One-hundred days after Trump became President of the United States, about the best you can say is that he could have done even worse than he did. People make fun of him for only appointing a few dozen of the thousand-plus presidential appointees, but he's hit most of the top positions, including one Supreme Court justice, and he's picked some of the worst nominees imaginable -- in fact, a few way beyond anything rational fears imagined. But one of his worst picks, former General Michael Flynn as National Security Director, has already imploded, and another notorious one, Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, looks like he's been consigned to the dog house.
Despite having Republican congressional majorities, Trump has yet to pass any major legislation -- although he's proposed some, and/or bought into Paul Ryan's even more demented schemes. So thus far the main thing Trump has done has been to sign executive orders -- dozens of the things, nearly all aimed at undoing executive orders Obama had started signing once he realized he wasn't going to get any help from the Republican-controlled Congress. While Trump's orders are truly disturbing, that's not so much what they do -- even the ones that aren't promptly blocked by the courts -- as what they reveal about the administration's mentality (or lack thereof).
Trump has also had a relatively free hand when it comes to foreign policy -- especially the prerogatives that Congress has granted the president to bomb other countries. His first acts were to escalate American involvement in Yemen, although he's followed that up with attacks against America's usual targets in the Middle East: Syria, Iraq, and Libya. But while nothing good ever comes from America flexing its military muscles in the Middle East, a more dangerous scenario is unfolding with North Korea, with both sides threatening pre-emptive attacks in response to the other's alleged provocations. By insisting on an ever-more-constricting regime of sanctions, the US has cornered and wounded North Korea, while North Korea has developed both offensive and defensive weapons to such a point that an American attack would be very costly (especially for our ostensible allies in South Korea).
There are many reasons to worry about Trump's ability to handle this crisis. There's little evidence that he understands the risks, or even the history. On the other hand, he's spent eight years lambasting Obama for being indecisive and weak, so he's come into office wanting to look decisive and strong. Moreover, when he ordered an ineffective cruise missile attack on a Syrian air base he was broadly applauded -- a dangerous precedent for someone so fickle. Maybe he has people who will restrain him from ordering a similar attack on Korea, but he often resembles the "mad man" Nixon only feigned at. Nor does Kim Jong Un inspire much confidence as a well-grounded, rational leader (although see Andrei Lankov: Kim Jong Un Is a Survivor, Not a Madman).
First, some 100-day reviews:
Sasha Abramsky: Trump's First 100 Days: Workers Get Pummeled, People Fight Back
Jill Abramson/Kate Aronoff/Moustafa Bayoumi/Steven W Thrasher: 'Will we survive 1,361 more days?': Our panel's verdict on Trump's first 100 days: I especially take exception to Bayoumi's "If this doesn't kill us, it'll make us stronger." I'm afraid I've fallen into the habit of referring to predators (as in "predatory capitalism"), but an older term is perhaps more apt: parasites. Well-evolved parasites mastered the knack of draining without killing you, and victims of parasites rarely come out stronger.
Peter Dreier: Relax, Donald: After 100 Days, You've Already Done So Much
Bridgette Dunlap: After 100 Days of Trump, America's Gotten Corruption Fatigue
Jonathan Freedland: The lesson from Donald Trump's first 100 days: resistance is not futile
Will Kane: This land is your land: American reflections on Trump's first 100 days
Ran Lenz/Booth Gunter: 100 Days in Trump's America: From Southern Poverty Law Center, focus on "white nationalists" -- a key part of the Trump entourage, although I doubt they're very influential.
Nancy LeTourneau: 100 Days, 100 Horrors: Kinda schematic, but consider she was too lazy to read the critical Clinton campaign book Shattered before writing an article about how she couldn't bother to read it (Why I'm Not Interested in Being "Shattered" -- by the way, I checked the link to Kevin Drum she described as "a good job of challenging the book's assertion that Clinton ran a particularly horrible campaign" and found no compelling data or argument, just: "My horseback guess is that when you put it all together, she was about average as a candidate and her campaign was about average as a campaign").
Jim Newell: Trump's Biggest Mistake of His First 100 Days Was Embracing Paul Ryan's Cartoonishly Plutocratic Agenda: Retitled "Trump Could Have Broken the Democratic Party." The idea is that had Trump stuck to his populist program -- had he actually followed through and promoted American jobs while safeguarding the safety net and backing away from the foreign entanglements that have saddled us with wars and refugees -- he would break through the party divisions and become singularly popular. Still, that was never going to happen: the Republican Party these days doesn't allow that sort of heterodoxy, so he gave up any claim to independent thought when he joined. Admittedly, he thinks so little that wasn't much of a sacrifice. He thinks so little he didn't have a better idea anyway. So it didn't take long for Republicans to work out a satisfactory modus vivendi: they get him to front their agenda, and he and his family get their graft and perks. That's all he ever cared about in the first place.
Charles Pierce: The 100 Days: Who Can Stop an Unfit President*? Pierce has picked up the habit of adding an asterisk every time he refers to Trump as president, something those of you who don't remember Ford Frick may have trouble parsing. He focuses on the transcript of Trump's recent AP interview with its dozens of "(unintelligible)" notations, inserted for sections that don't even rise to the level of "[sic]." Casey Quinlan read the same interview, and concluded: Donald Trump doesn't know anything about the health care bill he's pushing.
William Rivers Pitt: Trump, the GOP and the 100-Day Dump Truck Wreck
Daniel Politi: Trump's 100-Day Speech Mimics His Presidency: Rambling, Lies, and Egomania
William Saletan: You Don't Have to Hate Donald Trump to See He Is Bad at His Job: Well, maybe not hate, but you do have to be able to look at him critically (or skeptically), and if you have that skill set you probably didn't care for him even before he got elected. The author is one of our most notorious political centrists, so after the jump he retitled his article "The Moderate's Case Against Trump." It's probably worth extracting his ten points -- note that there is much more detail in the article and the links -- even if some are things that only a "moderate" would think he promised, much less to hold him to:
Of course, most of his supporters are still convinced that his shortcomings are the fault of insidious liberal elites continuing to manipulate the system despite his election. It's not like they let facts or reason get in the way of voting for him in the first place.
Matthew Sheffield: Polling at the 100-day mark shows President Trump's policies are widely unpopular
Stephem M Walt: The Worst Mistake of Trump's First 100 Days: Plenty to choose from, but Walt says Asia, and I'd narrow that down to Korea.
Matthew Yglesias: Donald Trump's first 100 days have been a moneymaking success story: "He's getting what he cares about."
Trump isn't failing. He and his family appear to be making money hand over fist. It's a spectacle the likes of which we've never seen in the United States, and while it may end in disaster for the Trumps someday, for now it shows no real sign of failure.
Some more scattered links this week in Trump world:
Rosa Brooks: Donald Trump Is America's Experiment in Having No Government: That's an amusing, if somewhat facetious, way of putting it, but ever since Reagan made his little joke about the most terrifying words in the language being "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" Republicans have been flirting with destroying the organization which underpins law, order, and all private wealth. And although he's out to cut some parts of government, and to makes others completely unproductive, it's not really "no government" that he's pursuing. What he really wants to do is get rid of the "of, by, and for the people" part.
Aviva Chomsky: Clinton and Obama Laid the Groundwork for Donald Trump's War on Immigrants
William Greider: It's Groundhog Day in Washington, With Trump Peddling the Same Old Reaganite Snake Oil: Trump's tax cuts for the rich, err, tax reform, program.
Fred Kaplan: A Short Bus Tide to Nowhere: So Trump organized a bus trip for 100 Senators "to the White House to tell them things they already know about North Korea." Kaplan seems to think that all the bluster and bluff ultimately signifies nothing:
In recent days, Trump has sent an aircraft carrier battle group and a guided-missile submarine toward North Korea's shores. Vice President Mike Pence has gone to the Demilitarized Zone and squinted through the binoculars at the North Korean guards, so they can see his resolve. Pence also declared, "The era of 'strategic patience'" -- President Obama's policy of containment, as opposed to action, toward North Korea -- "is over." . . .
This may be, in the end, a pragmatic acknowledgment of the realities at hand, but it is no way to run a foreign policy. You don't issue warnings and ultimatums, luring friends and foes to believe that you might really use military force, possibly as a way of compelling them to solve the problem themselves -- and then back off and say you'll deal with it the way it's always been dealt with, somehow, at some point. In the high-decibel run-up to this anti-climax, Trump has once again shown these same friends and foes that they shouldn't pay attention to anything he says -- that he doesn't necessarily mean it, that he and his threats and his promises are not to be taken seriously.
On the other hand, there's a small chance that Trump and/or Kim will blunder into something that kills millions of people and leaves indelible scars, simply because they can't distinguish fantasies from reality.
Sarah Leonard: You Are Now Paying Internet Companies to Sell Your Browsing History to Advertisers: Thanks to a repeal of FCC privacy rules signed by Trump.
Caitlin MacNeal: Trump to Appoint Anti-Abortion Leader Charmaine Yoest to Post at HHS: Actually, she's been bouncing back and forth between Republican administrations, campaigns, and right-wing think tanks since she got her start in the Reagan administration.
