openpolitics.com

What’s so extremely, uniquely wrong about Trump’s presidency

there are glimpses of the seemingly reasonable guy beloved by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who one day says he’ll “take all the heat” on immigration, who wants to sign a “bill of love.” Do not be fooled. He is a chimera. Two days later he will have vanished, leaving you feeling slimed and gaslighted. Graham was right the first time: Trump is a “kook” who is “unfit for office.”

.. The biggest lie ever told by a candidate to the American people came from Trump, repeatedly, during the campaign: “At the right time, I will be so presidential, you will be so bored.” Now we know: He is characterologically incapable of fulfilling this vow.

.. It is not ideology. Whatever his political convictions, if any, Trump has governed, mostly, as a conservative.

.. It is important to remember, as we fume about Trump, that any Republican president, enabled by a Republican House and Senate, would have done most if not all of these things

.. at we are having a national parsing of the invisible distinction between “hole” and “house” illustrates how much Trump has degraded the office. And when it comes to provocations such as “Little Rocket Man” and boasts about button size, Trump’s tantrums may be affirmatively dangerous.

.. Trump’s tweets offer a cyber-billboard for his narcissism and ignorance. But the tweeting alone, along with other displays of emotional incontinence, does not get to the essence of the Trump problem.

..It is little comfort to conclude that our best hope lies in the rationality of North Korean leader Kim Jung Un and the steadying influence of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

.. The longer-term and greater danger is that Trump

• does not believe in American ideals and institutions. He
• does not believe in a free press or free speech;
• unconstrained, he would crack down on both.
• He does not believe in the rule of law, a Justice Department free of political interference,
• the separation of powers or an independent judiciary. He
• does not believe in the United States as a beacon and example to the world.