Agenda-Setting

                                               Sean Spicer about handling ISIS

Foreign policy has been a big topic that the Trump campaign has worked on tackling since Donald Trump began his campaigning in early 2015. Around the world attacks have been happening far too frequently and plenty of Americans are looking for reassurance from their government that we are indeed in a safe country that can handle terrorist groups such as ISIS. Taken from his webpage his campaign writes “Defeating ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups will be our highest priority. To defeat and destroy these groups, we will pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations when necessary. In addition, the Trump Administration will work with international partners to cut off funding for terrorist groups, to expand intelligence sharing, and to engage in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting” (whitehouse.gov, 2017). They are very adamant about taking the necessary steps to keep our country safe, not shying away from the possibility of “aggressive joint and coalition military operations if need be. This agenda is a stance that helped Trump gain a lot of supporters throughout his presidential campaign. They saw Trump as a powerful and determined leader that would not be afraid to fight fire with fire if necessary.

This leads to the next issue that Trump considers which is making the military stronger than it has been in the past. “Our military needs every asset at its disposal to defend America. We cannot allow other nations to surpass our military capability. The Trump Administration will pursue the highest level of military readiness” (whitehouse.gov, 2017). Despite how unpredictable President Trump has been in what he supports, like his foreign policy, his stance on military expansion is something that he has stood by over time. From an outsider’s perspective, I question the end goal of what the Trump administration is trying to do with further strengthening our military. It seems to me that our military is already one of the strongest in the world and we might need to focus on other issues such as the racial divide in our country or getting clean water to the unfortunate Americans that cannot get it.

                                        Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's Shared Agendas

While both candidates were clearly divided on a lot of subjects there were certain subject areas that I found the two presidential candidates to agree on. Clinton and Trump were both in favor for cutting taxes for the lower and middle class Americans. An issue that was talked about constantly during the election and one where the two feuding candidates could set their differences aside and agree with one another. Along with that, the two candidates also agreed that some parts of the United States government layout needed to change. While what each candidate thought needed to change were different in most aspects, they both agreed upon this idea overall together.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/trump-navy-warship-military-spending.html?_r=0

The article that I found after google searching about Trumps plan to increase spending into the government pointed out the skepticism that many people had about the plan. Because of our already enormous deficit people (rightfully so), were skeptical about putting more money into the military. After having researched Trump over almost the entire semester now, what the New York Times has to say about what the president is the least of his concerns. My only hope is that we don't get into a war that we don't need to be in.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/making-our-military-strong-again
https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-foreign-policy