Michael Paarlberg: How would Donald Trump's tax plan benefit him? Let us count the ways; also Bess Levin: Donald Trump Stands to Make Millions Off His Own Tax Plan.
Marcelo Rochabran/Jessica Huseman: Former Director of Anti-Immigration Group Set to Be Named Ombundsman at US Immigration Agency: Another candidate for Trump's most inappropriate nomination ever.
Matt Shulman: At NRA Conference, Trump Bathes Audience in Conservative Shout-Outs: I suppose at some point in its distant past, the NRA was just a lobby group of conservation-minded hunting devotees, a little backward-looking but basically harmless. Then they were taken over by the gun industry and jumped onto the law-and-order bandwagon, trying to stampede terrified city folk to the gun shops with the pitch that the only way to hold back the tidal wave of crime was by being armed -- and conveniently they tore down the legal barriers against criminals obtaining guns. But now they're basically just an extreme right-wing political cult, way beyond reasoning. In this atmosphere, the few politicians who aren't intrinsically loathed by them can venture into their den and throw them some red meat and hope to rally their support. Democrats, even those who've long given up on any political prospect of limiting gun proliferation, still aren't welcome, because they've never been able to bridge the increasing chasm of gun lunacy. But here Trump is, not because he's ever needed or wanted a gun but because he's as fundamentally wacko as they are. And if you take them seriously, not as a hobby group but as a political cult, consider: Heather Digby Parton: Could the NRA's Wayne LaPierre Talk Trump Into a Violent War on the Left?.
Matt Taibbi: Man Trump Named to Fix Mortgage Markest Figured in Infamous Financial Crisis Episode: Craig S. Phillips, formerly of Morgan Stanley (head of their Asset-Backed Securities division). "More foxes for more henhouses. Welcome to the Trump era."
Also a few links less directly tied to Trump, though sometimes still to America's bout of political insanity:
Amanda Erickson: Turkey just banned Wikipedia, labeling it a 'national security threat'
Thomas Frank: The Democrats' Davos ideology won't win back the midwest: Like Frank, I have a soft spot for the midwest -- its farms still productive even as the small towns and factories have decayed and been depopulated. Still, the Democrats' problem isn't regional. It's about class, something the Democrats regard as taboo. Nore are they attracted to "Davos ideology" -- just Davos money, or any money flexible enough to support a party which seeks to be all things to all people while never really satisfying anyone. If they ever want to come back, they have to settle on some vision they can campaign on and deliver -- something that, if not revolution a la Bernie, at least makes spreads the wealth Davos promises much more broadly and equitably. Meanwhile, they're vulnerable to critiques like this one: Cornel West: The Democrats delivered one thing in the past 100 days: disappointment; and Trevor Timm: Everyone loves Bernie Sanders. Except, it seems, the Democratic party.
Edward Helmore: Whole Foods Is Tanking -- High-Priced Luxury Foods Don't Jibe With Our Times: I don't see much evidence that the analysis is valid. In times of increasing inequality, there's certainly a niche market selling high-priced food to the wealthy, and there's plenty of evidence of that. Last couple times I was in New York I saw relatively new high-end food stores everywhere. And we've had several, including a Whole Foods, open here in the last couple years. Fresh Market closed, but less for lack of customers than some corporate decision to reduce their distribution area. Whole Foods hangs on -- my impression is with fewer customers, but having gone there several times and walked out empty-handed I rarely bother. Sure, their prices are a big part of the problem, but I hardly ever find anything there I want, much less that I can't find cheaper elsewhere. I really lamented the loss of Fresh Market, but I could care less if these guys go under.
Amy Renee Leiker: More than 400 guns stolen from autos in Wichita since 2015: A rather shocking number, I thought, when I read this in our local paper -- especially given how cheap and easy it is to legally buy a gun in this town. Seems to be a nationwide trend: Brian Freskos: Guns Are Stolen in America Up to Once Every Minute. Owners Who Leave Their Weapons in Cars Make It Easy for Thieves.
Conor Lynch: Obama's whopping Wall Street payday: Not a freat look for the Democratic Party brand: After raising $60 million in book advances, Obama "agreed to give a speech in September for the Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. His fee will be $400,000." Stephen Colbert's comment: "Hillary wasn't able to continue Obama's legacy -- but at least Obama was able to continue hers." Their interchangeability may have once seemed like a political plus but is starting to look like a curse. The more buckraking Obama does, the more tarnished he will look to those of us who can't fathom their rarefied world, and the easier it will be for Republicans to tar them. As Lynch writes:
As the Trump administration's recently unveiled tax plan reminds us, the Republican Party is and always will be committed to serving corporations and the billionaire class. Yet this hasn't stopped Republicans from effectively portraying their Democratic opponents as a bunch of snobby, out-of-touch elites over the past 30 years or so. According to a recent Washington Post survey, this rhetoric has paid off: Only 28 percent of respondents believed that the Democratic Party is "in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States."
