Mr. Trump has sometimes broken with familiar presidential decorum
Reality as seen from the Wall Street Journal editorial board: fine, everything is fine, don’t worry about it, the very fact that so many people are so disgusted by Trump shows that he’s not a problem.
As Donald Trump heads into his second year as President, we’re pleased to report that there hasn’t been a fascist coup in Washington. This must be terribly disappointing to the progressive elites who a year ago predicted an authoritarian America because Mr. Trump posed a unique threat to democratic norms. But it looks like the U.S. will have to settle for James Madison’s boring checks and balances.
The ones that prevent an incompetent ignorant corrupt malevolent bully from attaining executive power and access to nuclear weapons? Those boring checks and balances?
Mr. Trump’s rhetorical attacks on the media are excessive. But for all of his bluster, we haven’t seen a single case of Trump prosecutors seeking warrants to eavesdrop on journalists to discover their sources.
But Trump’s “excessive” and also relentless and non-stop attacks on the news media are not inert; they have an effect; they coach we don’t know how many millions of people to distrust the Times and the Post and trust Fox News.
Mr. Trump is also facing a special counsel investigation with essentially unchecked power to investigate him and his family.
As that family infiltrates the federal government in defiance of an anti-nepotism law and enriches itself in defiance of several anti-corruption laws.
The real story of the past year is that, despite the daily Trumpian melodrama, the U.S. political system is working more or less as usual. Mr. Trump has sometimes broken with familiar presidential decorum, especially in his public statements and attacks on individuals. But he is paying a considerable political price for that excess with an approval rating below 40% less than a year into his term.
But he’s still doing it. It’s not some minor little side issue.
But hey, stocks are up, so go buy a golf course or something.
Well? Is that more? Or less? In the case of the EPA, definitely less. In the case of the Department of the Interior, definitely less. In the case of the FBI, probably less. In the case of the State Department, definitely less. In the case of the Department of Education, I would say less, especially in light of the directions Betsy DeVos has given to colleges that leave them a lot more freedom to ignore sexual harassment and go about their happy way knowing the women on campus will not impede the happy progress of male entitlement.
Of course, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is almost certainly in agreement with all those actions, and does not see any loss of what they consider “proper” government function – the protection of rich men and their money, and the enabling of rich men getting richer without any interference from those pesky poor people (or middle class, for that matter – they probably hate the middle class more, because they see the money sitting in the middle class and want it for themselves).
“But hey, stocks are up, so go buy a golf course or something.”
Just goes to show how poor an indication the stock market is of the actual health and soundness of the US. The fact that it can go UP in the midsts of actions that will ultimately poison and kill untold numbers of Americans shows how narrow and short sighted the concepts of “worth”, “value” and “profit” are and how poor a guide they are for determining public policy. Short-term gain for a few that ruins everything and everyone else seems to be the favoured direction of the moment. How long before there is nobody left who can afford to buy anything? What of the costs of an environmentally ruined country with coastlines sinking beneath rising sea levels? When does this enter into the equation? Only once these “externalities” impact profits and shareholder dividends?
YNNB, don’t you know all that is FAKE NEWS!? Nothing is going to be ruined, it’s all going to be great again – just like it was in the 1880s, when the robber barons were free to rob, and the working class worked…and worked…and worked…and worked. Oh, and those bitches? They didn’t go out and do man things, taking jobs away from manly men. They stayed home and cleaned the house and had many babies and tried to stay pretty for their man as long as possible – and kept their mouths shut once they weren’t so pretty (because they’d had many babies) and their husband found pleasure with someone else…Well, maybe not that last, I mean, women would insist on complaining, but they won’t now, because MAGA…or something…
I hate Trump. (I don’t think I had said that yet today….)
Nah, in the 1880s women did all of the above *and* worked in the factories for the robber barons.
BKiSA – Shhhh! You’re not supposed to notice that women routinely worked outside the home throughout history! That is just FAKE NEWS! Women had babies and baked cookies and vacuumed in pearls…and knew their place!
Seriously, I do think few people know that. Just mention women pre-1950s, and they were all having babies and picking berries to supplement the mammoth kills their husbands brought home in their big bad day jobs. Never mind that the main reason my grandfather was able to keep the farm throughout the depression is that my grandmother was bringing home the mammoth (figuratively, of course) by working every day as a teacher. Everyone knows just knows that women have always been subordinate and housekeeper/baby makers that didn’t intrude on “men’s” zones until those pesky second wave feminists insisted that the life of luxury and carefree existence of women in the homes was interrupted, and those lucky-ducky women were forced into the work place to compete with men (who actually needed the jobs, unlike women who were just working for frills).
Our national narrative sucks, doesn’t it? Not to mention our species narrative, which isn’t much better.