The Damage Already Done by Trump's Presidency
Donald Trump moves into the White House already having done damage to the presidency, our democracy, the economy and America's place in the world.
We have watched this unfold in the open: Trump has thumbed his nose at custom and the Constitution by refusing to resolve the conflicts of interest that will now shadow his presidency. He has used his Twitter account – a 21st-century bully pulpit – not to unify Americans behind his agenda, but to settle personal scores in a sustained assault on freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Trump has installed an inner circle that aims to marginalize millions of our countrymen, even as it seeks to degrade the institutions of our government. Finally, Trump has clutched Russia in a perplexing bear hug. Whether he's done this out of genuine admiration for its brutal regime, because he's indebted to its oligarchs, or because Trump has somehow been compromised by former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin we have yet to resolve. For Americans, and for our NATO allies, none of these alternatives will be reassuring.
Republicans in Congress have stood by quietly, almost without objection. They've acted as enablers – even as Trump has inserted himself as the ur-chairman of publicly traded companies, blessing their manufacturing plans or tanking their stock prices with a single tweet. Republicans used to object to politicians "picking winners and losers." Just last July, Speaker Paul Ryan called it "a recipe for a closed economy – for cronyism."
History will judge this period harshly.
Conflicts of interest
Creeping authoritarianism
Anti-government agenda
The Russian cloud