David Marcus: Marxism With Soul: Review of a new collection of essays (Modernism in the Street: A Life and Times in Essays) by the late Marshall Berman.
Jonathan Martin: At a 'Unity' Stop in Nebraska, Democrats Find Anything But: An old friend of mine linked to this and tweeted: "Anyone surprised that Bernie-O don't care about a woman's right to choose, when it comes right down to it? Not me!" I'd be surprised if there was any basis for this charge, but that would require several leaps of imagination beyond even what the article claims. The back story is that Sanders and Keith Ellison campaigned for Democrat Heath Mello running for mayor of Omaha, and were attacked by the head of NARAL Pro-Choice America because in Nebraska's state legislature some years ago Mello had voted for several anti-abortion bills. For more background on Mello, see DD Guttenplan: Why Was Heath Mello Thrown Under the Bus? The upshot is that Mello had moved away from his early anti-abortion stance, much like Hillary Clinton's VP pick, Tim Kaine, had done. Even if he hadn't, it's not like I've never supported a Democrat I didn't see eye-to-eye with. It wouldn't bother me if NARAL, as a single-issue lobby, endorsed a Republican candidate with a much better track record on abortion, but those are few and far between out here, and as I understand it local pro-choice people are fine with Mello -- so who's NARAL trying to impress? I suspect that's the anti-populist faction of the national party, which could hardly care less about losing in Nebraska but regards Sanders as a threat. (Remember that the DCCC didn't lift a finger to help a pro-Sanders Democrat run for Congress here in Kansas, even though he had an impeccable pro-choice record which featured heavily in Republican hate ads.) And it's yet another leap of imagination to imply that the reason Sanders supports Mello has anything to do with his lack of interest in abortion rights.
DD Guttenplan: Why Was Heath Mello Thrown Under the Bus?: I've seen several complaints from Hillary Democrats about Bernie Sanders supporting Heath Mello's campaign for mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. The charge is that Mello is anti-choice
Steve Phillips: Democrats Can Retake the House in 2018 Without Converting a Single Trump Voter: The trick is mobilizing their base, while Trump voters get bored or lazy or disenchanted: "there are 23 Republican incumbents in congressional districts that were won by Hillary Clinton in November. There are another five seats where Clinton came within 2 percent of winning." Phillips is author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority, so one of those guys who thinks Democrats can ride a demographic backlash against Republican racism without actually having to come up with populist positions. That strikes me as unlikely until they establish some credibility, which was something the Clinton-Kaine ticket had little of in 2016. Along these lines, see the John Judis interview with Ruy Teixeira, an early proponent of The Emerging Democratic Majority, Why the Left Will (Eventually) Triumph. He attributes Trump's win to "the declining group, the white non-college voters," who suddenly lunged away from the Democrats in 2016. Asked why:
They do not have any faith that the Democrats share their values and are going to deliver a better life for them and their kids, and I think Hillary Clinton was a very efficient bearer of that meme. Whether she wanted to or not, the message she sent to these voters is that you are really not that important and I don't take your problems seriously, and frankly I don't have much to offer you. And that's despite the fact that her economic program and policies would have actually been very good for these people. There was a study of campaign advertising in 2016 that showed Hillary outspent Trump significantly and that almost none of her advertising was about what she would actually do. Almost all of it was about how he was a bad dude.
Voters were fed up with stagnation and with the Democrats and they turned to someone who thought could blow up the system. The way the Democrats and the left could mitigate that problem is to show these voters that they take their problems seriously and have their interests in mind, and could improve their lives.
Matthew Rosza: Sam Brownback pushed for concealed carry in Kansas -- now the governor wants to spend $24 million to ban concealed weapons from hospitals: The 2013 law was written to make it prohibitively expensive for any institution to exclude guns from its premises. Turns out that includes psychiatric hospitals, and turns out Brownback finally decided that wasn't such a great idea. Of course, it doesn't help that Brownback's Laffer-inspired tax scheme has forced across-the-board spending cuts while leaving Kansas in a huge fiscal hole.
Joe Sexton/Rachel Glickhouse: We're Investigating Hate Across the US. There's No Shortage of Work. Also: Ryan Katz: Hate Crime Law Results in Few Convictions and Lots of Disappointment.
Clive Thompson: Gerrymandering Has a Solution After All. It's Called Math
Started this Saturday afternoon (the intro), and the hits just kept on coming.