Even Exxon Mobil admit the REALITY of Climate Change.
Of course facts don't matter to trump and his team of enablers as long as THEY can take power and make more money personally and for their donor paymasters like Koch Bros, Mercer, and Adelson, et al.
HOW do WE persuade the MILLIONS of lazy idiots who don't even vote to WAKE up. To GO to the polls and VOTE for DEMOCRATS. Add in the fence sitters or sometimes voters and we really would be making a major improvement in OUR Country. Not trump's and Republicans like McCONnell.
Let US rid the USA of these lying corrupt fiends and take back OUR Country. The whole world is watching and 99.9% want trump gone. OTH pal Vlad, and the other right wing despots love seeing US in thrall of trump and his chaos.
23
Make government great again. Dump Trump.
43
“Pay any price, bear any burden.” This is the idiocy that led to Vietnam!
10
If the Swedes give Trump the peace prize for an empty photo-op with a mass murderer, after dissing the remaining leaders of the major free world countries like a thug, then the decay and decadence of the Western world will be confirmed, and then we might as well become fascist like Russia and China and get it over with.
32
As you eloquently argue Trump has remade his political party and is attempting to remake your country in his own image. Based upon his thin-skinned, very sensitive & easily bruised ego he’s s very insecure man. As misery desires company it would be expected that he’d attempt to make all Americans feel insecure.
17
And, Mr. Friedman, you don't think Obama was doing the same? There's a reason there was such a backlash.
1
And you didn't even touch on the catastrophe that has unfolded in Puerto Rico, to our fellow Americans.
28
Every time I fill the gas tank, I'm reminded of how great America is becoming... Now, its costing me over $15 dollars just to fill a 5 gallon tank to mow the lawn... sheesh...
8
Friedman, America has not become "To Big to Fail", it has become "To Big to Succeed"...your relentless Progressive drive to solve all our problems through centralized inquisitional bureaucracies is the problem that Americans elected Trump to disrupt. You have made the Democratic Party a national religion, now go gnash your teeth.
Get a new game Friedman! President Trump is doing a great job and you just need to deal with it. Your progressive fantasies about how the world can just be one big melting pot of simultaneous equities is just make-believe and a reality check is needed.
1
President Trump not only deserves the Nobel Prize, but we need to get the hammers and chisels out to put his image on Mt Rushmore.
3
Ah, Tom, you take this stuff too seriously. Relax and enjoy the good life in the United States of Ponzi Schemes!
4
The scary part to Humpy Dumpy Trumpy 's American reign is every time he manages to find the smallest of successes he flexes his authority a little further and a little further. He realizes he can do whatever he wants. He believes he is invincible. Then the Madding Crowd blindly follows right behind, praising him. No one dare call him out for FEAR of being exposed and the wrath of the "Tweet". The good valiant and honest Republicans who do speak out in opposition to Humpty Dumpty Trumpty find their constituents at the gates armed with pitch forks willing to blindly defend the King's Royal Decree.
Wake up America! Humpy Dumpty Trumpty will fall sooner or later. With this in mind, hide the Gorilla Glue
6
I really hope the White House occupants read this editorial - and realize how they are wrecking their own country because of the demented thinking of one crazy person . Trump should read this .... does he read ? .... so weird having a potus who does not read .... anything but the national enquirer ... forget top secret International reports .........he has destabilizing our country’s minute by minute with help from the gop who are deluded in their thinking ..... unfortunately we are headed towards becoming an unstable country with unstable leader - I hate referring him to as a leader - he will never reach that level .
9
White Christian Evangelicals threw everything they ever stood for or believed to the wind, made a deal with the devil, and built Trump.
Rural white citizens struggling with diminished employment opportunities, unwilling or unable to relocate, and angry at attention and support given to immigrants and LBGT folks built Trump.
The greatest generation, now less active in their golden years, sitting home watching Fox News all day built Trump.
Racists tired of behaving differently in public than they truly feel inside built Trump.
Conservative students angry at the overwhelmingly liberal aura on most college campuses built Trump.
Billionaires who equate money with power and who choose to use their power to fund candidates who will lower their taxes and form a social pecking order that keeps them on top built Trump.
Behind all these things, I fear, is a complicated reaction to the Obama presidency which preceded Trump. That Trump's despicable birther movement didn't obviously disqualify him as a candidate for most decent people shocked me into realizing there are fewer decent people in America than I thought there were.
Trump's narcissism will be his undoing. The question is, when? As Corker said today: GOP Senators and representatives are too afraid to poke the bear. Like pulling back the curtain on Oz to expose the wizard, under that bear suit Trump is a very small, craven, pathetic man.
56
Unfortunately , we already are the country of Trump. Rather than Trump 'remaking the USA in his image', what has really happened is that Trump has shown us, and the world, who we really are, and have been, all along. Trump didn't plop down from Mars. When he showed up as a candidate, and presented himself, millions of Americans recognized themselves, and noted, finally, a candidate, now President, just like me, saying and believing as I do, and they elected him. They absolutely love and support all his actions to date. Trump knows this; that's why he does and says what he does.
10
Trumps own image is morally bankrupt and from the course this country is headed that seems about right. Have we reached are tipping point as a society? I hope so! I don't know how much lower we can sink.
8
The vague and vacuous outcome of the Singapore Summit should tell us that it’s one purpose was to set the stage for a Trump Peace Prize. The whole affair was about him not about peace and security. And again Russia and China gain the most.
10
If there is no blue wave in November the America of Washington, Lincoln and FDR will be in grave danger. If Trump is re-elected that America will no longer exist and the future of democracy everywhere will be in doubt.
17
Friedman would likely not agree, but it is hard to see Trump as anything other than the unwanted progeny of the Iraq War. Whatever remnants of American idealism that may have been still breathing at that critical moment finally died an ignoble death when Saddam was toppled in a war of naked aggression justified by a fictitious narrative.
Further, democratic decision making is a clumsy instrument at best mostly suitable for making simple and broad moral policy choices where the alternatives are clear. It is ill-suited to the more detailed task of overseeing imperial strategizing and its inevitable menu of hidden subtle machinations.
Sensing a loss of real power but unable to discern its true causes, much of the electorate has now desperately sunk into a wrath of randomly demonizing the visible instruments of institutional authority. This cynicism is destined to remain with us for awhile and will continue to infect our political discourse, regardless of whether the buffoonish Trump is at some premature point toppled for his misdeeds.
7
President Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory roll-back have created a booming economy. President Trump has brought peace to the Korean Peninsula. Contrast that with Obama’s malaise, countless endless wars, and Obama’s shameful and treasonous surrender to Iran. There is no question that President Trump is on his way not only to landslide re-election but to being a truly great and transformative president. MAGA!
2
Sir:
A while ago a friend made the following remark -- in jest -- about Mr. Trump: "The Americans have simply elected someone who is just like them." Meaning that Mr. Trump is the caricature of Americans about which many non-Americans complain: brash, bullying, condescending, (the list goes on). The silence of Republicans is draining this joke of all its humour.
Does Mr. Trump have to remake America into his own image? Perhaps Mr. Trump is the reflection of America.
25
These policies did not begin with Trump. Two decades ago Vice President Cheney came up with the 1% doctrine with respect to WMD in Iraq. He had no use for climate scientists either. Noam Chomsky has described the Republican Party as the most dangerous organization in the history of man. So there you go.
9
Barack Obama...and all 43 of the other previous Presidents.. all worked to enact their own agendas. That is what Presidents do...that is what they are elected to do.
Is Friedman just now realizing this?
2
Please, please, don’t misuse the phrase “Ugly American”. The Ugly American was the guy who went out into the back country, learned the language, and helped the local people with their problems.
He didn’t stay in the capital going to cocktail parties hobnobbing with the local power brokers. We now use “Ugly American” to describe those who think they know what’s best for a country without any consultation with that country’s people.
7
Trump remaking America in his own image?...Perhaps that's why so many of us are depressed.
8
Mr. Friedman , I largely share your view of the US as things stand at this particular moment in Time. I think that only the People can bring about the necessary changes. I hold this old adage to be true : The People get the Government They deserve.
7
The future will be won or lost in realm of ideas rather than personalities. The loyal opposition needs to focus on remedies and cures. Health insurance, tax equity, climate and the environment, sensible regulation of the financial industry, joining the TPP to blunt China, rejoining the Iran Agreement, helping rather than harming consumers, plans for a sane immigration system, and completing negotiations to disarm Kim.
The press cannot ignore Trump, but can ignore his antics and focus on remedies and cures.
6
The primary system is the keystone of all our other political problems. It maintains them. It is also the amplifier. It polarizes, it gives the mob a voice, and it gives money unlimited influence. Without the primary system, we would have troubles, of course, but not like this. Giving the rich and the mob the choice of candidates for both Congress and the Presidency was, in the clarity of hindsight, extreme folly, and now we are paying the price.
9
Strong column, however worrisome.
15
I'll feel a lot more secure when our great country that we love so much can enjoy an incredible parade honoring our amazing military. We can pay for it with the unbelievable savings from not holding wasteful military exercises with the tremendous South Koreans, who are very special. Then we can all fly to Palm Beach for a celebration at Mar a Lago.
9
Donald Trump just got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by two right-wing Norwegian politicians.
Is he a good candidate?
Compared to the last Nobel Peace Prize laurate from America named Obama Barack, Mr. Trump is more than excellent candidate.
He chewed up his own ego after a salvage of the insults was exchanged between White House and Pyongyang by publically offering the peace deal and extended a greeting hand.
A truly astonishing achievement for somebody with the alleged surplus of hubris and narcissism!
Mr. Trump has launched two bloody conflicts less than his predecessor in the White House. As we know, the wars in Syria and Libya have destabilized the entire Middle East and created several million refugees flooding the European shores, including Norway…
Mr. Trump might have a very loud mouth, but his actions are still peaceful.
It would be a good practice for the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to reward the politicians only after they left the elected office so they weren’t able to destroy the homelands to dozens millions people.
History only counts who was in charge when the tragedy happened.
How come that the free press bestows the praises on the leaders triggering two bloody wars while belittling the ones that might actually wrap up the decades long conflict?
What is a correct phrase here?
Personal bias and prejudice?!
2
Obama did not start 2 bloody wars. ISIS was established by Sunnis deposed in Iraq after the US started the war in 2003. The Libyan conflict started as a revolt against Gaddafi, the UN Security Council and NATO approved intervention to stop Gaddafi from brutal reprisals. Not one American soldier engaged in combat, French assistance and UN diplomats have had limited success with uniting Libyan factions into a unity government..
