Is it true that Donald Trump's administration accomplished more than any other administration in history?
This is a typical Trump trope (alliteration mine).If what is meant by it is that he has done more to harm us at home and in the world, then overwhelmingly yes.He has done more to make us look foolish to our neighbors to both the north and south, Canada and Mexico, who view this renegotiated USMCA as nothing more than NAFTA 2.0. There is hardly a difference between them. And yet Trump has made so much of it.And what Trump has done and is now doing to immigrants fleeing to our border in order to escape violence in their homelands, sets us back in the eyes of the world. Trump doesn’t understand that an immigrant’s fear of whatever obstacles he puts in their way near our border, won’t stop them from trying to escape the near certainty of death or rape in their own countries. Trump is letting only 60 persons into our country per day. This is illegal according to international laws and to our very own laws. His lunatic supporters in the Senate, of these and his many other crimes, will face the brutal judgment of history.In addition, our grandchildren will face the challenges of a world with much less potable water, arable land, available food, and dirtier air. Global climate change is actually real. And Trump and his minions deny it. Why is that? Are they just stupid? Or are they paid to look the other way? And is the answer just a distinction without a real difference? His Cabinet is chock full of incompetence, cronyism, and corruption. (Again, alliteration mine.) Evildoers all.On the world stage, I argue that we are ever closer to war with NK, with Iran, and with who knows whom else. China and Russia are hacking us near to political death. We are complicit in Syria and Yemen. Trump’s chump-in-law Jared is screwing up the Middle East because he is an intellectual lightweight. This is a generational genetic flaw that transfers down to children and up and across to parents-in-law. The White House is surrounded by stupid.We are the laughingstock of almost every other nation. We reject the TPP, the JCPOA, the Paris Climate Accords, the value of NATO and the EU. We defy our here-to-fore historical partners who have helped us keep the world safe for liberal democracies for more than 7 decades.And Trump wants to shunt all this aside in favor of what his gut tells him.I surmise that when one’s mind has left him, the gut is the only thing remaining.
Will Donald Trump be as bad as George W. Bush? Is it possible he and his cabinet will further deteriorate and destabilize the Middle East, or do something bad that ruins the world?
This might be controversial, and I may just be trying to reassure myself, but I think in the long term this could end up working out okay.One of the biggest roadblocks to liberal success under the Obama administration has been the GOP’s iron grip on the House and on state legislatures. Their 2010 wave election was perfectly timed with the district reapportionment that took place after the 2010 census, and they used their control of state houses to devastating effect, as we’ve seen in the heavily gerrymandered House districts across the country. The GOP has shown us that the greatest prize in American politics may not be the presidency (which is up for grabs every four years), but rather control of state houses during a census year (which is only on the table once a decade). And they continue to trounce Democrats in this category: Today, 25 state legislatures are completely controlled by the GOP, compared to only 6 that are fully controlled by the Democrats.Source: WikipediaYou’ll notice that there are numerous states (e.g. the Clinton states of New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, Washington, and Minnesota) where Democrats are performing significantly below their potential.Typically, you see significant backlash against a president during the midterm election of their first term. Even if popular sentiment nationwide follows that usual trend (and I’m guessing that it will), we will not see it reflected in Congressional races: the GOP majority in the House remains bulletproof, and the 2018 Senate election map is about as inhospitable for Democrats as any that I can recall. Neither chamber will flip in 2018, even if nationwide public opinion is demanding a change.This should lead to a rather explosive 2020 election, especially if Trump is the unmitigated disaster that many expect him to be, and Congressional Republicans are unable to wrest control of the policy agenda from his administration. If the Democrats nominate the right candidate, 2020 could become our own wave election. If we’re lucky, that election could give us more statehouses than we’ve had in a generation, just in time for the next census and district apportionment.Of course, there’s still the question of how Trump would take his loss. We’ve never had a sitting president refuse to step down, but Trump has raised the possibly of election rigging before. Anything is possible.