We were at the center of power, ensconced in the White House. But we had less and less control over the political forces roiling the country—the toxic brand of nationalism on display at Trump rallies; a media that was increasingly broken into hermetically sealed, impenetrable partisan echo chambers; the obvious Russian efforts to influence our election that continued unabated. Even our scandals had moved on—Benghazi was no longer about Susan Rice’s Sunday show appearances, it was now about Hillary Clinton’s private email server, something to justify chants of “Lock her up.”