6
The problem with this op-ed is the criticisms are all (or mostly) accurate but it contains no ideas. This is the same problem with Democratic opposition to the President, there are no ideas presented only criticism. It is fine to say the President is a homophobic, anti-Semitic, racist if you believe that to be true, after all there is still that right here in the USA. If you are a Democratic supporter you will be disappointed in the next election because criticism without ideas is a losing strategy. Whichever side you believe is correct, ideas matter and the ability to present them in opposition to what you believe are improper or corrupt ideas is what will carry the day. Nobody, not even the President won an election solely because he said vote for me because Hillary was bad. Ask one of his supporters there was more than that to his message. If Democrats only present criticism without thoughtful counter arguments then they will lose again and again.
3
Absolutely true. And yet, given that real political platforms based on real ideas are complex and nuanced to explain, and given that the American voting public clearly has the intelligence and attention span of a cucumber, you can't blame the Dems for leaning too much on the anti- strategy.
3
The Democrats have no ideas they can present. What are they going to do, scream about their plans to confiscate all private property, ban free enterprise, dissolve the police and the military, nationalize all business, open the borders, ban all media and establish a fascist dictatorship? But fear not, it’s for your own good
I most certainly do not want America to be made over in the images of President Tweet.
18
Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day ... but we don't award it a Nobel Peace Prize.
17
Few in the United States of America appear ready to admit it yet, but it’s increasingly obvios to the rest of the world that with Trump’s election, and the spineless acquiesence of the GOP, the nation has travelled most of the way down the rabbit hole of being a failed state. About the only thing left to fear is economic bad times and dictatorship at home where we’re daily told that a free press is an enemy of the state.
37
The really sad thing is that Republicans are still supporting Trump in all his hissy-fit tearing around and down. Look at what happened in the South Carolina primary.
Almost HALF the country thinks all these tearing down of alliances, all this flattery of the WORST dictators in the world, all this self-dealing and environmental destruction, all of these insulting in most childish terms of anyone who dares to disagree with him, that this is doing a GOOD job as POTUS.
Lord help America, that we have sunk so low.
25
Tom look at the Republican primary results, trumpism wpn amongst Republicans. We are in for a very rough ride.
17
Dear fellow Americans,
Don’t look in the future, nobody knows it!
Look in the opposite direction, analyze the past!
It already happened! Nobody can change it!
Analyze what you did, and what your objectives and priorities were.
Open your eyes and minds widely and conclude what have you actually accomplished!
Try to comprehend the big picture, what happened over the last century!
Then you might recognize what principles you should have been adhering to all the time and what the action plan should be for the future!
2
It's no longer about Trump and his character, or lack thereof. It's now about us and our character.
24
Thank you Thomas Friedman for a beautifully written op-ed! Unfortunately, not enough of our felllw Americans will read it! Why? Only 15 percent of Americans read a newspaper. What will it take to get through to the rest who don’t? We desperately need an educated electorate!
14
Yes. Definitely feeling more secure with Trump in charge. Make America Great Again!
3
Why are you feeling more secure? Specifically?
6
If America isn't great for all -- it will never be great again.
8
why is it that all who support Trump can never explain why?
5
In America’s favorite holiday film, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, self-sacrificing George Bailey is plunged into a nightmare scenario of how life in idyllic Bedford Falls would have evolved had he never been born. And it is an ugly scene indeed. Absent George, the town has been overrun by an insecure, bitter real estate baron who crushes anyone in his way so he alone can run the town as only he sees fit. Ultimately, he molds Bedford Falls into his own image-a garish melange of neon lights, rowdy nightclubs, gambling, hookers and a local pub, where “hard working men” are served “hard liquor” while they laugh at the local rummy who accidentally poisoned a customer of his now shuttered pharmacy. And to be sure, no one misses whose boss; the developer slaps his name on everything in the town including the town itself-Pottersville. A place where newly arrived immigrants (who all seem to be Italians that don’t “speaka the English”) are forced to live in Potter’s broken down, overpriced rental properties while eking out a living to support their families. Fortunately, George is allowed to return to Bedford Falls by his guardian angel-Clarence-newly appreciative of all of its vast virtues as he is enveloped by the friends and family whose lives have been markedly changed for the better by his existence.
Today, America, perhaps more than ever before, is living through George Bailey’s nightmare. Only there is no savior angel and the developer’s name isn’t Potter-it’s Trump.
14
thank you so much for your classic film analogy. it makes me smile to know that there are others like myself who see the world in terms of some once great films with meaningful morals (they don't make 'em like this anymore, thank you, Frank Capra) But my smile was followed by deep sadness at the accuracy of your "It's a Wonderful Life" analogy... I hope there is a "Clarence" out there for America who can help fix this nightmare
11
I, too, applaud your film analogy. Watching the poor Savings & Loan board siding for the most part with Potter is certainly analogous to the Republican party now lockstep and fully evolved into the party of Trump.
10
Sadly, the Trump believers likely believe that Justify can and will win the Triple Crown again.
6
Trump is a selfish little man. He has no values. One could not tell the difference between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
To the detriment of all Americans Trump is not a patriot. All his rants against those that he claims disrespect the flag and the national anthem are just to excite his followers. What is really scary is that those people are willing to let this man ruin their country.
12
I went to an environmental college. We relied on data and facts from around the world. Climate change is not a hoax. The President and the Republicans who deny this deny it at the peril of the country. Other countries are taking steps. The U.S. is falling behind. Scientists have studied this and know what they are doing. Ignorance may be bliss but it is still ignorance.
10
When Trump lists all the awful burdens the G7 allies have placed upon us, he seems to overlook that they sent their soldiers to die in a distant land of little direct relevance strictly because the USA was attacked.
One cause of underwhelming ethics in various areas of society is that we assign so many people who are driven by a sense of duty to our military that fewer are available to do other work, such as customs or FEMA or other government administration.
The European allies will likely always play games with their defense budgets and NATO's "2% goal", just like European car companies will likely always play games with mileage and emission standards - call this a cultural flaw they will have to fix on their own. What we need from them is the commitment of motivated manpower and persistent assertion of their own sovereignty. If we can rely on this, we can have more of our own best people working for America in a more directly productive capacity where their values can be contagious to their civilian colleagues and fellow citizens. Their rules on dairy (which doctors may soon tell us is terribly unhealthy anyway) and dubious environmental practices are not unlike stealing towels from an overpriced hotel.
Trump's legacy may be that he has made being penny-wise and pound-foolish a governing philosophy. That the electorate does a poor job of prioritizing or assigning weights to issues may make this far more successful politically than it has any business being.
1
The corrupt media outlets put Donald Trump in the White House.
If the honest, smart and competent individuals like Bernie Sanders could have advanced to the general elections, they would have been able to defeat Trump.
Trump won because he kept claiming that the entire system was corrupted. The media outlets ganging up against him actually proved him right.
Not understanding that the majority of the fellow Americans were fed up with the system is the most serious failure of our free press.
The media outlets counted the votes wrongly. The total number of the voters demanding the change was the sum of Trump and Sanders voters. Hillary Clinton has certainly lost such a race! She did better than expected because she exploited a gender card and increased the divisions.
It was the free press that persuaded voters the party loyalty was more important than the country.
If all the people who wanted the change pulled together, there would be no contest.
The fact that in this country was impossible to have the Trump-Sanders ticket was the catastrophic failure of our free press.
He was supported by the very right and stayed loyal to them. Trump started as a New Yorker of the originally moderate views.
What pushed him over the edge? He could have been recruited by the centric coalition. The current system is designed to produce somebody with extremely conservative or liberal views…
Trump was forced to fit into such a mold… Our electoral system left him no choice.
1
Oh. Still blaming the media when it all comes down to an uninformed electorate, cyber-interference from a foreign adversarial government, right-wing 24/7 racism and an outdated Electoral College, when they are the clear culprits?
Dream on.
And here's some news for you: Trump wasn't forced to fit into any mold, and New York soundly rejects him.
7
Sanders would not have won. Ever. And if you don’t like the two-party system, start a third one instead of whining that the one you don’t like didn’t like you back.
5
Susan Collins is no hero. She also accepted empty promises to fund healthcare for a yes vote on the tax bill, putting millions in the pockets of corporations (drug companies included). If the GOP remains silent, they are complicit in the destruction of our republic. Nothing less. The occasional tweet or sound bite denouncing what’s going on by republicans who are retiring, or quitting before they lose, is a day late and way more than a dollar short.
10
Trump, Congress and the Cabinet act like they've never read the Constitution--which is their job description.
The Constitution was in part written to, "promote the general Welfare". (Preamble)
Welfare is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as:
"help given, especially by the state or an organization, to people who need it, especially because they do not have enough money."
Cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, leasing national parks to mining interests, scrapping laws designed to protect Americans from water and air pollution, does not "promote the general welfare".
Re: Trump's Tariffs, Congress has the sole authority to impose tariffs. Trump's Executive Privelege is limited to keeping information and private conversations about National Security from the public. Courts have repeatedly upheld this.
Congress must approve joining and leaving treaties by a 2/3 vote. Congress felt Iran was in compliance and didn't vote us out. Trump pulled us out on his own.
Ironically, the Constitution says Congress is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", through supporting research and patents.
Trump's unethical decisions, rejection of allies for dictators, hurts Americans.
Trump says he'll "tell Congress what to do", but that's not his job--THEY advise HIM. He also cannot instruct his Cabinet; he can only ask for and receive their advice, in writing.
His real power is the bully pulpit.
A lazy Congress, Trump's disdain, voter despair--no, not secure.
12
Tom, I think you are confusing Trump with the previous president.
2
Unpredictable, undisciplined, chronic liar? Sounds like Trump to me.
12
There is no way on earth to confuse Trump with the previous president.
Try again.
13
Friedman -- your list of things you should feel insecure about is pretty short.
1) Things can't get worse with NK so anything Trump does to move forward on de nuking NK is good.
2) Yes, health care. Up until the ACA insurance companies were not obligated to cover pre-existing conditions. But it only became an issue for people who were without insurance and elected to try to get when they became sick -- or for those changing jobs and some firms allowed for transitions. I don't believe in denying people health care, but if I don't have insurance if I develop some dread disease and decide to get insurance then, I don't expect an insurance company to cover that dread disease.
3) Canada is still our friend. What you have is Trump's nationalistic view of the world vs the collectivist view of the G-7.
4) And when you can't find real probs -- climate change is the go to guy. Despite the hysteria, the underlying global temp data is full of holes so the assertions that we have experienced unusual warming are highly questionable. The Paris Accord is a worthless document and that meeting was nothing but a photo-op for celebs and world leaders who flew in on private jets. And we're only 5% of the world -- our emissions are declining while emerging nations are going through the roof.
5) Yes -- 1 for 5. The national debt is a huge probe that both dems and repubs need to work on, it's not Trump's baby. Our congress needs to pass budgets that don't drive up debt.
4
1, 2 and 4–Science. Unless you are a public health or climate change scientist, of what worth is your opinion?
And as to #2, I hope that no one in your family ever gets a chronic illness. And “dread” is not actually a diagnosis, it’s from Dickens.
10
We are 5% of the world’s population, but we emit 20% of the world’s CO2. Only China emits more, with a much larger population. Don’t blame developing countries who are just trying to emulate our lifestyle. It doesn’t take a PhD in atmospheric science to look at the data and think something’s up, but people prefer to believe a few isolated crackpots than the raw data. It really is a big deal and we should be leading the world in making a change, but we don’t like change so it isn’t happening; we will cling to our coal and gasoline.
My son, who has yet to start a career from which he could get health insurance, has a pre-existing condition. He has two more years on our insurance and then what? He is hardly an isolated figure and wouldn’t have been in the good old days either, if anyone paid attention. The only difference would have been we wouldn’t have been able to carry him on our insurance past age 18, like I wasn’t on my parents in the 1980’s. I took my chances with no insurance for two years and was lucky I didn’t develop a “dread disease.”
This article articulated a lot of my thoughts about current policy most persuasively.
9
We also account for 25% of the world’s GDP. We, 5% of the world’s population, do 25% of the world’s work. Our energy usage in perfectly appropriate
With every misstep Trump makes resulting in dire consequences, he blames on on his predecessor, Obama, and the Democrats who didn't vote with his sycophantic Republican lapdogs.
According to reliable biographers, Trump didn't really expect to win in 2016. Rather, the entire campaign was simply a tool to advertise his "brand," to give his waning reputation a lift on the world stage. But, he won without the popular vote.
So now, he runs America into the ground the same way he took his company into the swamp of his own making. He creates chaos with conspiracy theories followed by declarations that only he can solve the problem [that he created in the first place.]
Thus, our boy-king Donny will start "healing" the relationships with our closest allies, especially Canada, by creating another story of how everyone misunderstands him; he and Kudlow and Navarro will use their faux-theories of economic nonsense to convince Americans and our allies that Trump has the answers to avoid a trade war (yeah, the one he created from thin air).
So how much hot water can we survive? Trump needs to be tossed out ASAP yet, Mike Pence may be more of a problem because, while he wouldn't be the first president to believe in God, the problem, as stated in a recent article in "The Atlantic," is that Pence thinks God believes in him.
The line of secession resulting from 35 years of GOP corruption means we may not see any level of sanity in the Oval Office for a generation.
Vote in November.
7
How many times have you heard the candidates wanting to go to Washington D.C. to change it?
How many times have you heard them asking for the additional terms to finish a job?
It just means that their job has been finished and that Washington D.C. managed to change them…
Either you can change the system or not.
The time is not factor there.
If they were smart enough to understand the scope of task in front of them, they wouldn’t be giving the false promises to the voters…
Over the last few decades I have heard the same promises every two years. That should be the omen not to vote for those politicians.
If they were serious, they would first change their partisan loyalty and start freshly from the very foundations of the new party.
Those who want to fit into the old system don’t have the guts and stamina to change it!
2
Oh, to once again to have the big-hearted, generous, and broad-shouldered United States I learned to love as a kid. We've lost our moral core.
10
Thank you, Tom, for this wise and strong opinion peace. It exactly reflects my feelings of constant dread and dreadful premonitions.
6
America needs the better electoral system.
No political party should have the right to monopolize the voter’s choice.
That’s why we end with the extremely conservative or liberal candidates.
If each party nominated up to three candidates to the general elections, thus somebody more centrist from the left and right - the people like McCain, Kasic, Romney or Sanders – then the public would have an opportunity to gather around the politicians capable of striking the compromise and unity.
P. S. I was desperately searching for the name of additional Democrats to list them as moderate, but nobody else had to courage to enter the race with her anointed majesty…
You saw Sanders as centrist? That’ll be news to him.
1
Maybe I'm thick but I don't get the analogy to Justify. No we do not feel more secure and no, none of the prediction listed are going to come true. The problem is that Jutify did win the Triple Crown.
This suggests that some of these, against strong odds, may come true. I would have preferred something like. "And tomorrow cancer will no longer exist."
Read more carefully. He said "again." It would be highly unlikely that Justify won the Triple Crown again.
2
It is impossible for Justify to win the Triple Crown again....only 3 yr olds are eligible to run....next year he'll be four and happily fulfilling his stud contract.
4
The US lost its way long before Trump. Without going back to the last century there are W. Bushes invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obamas continuation of these attacks and extensions to Syria, Libya and the proxy war in Yemen.
There is the populations acceptance of the invasions and attacks and the obsession with firearms that led to the perversion of the Second Amendment. Then there is the delusions of American Exceptionalism and the idea that the country stands for human rights.
It looks more like Trump is made in the image of the US. It is unfortunate that a country with such vast natural resources cannot chose a better path that would serve its people and be a good member of the World community.
6
Your confusion is entertaining......don't forget, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and mass hysteria....these my be what rules the world...and you and I are no different.....
Donald J. Trump represents a clear and present danger to the United States of America.
8
William Whitaker,
"Donald J. Trump represents a clear and present danger to the United States of America"
And since your political situation is increasingly spelling out onto the world stage, he also represents a clear and present danger to the rest of us too.
If you don't take this guy down, he will take us all down
4
Brilliant rhetorical piece, Tom.
5
The Trump world view, as evident by the sales video shown to Kim Jung Un is beachfront resorts likely with casinos and golf course branded by Trump. That's this huckster's notion of peace and prosperity, his own.
8
Thomas, you forgot one key point. Why would North Korea feel secure enough to make a bilateral nuclear weapons agreement with a country that just backed out of a multilateral nuclear weapons agreement with Iran?
12
It is impossible not to see treason in Trump's relentless destruction of our institutions and relationships with our long term allies. Who benefits most from this single minded take down of all the United States has stood for? Putin and possibly China. Trump doesn't care what happens to the USA because he figures he can make money anywhere. Unfortunately, the republican party is complicit in Trump's destruction. We need true patriots now.
13
I will tell you who is probably feeling more secure now and that is Jack Phillips, the cake maker. He is not forced to go against his religious principles by baking an item that violates his religious beliefs. He would have been deprived of a livelihood as it is unlikely he would have complied if the Supreme Court had insisted he bake the gay wedding cake.
I am sure the babies in the womb are feeling a lot more secure with some of the restrictions that the states have now put in place to stop abortions from occurring. These fetuses/babies are now given the chance of life and that is wonderful.
There are other conservative issues that have been affected and President Trump must be given part of the credit for these to have occurred. He has supported conservatives more than any other previous president. Those of us who back these causes are feeling a lot more secure too.
2
If Jack Phillips tries to refuse service to another gay couple he will lose. Abortion is legal and most Americans support it early in a pregnancy.
SCOTUS will never, ever overrule Roe.
So other than one baker in a one-off, and some embryos, no one else is better off.
3
In the exception of quarrel with our G6 allies or trade war, all of Trump's domestic actions and some of his foreign policy (moving US embassy to Jerusalem) smack of Republican. This is not just Trump, Friedman. This is the Republican Party winning all three branches of our government and being in position to do what they wish to our country.
Even Trump's dishonesty is not uniquely Trumpian. The GOP have long been lying to their base and the country to win elections and get their base rile up. They didn't protest Trump's birther actions. It's the Republican governors bringing the lawsuit against pre-existing conditions.They divide the working class Americans by getting the poor white seeing the poor colored through racist filter. They have always called climate change a hoax long before Trump entered politics. They wanted the huge tax cut for corporations ignoring its busting debt effect.
The country is being shaped in the Republican mould of selfishness, dishonesty and corporate greed. Their only complaint about Trump is that he should have done all these less obtrusively.
It's to our own detriment to heap all our country's ills at Trump. He is not responsible alone. Supporting him and allowing him to act is the Republican Party, the Republican Congress, the conservative media and the Republican base.
14
What is frightening to the rest of the world is what is happening in the United States right now. The speed in which things are shifting makes for sleepless nights and anxious days. The world now sees the US as being run by one person, your government pushed aside in favour of the Trump Doctrine, all other voices rendered silent. Trump's detractors at home or abroad (ask Prime Minister Trudeau) are quickly tossed aside and thrown on to the trash pile Trump considers fit for his enemies.
Sure, the prospect of peace on the Korean Peninsula is something to celebrate if indeed this is what this summit produces. But, do I feel I feel more secure, no, not as long as Trump is your President.
8
I must agree with the most recent Trump tweet that our free press is the worst threat to America.
The free press is our safety net. If it isn’t there or if it fails to fulfil its duty the entire system is in danger.
The comments and analyses presented by me should have been created and published by the media outlets many decades ago.
If our politicians are failing us, that’s the direct consequence of the corrupted free press. The corrupted politicians and mainstream parties are the undisputed proof of the substandard and bad journalism.
Why has the journalism failed us? Because of the change of ownership!
The media outlets have been bought by the big corporations that have completely different system of values. Their goal is not for the media outlets to be objective but to secure and protect the rest of the business empire.
Our media outlets don’t live any longer from the readers, viewers and listeners but from the advertisers and commercials.
Thus the utter objective is to please the corporations, not the general public. Those conditions have led to the catastrophic decline of quality and accuracy.
That’s why let’s say the FOX and the CNN have diametrically opposite reports about the same events.
The journalists are hired and trained to report the certain worldviews, not the real facts…
The failing media outlets are supportive of the similar politicians and elected officials. The good journalism wouldn’t let the most corrupt politicians win the elections.
4
We do not need a reality TV President we need a President that deals with reality.
Income inequality
Crumbling infrastructure
The highest cost health care system in the Industrialised world by far, in spite of this leaves millions without coverage and unimpressive health outcomes.
An education system totally underfunded and unprepared for the challenges of the future.
National and Student debt at unsustainable levels and growing out of control threatening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Thrusting an unacceptable burden on our kids .
An inhuman immigration situation. How can we separate families. Leave DACA recipients at risk
Prison population way in excess of any Industrialised country
I could go on but unless we start to address these issues we will increasingly lose ground to China particularly as we seem intent on driving our allies into the lair of the Dragon.
