John Cassidy's Blog, page 16

Why Republicans Won’t Break with Trump

Appearing on Fox News on Wednesday morning, Karl Rove, the veteran Republican strategist, seemed a bit bemused. “We have two Presidencies under way,” he said. In one of them, Donald Trump was “looking strong and fulfilling his campaign promises,” Rove explained. He was referring to a series of executive orders that Trump had issued in policy areas ranging from health care to trade to the environment. While these edicts outraged many liberals and moderates, they were broadly in line with what the new President had pledged to do.

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Related:
How to Lose the War on Terror
Trump’s Tough-Guy Talk on Torture Risks Real Lives
Trump Makes the Global Gag Rule on Abortion Even Worse

Donald Trump’s New World Disorder

On his first full working day as President, Donald Trump chose to get things going by signing an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a fledgling free-trade agreement that brought together a dozen Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, and Vietnam. Future historians may look back on the signing as an event of epochal importance.

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A Bad Day for the Environment, with Many More to Come
Drawing the Women’s March and the Way Forward
Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, January 24th

Trump’s Attack on the Press Shows Why Protests Are Necessary

At 6 P.M. on Saturday evening, six hours after the New York version of the Women’s March on Washington began, thousands of protesters were still streaming west along Forty-second Street, and then turning up Fifth Avenue to Trump Tower. The pace was slow, but the mood of many people in the crowd was upbeat, giddy almost. Most were women and girls, but there were plenty of men and boys, too. They chanted “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Donald Trump has got to go.” They cheered, and they carried homemade signs that said things like “HATE WON,” “NASTY WOMEN AGAINST FASCISM,” “#STOPTWEETING,” “READ A DAMN BOOK,” and, my personal favorite, “WE SHALL OVERCOMB.”

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Related:
Trump’s Vainglorious Affront to the C.I.A.
Scenes from the Women’s March on Washington
The Women’s March: Me, Too

An Impulsive Authoritarian Populist in the White House

On Thursday evening, Jason Furman, the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, tweeted out a picture of himself leaving his office for the last time, with the message “Turning out the lights.” Whether it was deliberate or not, Furman’s message echoed the words of Lord Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, who remarked to a friend, in August, 1914, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

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Inaugural Fashion: White Is a Color of Mourning
Watching Trump’s Inauguration from the Cheap Seats

Obama’s Not-So-Final Goodbye

Barack Obama’s final press conference as President, which took place on Wednesday afternoon in the White House briefing room, was a curious affair. On the face of things, it was a low-key event, in which Obama seemed to go out of his way to avoid criticizing Donald Trump or getting drawn into the many controversies that have recently enveloped his successor. But that wasn’t the full story. The press conference was also a not-too-subtle rebuke of Trump, a warning about the dangers that his Presidency presents, and a signal that we haven’t heard the last of Obama.

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Related:
Preserve, Protect, and Defend
Why Republicans Could Regret Overturning Roe v. Wade  
Watching Andrew Jackson’s Inauguration

Donald Trump’s Cheap Talk About NATO and Europe

The Inciter-in-Chief has outdone himself. In an interview with the Times of London and Germany’s Bild published a few days ago, Donald Trump called NATO “obsolete,” described the European Union as a German scheme to get the best of the United States, and suggested that he had as much faith in Vladimir Putin as in Angela Merkel. “Well, I start off trusting both—but let’s see how long that lasts,” Trump said.

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Draining the Swamp
Listen to “Tiny Hands,” Fiona Apple’s Anti-Trump Protest Song
An Emerging, and Very Pointed, Democratic Resistance

Can Mad Dog Mattis Save America from Trump?

It is our privilege or our curse, depending how you look at it, to be living in a time when tradition and precedent are being tossed out on a daily basis. Thursday saw another significant break with history when, for the first time in almost seventy years, the Senate voted to allow a recently retired military officer—James Mattis, a former four-star general—to serve in the civilian post of Secretary of Defense.

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Related:
What Trump’s Business Plan Fails to Do
Mike Pompeo and the Question of Torture
How Trump Could Kill the Investigation of James Comey’s Actions

Trump Takes On the Press but Not His Conflicts

At ten past eleven on Wednesday morning, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and some other flunkies of Donald Trump emerged from an elevator in the lobby of Trump Tower. Packed into a smallish space that had been turned into a makeshift room were about two hundred reporters, a few dozen supporters of Trump, and some Secret Service agents. A couple of minutes later, Trump, three of his children—Ivanka, Donald, Jr., and Eric—and the Vice-President-elect, Mike Pence, stepped out of the same elevator.

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Related:
Marco Rubio Doesn’t Let Rex Tillerson Off Easy
Donald Trump’s Dossier-Dominated Press Conference
Trump’s Dangerous Support for Conspiracies About Autism and Vaccines

Jared Kushner’s Trumpian Divestment Strategy

If you need confirmation that much of the American establishment is lining up behind the Trump Administration, and is purposely overlooking the break it represents with democratic norms, you should read a story in Tuesday’s Times about the appointment of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, as a senior White House adviser.

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Related:
The Sessions Hearing’s Inconclusive First Day
Will Trump Avoid a Constitutional Crisis?
Senate Republicans Gut the Confirmation Process

Obama’s Economic Record: An Assessment

This seems like a good time to review President Obama’s economic record. On Tuesday, Obama will deliver a farewell address in Chicago. Last Friday, the Labor Department released its final employment update of his Administration.

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Related:
Suspending the Rules: How Congress Plans to Undermine Public Safety 
Trump and Celebrity Approval: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes