What Donald Trump as president has done is to embody the distrust and incompetence believed to exist in the federal government prior to his election by those who voted for him in 2016.
Trump's actions as president manifest the dreams of the greedy capitalists and business leaders with the passage and enactment of tax cut legislation which favors corporations and among individuals and families, the 1% or those nearly in that tiny slice of Americans.
Trump's potentially most egregious long-term damage to America (and by extension the rest of the planet) may be his climate change denial belief and the appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, and the appointment of other corporate and anti-environmental believers as federal agency heads, such as Rick Perry at the Energy Dept.
The federal government has been weakened by the gutting of the State Dept. and the lack of qualified nominees and appointments of any kind to dozens, if not hundreds, of executive branch management positions and federal judgeships. (That's to say nothing of Trump's denial of Russian interference in the national and other elections in 2016 and specifically that year's presidential election.)
While I'm uncertain that federal departments are too big and ineffective, Trump's impulsive, impetuous, and willy-nilly actions that affect and often denigrate the executive branch and beyond, is wrong and weakens the government. Highly competent people have left the government, too, weakening it.
3
Indeed "It's Even Worse Than You Think"--Trump record:
- Fail to protect U.S. against Russian interference; now reaching into nuclear and utility infrastructure
- Reduce NATO's power, alienate U.S. allies
- Withdraw from strategic trade agreements, forcing countries to align with China
- Sow distrust in the 4th estate and in government
- Promote $1.5T wealth transfer to the rich and corporations
- Understaff, underfund embassies and other foreign agencies
- Defund, muzzle government science and regulatory watch bodies
- Remove government career employees from active investigations
- Shred social safety net, throw millions at the mercy of rapacious for-profit non-health insurers, big Pharma, medical device makers
- Deregulate oil, gas, chemical industries and reduce requirements for environmental/occupational safety
- Withdraw from Paris Climate Accord signed by 198 countries
- Authorize deportation of millions of people of ethnic groups other than whites (legal U.S. citizens, VISA holders, etc.) on grounds of suspicion
- Reduce regulatory oversights and checks on banks, Wall Street
- Rescind help for college students victimized by predatory loans
- Repeal background gun purchase check rule that screened out people receiving special SS benefits (because mental problems made it impossible for them to work or even manage their own money)
- Repeal regulations prohibiting big coal from dumping waste into streams and protecting miners against black-lung disease now up 54%
...
13
Johnston follows in the footsteps of Isidor Feinstein Stone
aka Izzy
who made his bones trolling through obscure records
I. F. Stone's Weekly (1953–71) was ranked in 16th place among "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century" by New York University's journalism department in 1999, and in second place among print journalism publications.
NYT and we all would be better off if the lap dogs in White House "briefings" would follow the money and directives in agencies and departments where Republican termites are eating away the foundations of democracy.
Let an AP intern listen to Sarah Sanders while the real reporters turn over rocks and let the sun shine on the worms.
-30-
15
Just as the book is challenged by the immediacy of the events surrounding it, so the appreciation of the book may need time to fully develop. It is critical that as much about the Trump administration, and what it's like living through it, be captured in writing as events unfold. When we emerge from this nightmare, we will be grateful to David Cay Johnston and other historians of the now for their contributions to our understanding of this dreadful, and remarkable, era.
17
Read the book and it did confirm that the Trump Administration, festooned with its hangers-on, is indeed worse that I feared.
And, indeed, it is portrayed as worse than most feared.
Both Johnson's work and "Fire and Fury" are important works about the forces at work ripping away at our national structure.
11
"In the realm of policy, what the Trump administration is doing to America, so far at least, is not as horrible as you feared."
For this reviewer to conclude that because Mr. Johnston failed to list sufficient numbers of actions (or deliberate failures to act) by Trump that support his claim that it's worse than people think is a quantum leap from inadequacy to denial. History teaches us that the Republican agenda seeking to defang all government regulation since Reagan is a factual reality. Just because Mr. Johnston fails to list and document in full the Republican party's decades long and continuous under Trump gutting of the government doesn't mean it isn't happening. There's plenty of reported evidence in the press if you take the time to read past headlines.
14
I’m glad this was done. I would also recommend Partner to Power by K. Ward Cummings for a grasp of how his family and friends are changing how the White House operates.
6
Why does this reviewer believe that William Hagerty "speaks Japanese"? And how proficiently does the reviewer believe that he speaks it? All this is mystifying. But, yes, Ari Onassis's stepdaughter was a bust as US ambassador to Tokyo. That is fair.
2
"...not as horrible as you feared."
You wish.
13
Who's going to put up the fumigation tent for Trum's's "political termites," especially the queen who is mother to these pests, before the floors cave in?
9
Perhaps the author will concede that the government is straying a bit far from its purview when it’s deciding who may speak or elect to bake a cake.
Nothing in this review makes me genuinely concerned for a diminished federal government—too intrusive and nosy as it is.
2
Unfortunately for America, Trump is succeeding at "eating away the government from the inside." One can only hope that historians recognize the identity of the man behind the destruction........
8
In Australia this "eating away" is called termiting.
A friend discovered that she had termites in her house when she leaned against an upstairs wall and nearly fell through. The termites had cheerfully been eating away unbeknownst to her for years, leaving just the slimmest veneer of pine panelling, really just a decorative layer of paint, to deceive her. It's an excellent metaphor for what's happening to government under this Republican/Trump regime.
3