9
This column reads a lot like Hillary Clinton's campaign. Trump is bad. I will tell you just how bad Trump is. He is really bad.
A large enough portion of the nation rolled its eyes and Trump won the election.
If this column is any example of the so-called "resistance", Trump will be reelected.
What can be done to stop him? What proposals are the democrats offering to help middle Americans---specifically those left behind in flyover country? Where is the push for a $15 hour minimum wage? Since Trump is destroying the ACA, what are democrats doing to promote true universal healthcare? What is being done to create real jobs---not Obama-Trump junk gigs.
Trump is terrible did not work last time. It won't work this time. For some reason I expect more from Friedman.
5
Clinton’s campaign addressed all of those things, but reading is more work than most people want to do. Unfortunately, complex issues can’t be solved by sound bites.
If you want to know how a candidate feels about any issue, ask her. Call the campaign, send an e-mail, show up at her office, volunteer. Read the website.
It’s easy to expect candidates to guess what you want to hear and to spoon-feed it to you. It’s also lazy. That’s not what civic engagement is.
If you want a functional democratic republic that takes care of its citizens and is an important citizen in the world, it’s going to take some work on your part.
5
Secure? In the love of family and friends? Yes. In the bounty of nature? Yes.
However, my heart aches with rage, sadness, frustration. Where oh where are the people we elected who will speak truth to this horribly insecure, mean, unthoughtful person we call our president?
3
To me he is the perfect Russian stooge... He is (not single handedly) destroying our republic and yes Paul... I feel less secure by the hour. As always we the opposition seem to have no political weapons... no strategy... we remain amused (Colbert) and helplessly watch him take everything apart... never replacing what he has destroyed. This is a slow and complex coupe... it has been in the planning for decades and he is cashing in...we are in danger of losing everything. Your list is preaching to the NYT choir... when will clever people like yourself begin to put all this in terms DT's supporters can understand? We will all be losing a lot (social security, medicare, schools, our safety as citizens) if this reactionary take over continues. Mueller will make no difference... the investigation just gives us false hope and while many of his crook friends will go down, and even if he does... we will have Mike Pence a true believer who keeps the money rolling in to the party. 'I often wonder if we'll get to the next elections without some kind of Marshall Law being imposed... they seem to have a lot of control over our democratic processes. So, yes I feel less secure...
5
To say Donald is dishonest is very generous. This sleaze is the most dangerous coward on this tiny globe we live in. And for any one to suggest that we are more secure after this Singapore stunt that the reality TV con man and his new found little dictator friend subjected us to is an insult to every decent human being on this earth except EXCEPT for his lackeys and enablers of the FAKE ( FOX ) NEWS NETWORK.
10
Welcome to Venezuela, folks. This is how it starts.
6
Hardly. That would be the previous president, he just wasn't given enough time, kind of dodged the Hillary bullet. She surely would have brought us closer what with "progressive" economic policies and open borders.
3
I think we need to remember that the majority of Americans did not, in fact, vote for Trump. I am not ready to give up yet, so I plan on working with the local and, where I can, national Democrats (since there is no third party) to register voters and help get out the vote. Let's pay attention to those states Trump flipped, and make sure they return to the Democratic box. We need to rid ourselves of this blight on America, and the only way we can do that is through our votes ~ which will put people in Congress who will have the backbone to stand up to, or even impeach, Trump.
Like many of you, I feel I am watching an America I no longer recognize. And I can tell you that my family members did not serve (and some die) in WWII and Korea to see us come to this. Trump is not America. We all need to get involved if we want to return to a country that is values-driven.
12
If Trump can be considered a bacteria which has caused a disease, then either the body has self-defense mechanisms to defend itself against the bacteria, or it needs some external help to battle the disease. The body's brain, to keep its spirits high, always recalls the cliche, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
The body's self-defense mechanisms attacking the Trump bacteria: 1) The "tax cut" which isn't. Next winter, many will find that their total tax bills have increased. Most incensed will be evangelicals with large families. 2) "Tariffs & Trade Deals" which negatively affect small or medium-sized manufacturers owned by families or a small group of community investors. 3) Surviving family members of patients who have died due to elimination of Affordable Care Act benefits. 4) Military members disgusted by the leadership of the civilian Commander in Chief.
External medicines to fight the Trump disease: 1) Special Counsel Investigation, led by Robert Mueller, with the willing assistance of Trump administration insiders who have either been fired, or have been forced to submit resignations. 2) Former executives and suppliers of The Trump Organization.
It may take 6 months or a year more to purge the body of this newly discovered bacteria. We should recall that our body has been strengthened previously by a civil war and other major internal and external conflicts to survive another disease.
3
All, well almost anyway, at taxpayer expense.
1
Brock asked:
The Big Question: will Justify be invited to the White House?
Answer: Yes, because horses can't kneel.
3
I feel more secure now that we are not being ruled by "progressives" who get just about everything wrong from the economy, to foreign policy, to the climate apocalypse prophecies.
2
Are you actually aware of what E.P.A. head Scott Pruitt is doing to the environment (and taxpayer's dollars)? ... And excuse me, but what Foreign Policy? -- this country has none, or did you also manage to miss the events of the G-7 Summit meeting?
I realize that talking climate change and science is obviously moot here, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.
Time for a reality check.
7
I am aware that Scott Pruitt has brought science and pragmatism back to the EPA.
It's just as I said. Any discussion of climate change and science is obviously moot here.
as others have noted, these lists are getting tedious. Where's the story - via investigative journalism - about why congress is allowing a crazy man to drive American toward disaster? Quit repeating what the country already knows and share your insights and opinions about why and how DJT gets away with setting policy on the fly? I don't want sound bites, I want to know what is being done to stop this maniac.
10
This is a direct response to 8 years of Obama making America into HIS own image. Liberals should learn that there is always a pendulum effect to their craziness. Its why we should try NOT to be polarized and work together and be reasonable instead of being a wacko like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumer and Maxine Waters. You should also expect a pendulum effect from the subversive and corrupt DOJ actions. Liberals wont like when, in the future, conservative DOJ officials obstruct justice, lie and subvert our democracy. That is what Andrew McCabe and his friends are doing now and we don't like it
3
Your entire comment is the exact definition of polarization. I guess what you’re saying is that it’s okay for YOU to be polarized but not anyone else. Got it.
4
I believe if Donald Trump had no courts to contend with, it would be a crime to criticize him. I don't want to trade the freedom of speech for whatever security our reality star is offering us.
5
I've had enough of feeling insecure. I'm preparing for the worst. I hope the rest of the world has a concrete plan for dealing with this horrible racist pariah state. They should be learning a lesson from our demise. That coddling racists is not going to work. The rich have stacked the deck and this country is now on the verge of total tin pottery. I feel sorry for the poor, who will and already suffer virtual slavery under these beasts. I feel sorry for all people of color here, none will be afforded the rights of the constitution, only whites. Mueller will be arrested, not fired, arrested. Get ready.
1
"G-d forbid we become the United States of Trump."
We are there. We have a "Wizard of Trump" mentality.
Perhaps using words like "U.S. of T" can wake up Democrats.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever it takes to get Dorothy back to Kansas, lets do it now!
3
Tom, I thought about this security thing. I decided I'm about as secure as I was back in 2003 when you urged the invasion of Iraq because it would democratize the entire Middle East. I am about as secure as I was when you supported the Arab Spring, because it would democratize the Middle East. I have to admit I feel a little edgy worrying about another 9/11 knowing that the Canadians - all 30 some million of them - won't have our back. I suppose they won't flood into the US every winter to get a sun tan in Phoenix, either. And, S. Bee may repatriate. I am not too insecure about our trading "partners" shafting us (some more). I don't think they want to upset the Golden Goose - or the Golden Utter in the case of our northern former BFFs. I am so so about the state of the economy. I mean, how long will historic gains in jobs continue? Everything that goes down must come up, after all. I do hope the disastrous Singapore Submit comes back to haunt Trump this fall. Not really. NEVER TRUMP is no excuse to pray for nuclear war so one party can float into office on a Blue Wave. Securely, yours, Tom.
2
Trump's mantra: I'm so handsome. Just so handsome. I'm handsome, giddy and wise. He looks into the mirror every day and sees perfection. His decisions, actions and proclamations are divine. He is in his own bubble within in which he has his favorite things surrounding, reaffirming and comforting his every whim. That bubble will hopefully burst someday soon. After the bursting, we will have to repair the damages done, for the sake of our planet and all creatures that crave security. RAW
4
There is a great opportunity for a leader to emerge as the anti-Trump candidate. A person to articulate a vision of goodness, to forcefully rebut Trump's meanness and narcicism, and one who will unite the country.
What Trump proved, however, is that political experience isn't necessary. If anything being a politician is a liability as all of them need to spend so much of their time fund raising.
So, Howard Schultz, I'm with you if you decide to run. The country needs you to remake America, not so much in your image, but in the image of a leader who understands what our country is about, and where our greatness comes
from.
Mr. Schultz, I hope you're listening, and to those on who share my disgust with Trump, Pence and the rest of them, I hope you'll set aside your differences for the greater good. No more Jill Stein wannabes whose presence assisted in this catastrophe.
And, finally, to those Trump supporters whose kids work for Starbucks, I hope you'll listen to them. My guess is they'll give their employer, and by extension Schultz, high marks.
Maybe there is something, or someone, we can be united about after all.
2
“Morale is born of loyalty, patriotism, discipline, and efficiency, all of which breed confidence in self and in comrades…Morale is at one and the same time the strongest, and the most delicate of growths. It withstands shocks, even disasters of the battlefield, but can be destroyed utterly by favoritism, neglect, or injustice.” Dwight D. Eisenhower.
6
Recall Edmond Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Trump doesn't function without his enablers. Where are the good men and women? So far, missing in inaction.
10
The truth is that Trump supporters *are* feeling more secure. International relations? Very complicated. Immigration? Many twists and turns. Tariffs? Hard to tell if they're going to work. An anti-abortionist on the SC? Now, that's something they can get their head around. Mission Accomplished!
5
I agree with your first paragraph - but would add there are many American voters who want the country to be exactly as you describe. We can’t blame this on Trump, as he wouldn’t be where he is if there were not enough among us to put him in this office. You can blame Electoral College or the “other candidate” but to deny we have people who live in our neighborhood who are just fine with what you have described then we are missing the point. Just removing Trump does not negate all those people. So what are we going to do?
5
Not only do these public things make me feel less secure, I now see individuals within my sphere of existence modeling their behavior and demeanor, on his. These are mature adults who one would expect, had fully formed personalities. Or maybe they found permission to reveal what they knew to be uglier aspects of their personalities. Either way, it worries me that this tide will continue to rise.
10
Bigotry, racism, misogyny and xenophobia have existed in America since its beginnings. Kept at bay on better days, these malaises surface behind each time the country advances in delivering the promise of its brilliant foundation philosophy. It is very sad to be a witness of one of these low times and see unleashing of these ills anew; this time essentially as a reaction to the decency, civility, mindfulness, elegance and eloquence of its first African-American president.
14
Now Japan has a chance to deploy nuclear weapons in self defense.
Are you feeling more secure?
4
DJT--beloved by the trumpists--is role model for the Ayn Randian selfish, so he'll be affirmed November 6th because cynicism has become the new norm of our GOP acquaintances.
Sorry for this hideous prognostification-observation, but Mark Sanford's defeat seemingly means whatever it means.
1
Yes I am feeling more secure. The economy is working for all Americans. The Military is being rebuilt. The World has a leader in President Trump not a follower. The new tax structure is bring business and jobs back to America. Just ask Canada because my company is moving three companies and some of their employees back to the U.S.
Finally we have a President who is a pragmatic. President Trump see a problem. he tries to fix it , popular or not with those who support him. So yes I fell a lot more secure, for myself and my employees.
3
Great opinion today Mr. Friedman and no, I am not feeling more secure at all!
15
Donald Trump has managed to exert a powerful grip on the Republican party. It's with the strength of personality. This has been a phenomenal, albeit an unexpected development. An unusually large number of people fell under his spell. This is a reality, unfortunately. How this reality would shape America and the world is impossible to predict at present. If 2018 election results favor Democrats to flip both Houses that would be a huge relief.
12
"But Trump is so dishonest, so much better at breaking things than making things and such a chump for anyone who flatters him, it is way too soon to say what will be implemented out this Singapore fling."
Breaking things is almost always, if not always, easier then making things. The problem here is that Trump is engaging in the former and not the latter.
6
Trump has an image of America that he is trying to create.....An Autocracy. It's true. He doesn't want to have to deal with Congress, the Senate, or the Judicial System. In fact our entire democracy is NOT OK with Trump. He is befriending other Despots around the globe and unfriending our friends. If you don't think his generalities are done to confuse, all smoke and mirrors, so you don't see what goal he is ACTUALLY working towards, you have your head in the sand as those before WWII did. IT IS JUST AS DANGEROUS. Wake up and see what's really going on. Mitch thinks he'll get a job in the new regime, he's scared that's the way this is going to go, and he's going to be a good servant and yes man to preserve himself. The Aliens in the Twilight Zone weren't intending 'to serve man', they were intending to serve man on a platter to the aliens. Trump wants to serve America on a platter to himself, Putin, Un, Duterte...... WAKE UP!
8
The selfishness of Trump represents the most infantile embodiment of self interest. Like an infant grasping for his bottle, Trump perceives his world as existing to feed his bloated ego, "I'm the only one that counts. The only one that counts is me." Or as Louis XIV put it, "L'etat, c'est moi."
When he says make America great he means Trump.
2
In answer to your question, my sense of security diminished when Trump announced his candidacy for president. It has further eroded as he secured the nomination, stalked and bullied Hillary in the debates, raised his followers to riot mode and fomented racial hatred. Sorry to say, the press aided and abetted this side show.
The recent display of improprieties toward asylum seekers at our Southern borders is hardly reassuring for Human Rights. Now he's playing kissy face with Human Rights abuser, the Notorious Kim while no other American Official or even a second translator is present to give us any assurance that what we hear now is what we really got. Are we really ready to believe anything the liar in chief tells us? If we are, we are all fools.
Excellent article. Hope the Republicans are reading and heeding.
5
No, no, no! I spent my working life studying and teaching what warty America has been at its best -- Mann, Douglass. Addams, and the dozens of diverse others. I don't WANT an America in Donald Trump's image!
3
I do not feel more secure!
I feel sick every time I hear his voice or see his face!
I am 67 and white. I have never seen anything like this 'thing'!
We must vote out every gop politician that we can!
We must vote him out!
18
Trump is a product of a convoluted electoral college system, and a perverse segment of our society which is self righteous, arbitrary. racist, insular and quasi-educated. This group of voters sees and understands only as far as their individual horizons. People who make up the Trump base, are militant and condemn all things they do not understand. Facts that contradict their beliefs are discarded as fake news and liberal media lies.
Trump's popularity with these people is because they are kindred spirits.
23
Those who are putting their hopes in Mr. Mueller to retrain or chasten Trump should consider that he can only file a report. After that, the outcome is purely political, which Trump has correctly concluded will amount to nothing.
Mueller is bound by DOJ policy which says a sitting president cannot be indicted (let alone prosecuted or incarcerated). This policy is based solely on two Memoranda written in 1974 and 2000. The 1974 memorandum says “criminal proceedings should not go beyond a point where they could result in so serious a physical interference with the president’s performance of his official duties that it would amount to an INCAPACITATION.” After the 1997 decision in Clinton v Jones, saying a president could be sued, the 2000 memoranda was written. There the test was extended beyond physical interference. It said a sitting president could not be indicted because it would subject him to “stigma and opprobrium.” This was a Hail Mary argument ridiculous on its face since there are many things that could subject a president to stigma and opprobrium including a civil suit.
Consider also that indictment stops the running of the statute of limitations without which a president could not be prosecuted after his term.
The DOJ is the only agency that can bring an indictment. Tying its own hands has effectively made indictment unconstitutional without a court ruling.
Americans should be asking why two poorly written Memoranda are controlling their fate.
Mueller can’t.
82
DOJ memoranda are not laws. The ability to indict a sitting president has never been decided by a court. So this could be another first for the treasonous occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington DC.
3
"Americans should be asking why two poorly written Memoranda are controlling their fate.
Mueller can’t."
I am not convinced that this is true even in the abstract and certainly not convinced that Rosenstein and Mueller are going to consider themselves bound by it in what is arguably a dire national emergency in which the President's culpability, probably for many counts of many crimes, is of the essence. Those were not court decisions or statutes, they were memoranda. Trump says he is not bound by the unofficial but very well-worn precedent that he must not interfere with the DOJ. I don't see why Rosenstein and Mueller are bound by memos written under very different conditions.
1
I no longer need essays that simply list the outrageous acts of the President, and current Administration.
I understand what they've done. It is tiring.
What is needed now is facts on the results.
Knowing these decisions are wrong; someone list specific results.
For example: Which people are being denied Healthcare, (or will be). How many coal jobs actually got created?
I read a wonderful explanation of the Canadian Dairy system.
Much, much more helpful in understanding the folly of Trump's behavior.
It is now the lazy work of listing, again and again, the collection of outrages. Move forward.
Lazy!
166
While I totally agree it is time to take the next step in assessing trumpworld, it might be a little harsh to call it lazy. Perhaps we have all been so shocked by what has happend over the last year. It is still hard to believe. But yes, we must look at the specific factual results.
This column is so absurd. Trump hasn't remade this country in his own image. The voters have. We need to reframe the way we look at his voters. It's not what they are for that matters, it's what they are against. Trump defies the normal metrics for success because his voters don't support him for what he does. They love him for what he's against. Trump is against the political establishment ,the media, the Republican Party, the Bushes and the Clintons. Trump is against rapid change which for the working class encompasses everything they had but fear they are losing. Trump is against globalism and unrestricted immigration which has taken jobs from many Americans. It's not that a third of US voters are fervently on the side of Donald Trump - what's more relevant is that they are adamantly on the opposing side of a culture war that's been brewing here since the 1980s. Trump isn't causing this populist revolt, he's reflecting it. It's Conservative values vs Liberal values. Liberals are going to lose. They've been losing at a pretty steady clip for the last six years. During this time we have lost the Presidency, both House of Congress, the Supreme Court, the majority of state legislatures, Governorships, & most important local offices. In 24 states, Dems have almost no political influence. This trend will continue. Why is the Democratic Party in shambles? One reason. The majority of voters no longer are buying what the Democrats are selling. That is a fact that can't be denied.
2
Agreed.
I feel as if I'm a passenger on the Titanic. The election marked the crash into the iceberg and we've been sinking, sinking, sinking ever since.
6
I heard on the news recently that some experts (don't recall who) have just said -- Surprise! -- that Medicare will go bankrupt in less than ten years.
1
Maybe he can change the America by his own things, words and people but I don't think that he might not need some political help because he can't just go and try to change peoples' lives. If he change the America on his thing I don't think he can do it by himself because there's a lot of people hated him.
Regarding American health care, Trump and his GOP sycophants in Congress assured America the GOP version of "free-market" health care guarantees our ACCESS to care. Cynically, they do not finish the sentence...IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT. That decision will be made by our for-profit Healthcare CARTEL.
4
Time for the democrats to realize they hit an iceberg and that iceberg was their stand on immigration, they flooded the United States with immigrants most from countries that have never supported democracy or the American way of life, most of whom grabbed every handout available, bog down our ER's because they have no health insurance, show no gratitude of any kind, and the result is that the dems have a sinking ship on their hands. And despite the disaste it has caused the dems continue to rally around immigration as though it were their reason for being. The dems never learn. Man the lifeboats dems, or go down with your ship, maybe all the immigrants you let in will throw you a lifeline, but don't hold your breath, and if they are in the lifeboat with you, wont you be surprised when they throw you overboard.
1
The only Peace Prize Trump qualifies for is the Lenin Peace Prize.
4
We have an out of control opioid epidemic mostly centered on Trump red states caused and magnified by depression, stagnant wages and the lack of health care especially Medicaid and the destruction of the ACA which would provide some help. Trump and the GOP don't seem to be interested though talk a lot.
You Trump supporters really don't seem more secure as do any of us.
6
Well said. However to describe the President as "compromised on Russia" is putting it gently indeed. As Mr. Friedman notes Trump has never acknowledged let alone condemned Putin's attack upon our democracy in the election of 2016, and declines to even attempt to penalize Russia in any way. He retains his amazing affection for Putin and cannot say a negative word about him. Every statement from Trump and his representatives about his campaign's many remarkable contacts with Russian actors has been false. Why? A benign explanation is beyond implausible, and the likely truth seems dark indeed.
All the other disastrous effects of Trump's Presidency listed are quite accurate. But if he indeed conspired with Vladimir Putin to ensure his own election all else pales.
5
If the 2016 election taught us anything, it is that there will not be another 9/11 in America.
2
Why?
Why not !
After witnessing the shameful G7 (or is it G6 = 1) bebacle and then following it up with the lackluster non-treaty with Kim what seriously lies ahead? Dan't ask Trump! He'll lie.
5
For those who haven't yet figured it out, we are now being run by a form of American fascism courtesy of Donald Trump. The fact that some people still don't see it is not unusual. All we have to do is look back to Germany in the 30s, and we will understand that it takes a while for people to realize that they are being conned.
And while it is alarming that we now have a president in the White House who through his actions, shows himself to be a neo fascist he is actually quite unimpressive and frankly not very original,especially if we know our history. This is incidentally why he gets along with people like Putin and Chairman Kim, and on the other hand savages Justin Trudeau.
Birds of a feather flocking together indeed!
My only question now is- when will America finally wake up and recognize the monster that we have created?
5
I have read many comments making the analogy between what's happening here under Trump and what happened in Germany in the 30s, but being German I must point out that there are several differences between the two -- the first and foremost one being that Hitler used brute force through the SA (Sturmabteilung), or Storm Detachment in the 20s and 30s to seize power and influence by intimidating the public.
At least we haven't gotten that far here... yet.
One can only hope America wakes up, and soon.
3
Yes, we who have open eyes, ears, and minds know what a disaster Trump is. Meanwhile his supporters won't listen to a disparaging word about him. So, if you don't want America remade in Trump's image, you'd better start pushing the Democrats to sharpen their message on how they're going to return the working and middle class to prosperity, and open the pathway to that prosperity to everyone, instead of Corporate America and the investor class.
What exactly do the Democrats truly stand for? And is that something that an electoral majority can get behind? It's going to take much more than a simple majority for the Dems to win back Congress given gerrymandering and the game rigged to favor incumbents. It will take much more than "identity politics" and counting on changing demographics.
The fact is that the CENTRAL issue which helps all groups is the pocketbook, the one that's been picked over until threadbare for decades now. This is the issue that cuts across all lines, and can deliver the support they need to win and stop Trump and the rapacious Republicans. But if the Dems don't make their plans clear about how they're going to do this, they're going to continue their "circular firing squad" routine and shoot themselves, not Trump.
1
Do you know something scary? I do.
It is knowing personally family and friends who support Trump to the point that even a mention of anything he does that isn't kosher is met with loud voices, sometimes verbal abuse, called unAmerican even when the person saying it is one's own child.
Trump voters and supporters has ceased, IMO, to be even remotely rational about this man.
It seems more and more like a cult with overtones of anarchy.
4
Actually, I am feeling neither more nor less secure than I have since the beginning of the century. While Trump is an undeniable disaster, the fact is that under three presidents little or no progress has been made on such overriding problems as tourism, global warning, budget deficits and the high cost of health care.
1
Think about this democrats and worry. If Trump ever wised up and took on health care as his main focus, took on the insurance companies, and looked to enact universal health care, then the democrats might as well not even run somebody against him in 2020. Sooner or later he is going to figure this out and it's going to be the end of the democratic party for the next decade.
1
There are many things to worry about, dodger, but given that Trump's Justice Department has just moved to declare vast swathes of the ACA unconstitutional, is the chance that Trump might embrace single payer any more worthy of spending time worrying about than, say, asteroids?
4
Basically because of the Obama name attached to it. Trump promised the American people a great health care alternative. So far he has delivered on all his promises, first he has to get rid of Obamacare, that's step one, step two is his own plan, single payer, which he is going to call.......wait for it....Trumpcare.
The only thing Trump has "delivered" on the health care front is more steam.
And not everyone is buying it.
How else do you explain the syrocketing enrollment for the Affordable Health Care Plan???... You can't.
The 63 million Americans who voted for Trump included 58% of white Americans made up of 62% of white men and 54 % of white women. Trump is their man because he promised to make America in their image.
Trump is a symptom. Trump is not the cause. The white American majority is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate. The white majority life expectancy is decreasing due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide .
6
Not all white people are with Trump.And you’re laying it on a bit thick. I guarantee white people don’t go around bemoaning that their numbers are dwindling. We don’t even think about it. I don’t know the people you’re talking.
Trump is not remaking America. He merely ripped the scab off the festering sore of racism that has been here since our founding.
6
Trump and his Republican Congress just say NO to the welfare of the American people. No ACA health care, No environmental protection, No infrastructure, No public education, No Social Security, No Medicaid, No Medicare, No Diplomacy, No immigration, No science, No press and especially No taxes and No government.
5
In his conception of America in the World, Mr. Friedman seems to be forgetting (conveniently) things like the Vietnam War, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the Iraq War, Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadeq in Iran, genocide of Mayan peoples in Guatemala, Pinochet in Chile, the murderous junta in Argentina, the torturers who ran Uruguay. Abu Griab and the fact that no one who ordered or administered that human rights debacle was ever charged with crimes. Eisenhower's offer of a nuclear weapon for the French to use in Vietnam. Green lighting Indinesia's invasion of East Timor. Green lighting Suharto's genocidal pogrom of Indinesia's Chinese community. Our support for Jonas Savimbi. Our support for Israel acquiring nuclear weapons. The CIA collusion with the Contras to market cocaine in Los Angeles as a way to fund Contra terrorism in Nicaragua. The School of the Americas.
1
Politics have no relation to morals. Niccolo Machiavelli
1
The only key point missed is the Ryan/Trump plan of reducing deficit spending in part caused by providing “beautiful tax cuts” to the rich through future cuts to “entitlements” which most Republicans seem to forget, the majority of us paid into during our working lives. Gutting Social Security and Medicare so the rich get even richer should scare every American to go to the polls.
5
Trump received a master class on dictatorship during his one on one meeting with Kim.
Too late, we're already the United States of Trump - who's to stop him, the Republican Duma? Trump took less than 1/398th the time it took to build America to destroy it, following orders to take America to the stone age with the aid of evangelicals.
Did trump actually think the propaganda film he produced to show Kim - the master propagandist himself - would work? Pathetic. What else was on that iPad - a video diktat from Putin?
Moon should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Awarding the Nobel to the newest thug on the world stage would permanently discredit the Nobel awards.
With rampaging gun owners and 87% of Republicans endorsing and sharing trump values, I'm no longer safe in America - the rule of law no longer matters in our one party government. Indeed, I don't feel safe traveling overseas without an anti-trump t-shirt on.
The Republican Duma is busy creating gulags of caged children, broken American and immigrant families and sick Americans without health care.
Poor trump gets so upset over spilled milk and dairy products with Canada - formerly our closest ally.
Of course trump's alienating every ally we helped to vanquish Nazism - Nazis are fine people (then and now), furthermore we've had a very close relationship with Germany's government since at least D-Day - per the State Dept.
Huge military spending without military exercises - "Are you feeling more secure?"
5
I've never accepted the idea that a few nuclear weapons in the hands of nations like Iran or North Korea represent a direct threat to world peace. The idea that one or the other would launch a nuclear strike without serious provocation seems absurd, preposterous to me. They would be wiped out in an instant. The only threat I acknowledge would be from us - if we act irrationally and try to take military action against these nations and provoke a larger conflict. I've also never understood why some nations are allowed weapons as a deterrent to aggression and others not.
All that is to say that in all my years, and there have been plenty, I've never felt insecure with respect to North Korea. I just don't buy the mass hysteria the media promotes. So whether Mr. Trump's visit ultimately leads to fewer nuclear weapons in North Korea or not, my sense of security is not affected. But it certainly is by all the other issues Mr. Friedman has enumerated, and Trump is exacerbating them all.
3
If the electorate doesn't wake up in November, we can conclude that we have the leadership we deserve.
8
As a Progressive Democrat, it is easy to dismiss Trump as an aberration; a lucky fluke due to circumstances at the time. However, Trump's election is the result of Democrats abandoning the white, poor, and disenfranchised.
Trump says what a large segment of the population want to hear. (No, he has no intentions of actually doing anything to help others.) Many, including myself, felt that the Democratic primary was rigged. Hillary was the Anointed One by the party. We can largely blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz for Trump's election. She openly discouraged Bernie Sanders' campaign. However, Bernie Sanders appealed to the rural, white disenfranchised voters as well as Democratic base.
If the Democratic Party is to succeed going forward we need to get back to the "Big Tent" Democrat philosophy of inclusion for all;including the rural, white, and the poor, instead of dismissing them as a "basketful of deplorables."
Having worked on the Obama campaigns in rural Indiana,I saw that traditionally Republican voters would embrace a candidate who had the patience to listen to their concerns. Largely, higher-paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced by demeaning, low-wage service jobs. Many are working two or three jobs just to live in a rusted out trailer with no access to affordable health care. Then we wonder why they turn to opioids as escape.
The Democratics can embrace immigrants, LGBT community, racial minorities, urban voters without abandoning our rural,white brethren.
1
No Democrat, including Hillary, refered to the "rural, white and poor" as "deplorables". It was the haters, excluders, racists, pro-ignorance, pro-fetus but anti-family, anti-gay, pro-weapons of mass destruction people who qualify.
12
Is it selective memory that you choose to forget Clinton embraced several of Sanders' talking points and actually shifted the Democratic platform further to the left?
And what's this abound "abandonding our rural white brethern"?? -- when they're the ones who abandoned Democrats in favour of supporting a racist Republican party.
Please. Get your facts straight!
4
My impression is that Trump is creating a new Axis Powers alliance. His distain for the democratic process and respect for dictators goes well beyond any empirical historical transgressions in this country. His reference the other day to having a "world to run" is a peek through the window of his mind set. His "dream team" would only have people that think like him; Putin, Erdogan, Xi, Duterte, Kim, etc like family heads who if you offer your loyalty will be rewarded and if you criticize, you will be punished.
Why is he being allowed to continue without being challenged?
4
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in Trump, But in ourselves, Conservative media outlets like FOX News have spent decades marinating the American public, preparing them for a Trump.
Their coin of the realm? Everything conceivable that the government touches ruins citizens lives.
Trump's popularity is based on his mission to disrupt a nation that right wing Americans no longer believe has a moral right to exist.
Make America Great Again. Destroy it in order to save it.
For too many of the rest of us who don't recognize the danger, "we won't know what we've got til it's gone." And they've put up a TRUMP parking lot.
7
The best conspiracy is the one right in front of your face.
I feel threatened and not secure at all. We can’t know if this period is an aberration or the early precursor to a fascist style autocracy. Hitler wasn’t a threat to anybody—politically speaking— until 1933. People didn’t take him seriously until it was too late. No one took Trump seriously until he was elected. This country is not the Weimar Republic—or are we and just can’t see it? We are now a fundamentally fractured country. We have never resolved the questions posed at the “official” end of Reconstruction in 1877. Lincoln is reputed to have said that if “slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” I think that can be applied to racism in all of its ugly forms; murdering dictators such as Kim Jong Un; violations of human rights everywhere in the world. As a country, as a citizenry, we need to wake up and see this presidency for what it really is: an existential threat to American democracy and
values.
