President Trump has now been in the White House for six months, and Democrats are fairly gleeful in noting that he is: a) deeply unpopular; b) mired in scandals; and c) bereft of any legislative victories. That’s all true, but also I think too glib. Trump has been quite successful, in my view, in two areas:
- appointing conservatives to federal courts, most notably Justice Gorsuch to the Supreme Court; and in
- changing the regulatory landscape by removing environmental safety standards.
.. Since the 1970s we’ve seen a long-term trend toward cutting taxes and social services, and there have been a series of grim consequences: rising inequality, stagnant high school graduation rates, rising incarceration rates, rising narcotics use, stagnant earnings for the bottom half of Americans, and so on. So many national problems seem to have their roots in a cycle that started then, but I wonder if the cycle is turning.
- The failure of Trumpcare is a case where a program for the poor, Medicaid, won a political battle, and
- Kansas has shown that at some point voters prefer to raise taxes than see service cuts. More broadly,
- even conservative states like Texas have reversed themselves on mass incarceration, and high school graduation rates are again going up.
Could we be turning a corner?
.. For me, the most chilling aspect of President Trump’s interview with The Times on Wednesday was his insistence on reserving the right to fire Bob Mueller. That would be ten times bigger than firing Jim Comey, and the fact that Trump even brings it up makes me think that he fears Mueller is getting close to something the president wants hidden.