how incompetent the current administration is. The fact that Trump talked about a Muslim ban, he talks only on terrorist attacks done by Muslim surpremcists whether major or minor right away, yet was silent on a white surpremicist shooting and killing several Muslims in a Quebec Mosque.

When an Orthodox Jew asks Trump about the rise of anti-semitism and what he can do about it, Trump was given a fucking softball and he couldn't handle it, he goes on talking about himself, and shutting him up, I'm like...seriously there is something really really wrong with him.

All his actions so far has shown he don't give a damn about anyone but himself and his loyal friends and the GOP are his accomplices, save a few, the nomination of Betsy Devos with a tie broken by Pence shows how much they care about our education system which needs reform in my opinion but not getting burned down by someone who has no experience with the job.

We lowered our standards so damn low, next time I apply for a job if they ask me I have experience I'll say well if you can be president without any experience I can do this job. I think perhaps for anyone to work in the US government we should have a civil service exam, perhaps we've taken "anyone can be president" a bit too far, because it seems, if you have money, integrity, intelligence or qualifications don't matter, the US is no longer a meritocracy that many say it is. I think our standards for president is way too low, of course there should never be a religious test, but surely background check, civic knowledge test, health and mental check, all that, cause if you're head of a nation of 320 million people, then damn you should be qualified. I admit I can consider myself a technocrat, but I got my reasons judging from what I've seen.

This has me and my family worried, my mom even told me that since I'm half Syrian I shouldn't say anything I should lie low and not cause trouble, saying that I worked too long and hard to get my degree which im 3 months away from(assuming I pass all my classes just fine), my parents came from countries that had presidents that act kinda like him, they know what it's like to live in a country with nationalist demogogues, and unregulated capitalism, which has ruined their countries, and it gave them a reason to come here, especially my mother, for a better life, now the US is turning that way? Hell no, at least I see people mobilizing and actually giving a damn about politics and at least if they're loud enough they can make a difference.

Anyway, here's John Oliver on the current administration and how Trump has to be among the most blatantly dishonest presidents we ever had, him and truth seem to be mutually exclusive of each other somehow.