6
June 13, 2018
This is what you get when you elect apolitical thug that has no allegiance other that his narcissism. Yet we wait of the Muller probe and results to toss Mr. Trump back to Manhattan slum lord reality - with or without the Korea trajectory. Trump's is image more in the authorship of Mary Shelley - " Teach him to think for himself? Oh my God teach him rather to think like other people."
JJA Manhattan, N.Y.
2
America is it's people, and the majority of people in this country will not be made over into Donald Trump's image. Those who oppose are opposed to his world view will figure out how and why this man made it into the Oval Office, and we will make a course correction. And those who cheer him on will begin to feel the consequences of his disastrous policies and substantial numbers of them will turn away.
Like teenagers with red, ugly pimples on the end of their noses, we will be embarrassed, forced to suffer some anguish, and for some real pain. But this will pass.
1
In the dark days after Dunkirk, British Prime Minister Churchill comforted his people with a message that “in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might” will step “forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
The tables have turned since 1940. Then, Britain and Western Europe needed American power to save democracy. Today it is America that is in the hands of an authoritarian, racist, elitist, misogynist, populist, and nativist dictator-in-waiting. It is not at all clear that America can rescue itself from Trump. He has control of the courts, he is destroying the rule of law, and he has majorities in Congress that fail every day to challenge him.
Trump’s rejection of the post-WWII order may contain the seeds of salvation of democracy and the values and benefits of that order. Perhaps a G-6, committed to liberal democracy, the rule of law, and collective action to preserve peace, may come to rescue of the New World. Perhaps they can maintain the institutions that support those values and, in time, Americans can look to them for the formula of reconstruction.
The risk is that Europe, with its long border with Russia and dependence on Russia for energy, will sacrifice the post-WWII order to appease Putin. Americans should consider whether that risk is too great and decide whether to demand action to stop Trump before more damage is done.
1
My Republican WWII veteran father taught me that the first rule for protecting your freedom is never follow leaders who encourage you to hate people: they're never any good.
Fighting the Nazis taught him and his fellow Americans the importance of hating the sin and not the sinner. This attitude led us to defeat the Axis and help their people reform their ways, becoming strong, principled allies.
Thirty years ago Republicans abandoned this wisdom and thoroughly embraced the use of hate to gin up electoral turnout. Reagan let the camel's nose into the tent with his teasing disrespect of Jimmy Carter. After the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 conservative media was quickly dominated by the Manichean worldview of idealized us - dehumanized them.
This is a formula for winning elections while destroying your country. Mr Trump's ascension is the culmination of this process. It is also the point of no return. Do we reform and recapture our democratic republic? Or do we continue on the path to Russian-style oligarchy?
13
The liberals are so upset that President Trump is our leader and that he will be president until at least his term ends. They are also afraid he will be reelected for another term and will be stuck with him for even longer.
Now you know how conservatives felt when Barack Obama was elected and we had had to just grin and bear it. We understand your pain as we experienced it when your Mr. Obama was elected to office.
With any luck, Mr. Trump will be reelected and continue to lead us in the right direction. If things continue on this positive note, we will have President Trump remain in office.
1
Please explain what you mean when you state that Trump is leading us in the right direction. Do you really believe that isolationism is the best way for the America to survive? Is it okay that children are being torn from their parents as they come here to seek asylum? Were there really good people on both sides in Charlottesville? Should health insurance only be for the wealthy? Is it fine to lie at least five times a day? Is it alright to call out our neighbors and allies for some perceived slight...that really wasn't?
At least President Obama (and ALL his predecessors) tried to govern for all not just for his supporters.
7
I am weary of the false equivalence righties claim between their 'suffering' under Obama and Trump's continuing rabid attacks on our democratic institutions. The complaints again Obama were lies threatening actions which never happened, nor ever would have. Did 'Obama's Brown Shirts' kick down your door, steal your guns and Bibles, and inter you in FEMA camps? But don't worry, the lying never skipped a beat after Trump took office - in fact, it accelerated. Aside from Trump being a pathological liar and seemingly hell-bent on demeaning the presidency at every turn, unlike Obama, his policies actually have had adverse impact on those opposed. Meanwhile he continues to engage in many of the policies and actions the right has long accused liberals of (but never really did) with absolute impunity from his hypocritical supporters. What happened to integrity, decency, and values? What happened to not pandering to our enemies? What happened to assuaging our allies' concerns over our commitments? Oh, never mind.
But now liberals now *just* how you all suffered so under Obama, huh? yeah, *who* are the 'special snowflakes' again? Disgusting.
1
@ldaime:
Trump (along with Sanders) recognized that working class Americans were suffering economically from globalization. Trump and Sanders spoke out against Carrier Air Conditioners sending 1000 Indiana jobs to Mexico while Clinton was quiet (but had previously accepted $675,000 for 3 talks to Goldman the icon of the 2008 financial crisis) calling those who supported Trump's efforts to preserve their jobs "deplorables."
When Disney replaced 250 American STEM worker jobs with H1-B Visa abuse Indian imports, again Trump and Sanders spoke out against the abuse. Clinton was silent.
Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown has supported Trumps attempts to help workers. Unfortunately many of his fellow Democrats have not.
The only reason why Trump won is that the Democrats (save Sanders) forgot to act as Democrats such as FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ and care about American workers.
Read:
The View From Flyover Country: Essays by Sarah Kendzior
I am not feeling more secure. I am frightened to death as Trump becomes bolder and more irrational by the day.
But Trump republicans do appear to feel more secure. This fact scares me even more than Trump's rants. As he becomes more authoritarian and more unhinged will these people support a complete power grab by him? And "these people" include all those house and senate republicans that are cowering in the corners.
I really would like to know what benefits all of these people believe they have reaped in Trump's presidency. Really! Someone please come forward and give me specifics.
3
I am feeling less secure after the Singapore summit. It is now clearer than ever that we are being led by nothing more than a spotlight seeking television personality with no depth of intelligence and a total lack of understanding consequences of any nature. We as a nation are in jeopardy of being led into a deep, dark hole of isolation from friends, allies and fellow freedom lovers. Our president, and his party, seem bent on aligning us with every dictator and international despot on the globe. We are acting like juveniles by name calling our friends and cozying up to leaders of proven evil deeds and plans. God help us.
6
Is it a case where Trump is attempting to replicate America in his image, or is Trump the consequence of what Americans have espoused the past 40 years? Frankly, it's disquieting how many Americans are in denial of how the second inquiry is more accurate.
1
Thank you for encapsulating Trump's very scary vision for America. We can only hope that the November elections will bring us back to reality.
2
Mueller can't stop the process underway. Even if Trump is impeached and removed, Trumpism will remain. This is a cultural rift that will not heal itself any time soon. I studied anthropology in college and grad school and one big lesson I learned about humans is that people who don't see any benefit to living together will refuse to do so unless forced. There are two "Americas" struggling for dominance here and 2016 gave the edge to a conservative, exclusionary, corporatist, religious America that is currently doing everything in its considerable power to entrench itself permanently. Even if the Dems win the entire Congress back in November, there is no quelling this. Red America no longer wishes to live with Blue America (and vice versa). It won't be long before seccession is the operative word.
1
All of these points are tragically true. I could cry for our country and wake each morning to see what terrible thing or bizarre tweets the man has issued.
How could Trump voters have inflicted his bigotry, ignorance, corruption, and unfitness on America? So many criminal indictments among his campaign, some 3,300 documented lies since taking office, turning our closest allies into enemies and murderous dictators into his best pals, enriching his family such as Ivanka and Jared's $82 million last year while sitting inside the White House as senior advisers against all nepotism laws, and the children in cages, the 52 million Americans with preexisting conditions who will lose their healthcare.
It is almost impossible to list all of the destruction already incurred in this country. The glee and spitefulness of Trump's base, celebration of bigotry, and the deliberate denial by Republicans in Congress that there is anything wrong or unusual, read like the history of Germany in the 1930s or other stories of tyrants gaining power.
Our only hope seems to be in Mr. Mueller and in activated voters for the midterms. We need every single rational, patriotic, and compassionate voter who cares about the rest of the country, the environment, founding principles, and our relationships to show up at the polls or vote early.
Every single vote counts. It doesn't matter what your party was, now is probably the only time to stop the rise of despotism and destruction of democracy.
4
I feel less secure and disconcerted and disgusted--and I want to know when the Terms of Surrender to Russia and China that this administration has agreed to will be made fully public.
2
"The Times reported last week that “Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser...."
Trump has built many tall buildings. One must listen to civil engineers and soil scientists, so the reality is that Trump has been listening to engineers and scientists for years.
The 58-story Millennium Tower completed in 2009 in high-tech Silicon Valley San Francisco and built in an earth quake zone is already leaning in one corner (some call it "The Leaning Tower of SF") because of unsound building techniques and engineering.
In 1983 Trump completed the 58-story Trump Tower and it still isn't leaning. If Trump had built the Millennium Tower it would have presumably been built correctly.
Meanwhile Obama had as his CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden MD, MPH, also NYC Mayor Bloomberg's first health commissioner. Yet the ACA was passed without having this great doctor and administer crafting the ACA. For example, in order to combat tobacco it is most important to raise tobacco taxes as has been done in NYC and NYS. Yet the federal tobacco tax is about $1.
Also the Bloomberg administration tried to combat obesity by having the Obama administration stop allowing the use of food stamps to purchase Coke-like beverages, but was turned down.
Trump has a long history of listening to engineers and scientists and Obama had a history of appointing a scientist-doctor like Frieden but not listening.
We have far more smokers and obese people as a result.
2
He bowed to China on their need for us "work toward" getting out of South Korea. Will he bow to their need to unfettered access to our intellectual property?
(Remember - we stole England's weaving secrets to create the fiber empire of New England. One could just say it is creative destruction on a global scale.)
This is a great column. It speaks for me. But the issue now is: is Trump actually a "de facto foreign agent"? Is that why Mueller is being so deliberate? Are we faced with a security issue so immense that it cannot be stated without terrific instability being the result?
Best vote his power null in November. Best contribute now. Best work to register voters now. Best resist now.
