Summary
The results of the recent presidential elections have definitely taken the United States by surprise. The outcomes of the voting can be deemed as purely democratic and, therefore, not dubious in any way. The way in which the election results have divided the country, however, imply that the issue will need to be addressed thoroughly. In a recent episode of the 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl mentioned some of the problems on the tip of the tongue of many Americans, addressing the pillars that the American political system had been founded on, i.e., public participation, democracy, and the role that information plays in the political life of a country.
The interview with the president elect allowed shedding a lot of light on some of the most controversial aspects of the presidential election campaign, the debates, and the outcomes. Particularly, Trump pointed to the fact that he was, in fact, serious about his future position as the president of the United States, and that he embraced the magnitude of the issues that he would have to deal with once he started his presidential routine. For instance, the conversation with Barack Obama, during which the issues in the Middle East had been discussed, was brought up as one of the essential factors that shaped the course of Trumpās politics. Furthermore, some of the obscure issues regarding the changes that Trump was going to make in the U.S. foreign policy stance, particularly, building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, were clarified. Overall, the conversation served as a very basic purpose, which was to show that the future of the United States would not be in shambles once Trump was in the Presidentās chair.
Integration
As stressed above, the conversation touched upon a range of democracy-related concerns that the U.S. citizens had. Therefore, the question whether the government policies continued to reflect the wishes of the citizens as required by the democratic principles was raised. The identified problem is linked directly to the problems of authorities voicing the needs of the citizens (Greenberg and Page 11).
Furthermore, the direction that the new president-elect was supposedly going with when addressing some of the topical social and economic concerns seemed to fail. Particularly, it did not meet the needs of all members of the American population. Therefore, the conversation tackled some of the aspects of the political equality principles that rule the current U.S. political environment (Greenberg and Page 11).
At this point, the issue of the democracy standard should be brought up (Greenberg and Page 26). There is no secret that the concept has been experiencing drastic changes over the past few centuries. However, the very idea has remained the same.
Specifically, the provision of equal rights for all citizens of the United States is viewed as the ultimate principle that the state authorities must follow. Seeing that some of the statements made earlier by Trump did not seem to coincide with the identified postulates, clarifying the issue seemed quite necessary. Therefore, the interview served as the foil for promoting reconciliation.
Commentary
Even though the interview turned out to be very informative, it still failed to remove the air of controversy from the election results. Naturally, it would be wrong to expect that a sixty-minute talk will help resolve the issues that have been tearing the nation apart. Nevertheless, it did not convince the target audience that trump is the right person to be at the helm of the country at present.
Nevertheless, the interview showed that the president elect is ready for a compromise. Therefore, the foundation for a constructive dialogue has been created. Despite the inconsistencies between the principle of democracy as they are traditionally described and the ideas voiced by Trump, there is hope that the United States will retail its essential democratic ideas.
Work Cited
Greenberg, Edward S., and Benjamin I. Page. Struggle for Democracy. The 2014 Election Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2014.