Thinking back thirty years to January 20, 2013, I have
to admit that I was a little disturbed and perhaps even terribly unhappy with
my situation. There I was, a
self-appointed poster-child for disillusionment with almost all institutional aspects
of America. I had grown up at the end of
the twentieth century and was pretty much willing to impugn any formal
organization, public institution and quite likely most existing modern mindsets
and “isms.” I was hardly an anarchist though
in any way, shape or form and I of course was a huge supporter of individual
freedom, but there is no way I could have seen myself as part of the process at
the time. I had prided my personal success
on being able to work-around process rather than immersing myself in it.
I also was an extremely successful businessman who had
accumulated wealth well into the billions.
I can’t say I was disillusioned at all about that part of America as it
had been simply a matter of hard-work, open-mindedness, a big chunk of
fairness, a strong vision and of course a little bit of good luck and timing
along the way.
I can honestly say that I was anti-government in most
of its forms at the start of the twenty-first century. In fact, one of the hallmarks of my business
success had been the ability to manage governmental process and obstacles. I had earned a reputation as someone who did
not really listen to governmental authority and regulation if a greater good
was being impeded. I pretty much held
government equally inept everywhere in the world. The USA though at the time was the worst.
Government in the early twenty-first century,
especially in the United States of America involved itself mostly in the
pursuit of self-interest and party politics.
The Republican and Democratic parties basically just postured and
opposed each other in order to undermine, disgrace and usurp the authority of
whichever party, at the time, happened to have won the previous election. To me, it was an absolute waste of time and
energy that delivered virtually no benefit to the average American. It was an elitist system that protected the
interests of the party, business interests and the wealthy. I had no interest in politics at the time and
contributed no personal energy or corporate finances to it in the years leading
up to 2013.
If you had, in fact, told me a year earlier, on my
forty-second birthday in 2012, that I was going to be the next president, and
that thirty years later my name would be synonymous with George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson, I would certainly have thought you to be
one of the dumbest people I had ever met.
There was no way in the world, that on March 31st, 2012, that
I could have imagined myself as president less than one year later.
This is why I was genuinely angry in January 2013 as I
was being sworn in as the forty-fifth President of the United States of
America. I can honestly say that in the
moment I really did not want the role and was wondering how I had just ruined
my life.
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