1
In the context of this otherwise thoughtful essay, Tom, you have included a disappointing and unsustainable idea. You appear to endorse the flim-flam that if North Korea reached total denuclearization, Trump merits Nobel Peace Prize consideration. You would nominate him yourself! The rest of your column puts the lie to that figment of Trump's (and his fervent followers') imagination. Surely the Nobel committee is too wise to consider the award for a president who has so aggressively attacked the norms and institutions of democracy while revving up his base with overtly racist appeals, embraced the subversion of our elections by a menacing dictator, undermined health care for millions of Americans, taken babies from refugee mothers, demeaned and abused women, and consistently fomented division and rancor at home and abroad. Please don't sing in Trump's chorus, Tom, not a single note.
6
Getting rid of Trump is simple, but it will require liberals, progressives, and independents and other reasonable people to do something they have traditionally been loathe to do. We - I include myself in this - will have to get involved. Sure, we'd rather just stay informed, live our lives, and cast reasonably informed votes, but that is clearly no longer enough. We will have to put our money, our energy, and our time into defeating Trump and his minions.
The other side has the advantages of hatred, boundless energy, and a level of commitment to ideas we find hateful that to us borders on the irrational. But they will show up at the polls in November, and will try to keep our voters from doing so.
We need to register people to vote, make sure in states like Ohio that they are actually on the rolls, and if necessary drive them to their polling places. We need to fight for what we believe in, or we won't have it any more.
It's put up or shut up time for the left and the "reasonable" center.
1
The leftists want President Trump to fail and yet he has been a very successful leader for our country. The Trump haters are so disappointed that he has actually achieved a great deal of success and are dismayed and astonished at his accomplishments. It was not supposed to happen and now they constantly find fault where there is little to find. They are very angry that he has not been a failure.
He is unlike any other president we have ever seen before and that is his appeal to so many. He is accomplishing things that are beyond many of our wildest dreams. The country is becoming great again as his campaign promises said would happen.
1
WPLMMT -
I'm a bit puzzled by your post. What exactly has Trump accomplished, in your view, that is good for the country?
From where I sit, he has appointed conservative judges. As a liberal, that bugs me, but I see why conservatives would like it.
But look at the extravagant promises he made during the campaign. Where is his better, cheaper health care for all Americans? Where are his higher wages? Where are the new manufacturing jobs? How has he made the country stronger and more secure? Where is his wall, and is Mexico paying for it?
Answers in order: (1) it doesn't exist; (2) they don't exist; (3) same as 2; (4) he hasn't; (5) it doesn't exist and Mexico will never pay for it.
He has played a lot of golf - more at this point than Obama had in four years. But wait, Trump promised he'd be too busy working to ever play golf.
Seriously, what has he done that you think makes him so great?
4
yet again, another Trump supporter who is incapable of articulating exactly what triumphs he speaks of. Just exactly to WHAT accomplishments are you referring
No, Mr. Friedman, I am not feeling more secure; in fact I am scared to death as to what has/is happening to my country. But I am at an age where more is behind me than in front of me so my greater fear is for my children and grandchildren and the world that is being left to them. Unless something is done to stop this man and
and his enablers very soon all I can say is, and I am not
a religious person, God help us all.
VOTE!
1
The Princeton study shows that we are NOT a democracy anymore.
All laws passed and all policies benefit the rich massively with no care at all of how they effect the working class.
We live under the thumb of the oghlicarcs. Until we take these monsters down nothing will change.
6
I've finally realised the truth about tRump. He IS the truest representation of what America really is. We are a country that has as it's God, Money. Our National cathedral is the Stock Exchange, where Greed is good and the need for maximum profit is the one and only commandment. We worship money and the people who make money and have money are our high priests. As Alexis de Tocqueville said in 1835 "As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?" Just accept who we are. Other Presidents may have represented who we wish we were, or who we want to be. But Trump represents who we actually are. It's time to accept this.
2
Invoking "National Security" as the reason for implementing tariffs on Canadian Steel (in which the USA has a surplus) and Canadian Aluminum must by the epitome of irrationality on a hyper-friendly country. JFK said: " Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder." Name a country you would prefer as a neighbor better than Canada.
3
NO.
Trump has *not* remade the Republican Party in his own image.
Donald Trump is the image of the *Republican Party* and the right wing movement that has overrun it.
He is what they* are. What *they* have become - what the purveyors of the extreme right wing agenda, secular and religious, have been working to turn this country into for 30 years through the Republican Party.
When will the press, the Democrats, the left, GET IT?
They've been played, intimidated, demonized, manipulated for decades by the Murdochs, the Mercers, the Kochs, the Falwells, the Roger Stones, etc., etc., etc., through their media outlets and the politicians aligned with them, into enabling their undermining of our system of government as they poisoned the American people against its liberal foundational values - values that both liberals *and* conservatives used to hold dear.
All that was missing was the right candidate to elect president. Enter Donald Trump, with the right amount of ego, amorality, ignorance and indifference to democratic norms - a natural demoagogue - to become both user and tool of the right wing movement that had come so far in its agenda to remake America in its own image.
Donald Trump is dangerous because of the power he holds. But he is more dangerous because of his ability to make everyone believe that it is all about him.
It is not. If we don't get that soon, the movement that spawned Donald Trump will complete its agenda to remake America in their own image.
9
Just as Trump seeks the support of the bigoted racists in America, he wants the approval of the brutal dictators of the world. While he puts down the intelligentsia in the US, he insults our democratic allies. We have elected an ambitious egomaniac as president, and there is nothing he won't do to prolong his destructive reign. Trump is the master demagogue. We're in for a long, rough ride.
See: RevolutionOFReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
2
The resistance, which ironically represents the majority of Americans, desperately needs a plan B. All the reasoned analyses, like Mr. Friedman's and never-trump conservatives, aren't working. Trump supporters don't care what he does because it could never be as bad as President Obama, or the devil herself, Hillary Clinton. Real life income and medical circumstances might not improve for trump supporters, but they feel so much better that someone speaks to their emotional needs, as negative as some might be (at least I think trump's tacit approval of racism is considered negative). This is unfortunately how democracies die, but these flag wavers don't seem to care.
Plan B might have included heroic members of the GOP, but few exist. Actions by those with Trump Derangement Syndrome, like Robert DiNiro and Samantha Bee, are counter-productive. I can only think of a massive effort to get our youth, many who are completely turned off by this tribalism, to the polls in huge numbers.
1
I agree with Mr. Friedman on all points except the references to climate change. If Mr. Friedman were to look closely at the evidence he would have to agree that the case for anthropogenic global warming is weak. I suspect he does not even understand the basics. Nevertheless, belief in that theory has become part of belief system of those of us that believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment. To use the word "hoax" is to set up a straw dog: the evidence in favour of the theory has been exaggerated. The evidence would suggest that the atmosphere does not care whether or not you ride your bike to work or drive your SUV.
Citations, please. I trust our new GOP head of NASA more than I trust your off-hand, unsupported remarks. (Sorry to minimize someone from Canada at this delicate time. )
1
The desire for a strong executive POTUS is not new to America. Benjamin Tappan, a New England merchant and a 1789 Federalist believed the right prescription for the country after the Revolution was "a good dose of monarchism to offset the popular excesses of the American people." (Gordon S. Wood "Empire of Liberty") Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, advocated the new government in 1790 be one "which unites with the vigor of monarchy and the stability of aristocracy all the freedom of a simple republic." The Federalists sought to recreate the ancient Roman Age of Augustus; i.e. establish a living paradox, an emperor who touts the virtues of republican democracy. In the last half of the 20th century much of the political conversation focused the Imperial Presidency. Other than President Nixon, all the strong Presidents promoted democracy. What is new today is 45 governs by fiat, Twitter Tweets, and does not promote democracy. This distorts the Federalist Founding Fathers dream for America. Hence, Tom Friedman's list of the nation's insecurities capriciously created by a cowardly insecure narcissist who is ignorant and unappreciative of American history and occupies the office of POTUS.
2
The Trump haters are upset because he is making America prosperous again which they said would never happen. People are far better off than they were eight years ago. The liberals will never admit we are secure and in a better position than before. President Trump has achieved more in his relatively short time in office than President Obama did in all of his eight years.
The forgotten Americans who lived in middle America and rural areas are the ones who have made the most gains. They are very pleased with their station in life once again and are seeing a rebirth in their lives. They have something to finally feel good about again.
1
Like his many bankruptcies in business, trump is quickly working to bankrupt the country, with the willing help of congress.
VOTE in November!
5
The question isn't "are you feeling more secure?" It is actually if "you are feeling anything at all?"
Problem number one - Trump supporters seem not to feel at all. They have no feelings for things like racism, poverty, business, ethics, and honesty. They choose to ignore these feelings so much so that they resent attacks on the one person perpetuating lies that support these feelings.
Problem number two - Republicans in Congress and in particular the Senate have no feelings other than the feeling of needing to be re-elected.
Problem number three - The rest of us are just getting beat up by daily news cycles that eventually make us feel less.
9
I am feeling terrified.
4
But climate change is a hoax. Smart people like scott pruitt say so. He wouldn’t lie, would he?
5
The Republican Party was much worse before Donald Trump. Conservative principles moderated by legitimate goals and honest judges are far better than big business cronyism and international chaos in every decision.
America had been dishonest around the world and today it proudly advances peace and trade for mutual self-interest. Intellectual property (as defined and imposed by the U.S. Congress) requires America to be a trade bully because China, Russia, North Korea, etc. have a right to copy whatever they want unless they choose to agree to follow international agreements regarding software, movies, inventions, drugs, etc. Copying is not stealing – it is sharing. In the digital age, monopolies hold back progress more than they encourage it.
Because of his background, Mr. Trump values real property more than intellectual property. He projects peace through strength as long as all countries pay their fair share (and the Europeans have not). He is smart enough to keep America’s enemies close to him and let America’s allies know when he thinks a deal is a bad one.
Mr. Trump is no hypocrite. He has made mistakes like the rest of us and has learned to get up and win the race. He will not apologize to anyone and doesn’t need one from those he firers. He has shown mercy in his pardons and deserves nothing less.
Thomas Friedman should be judged as he mock judges the “Fox New Chorus” and other deplorables that are MAGA.
1
Thank you Mr Friedman for your insightful articulation of the serious dangers of the Trump presidency. The problem we have in this country is 45% of the voting population won’t spend the time to read even the first paragraph of this article. If they got past that, they would (like their leader) ignorantly label it as “fake” but with no intelligent rebuttal or counter argument. Just “it’s fake”.
5
You are exactly right, Mr. Friedman. Trump is trying to remake America in his image. It is as if the world is a Rorschach blot and what Trump sees and how he interprets it reveals his very deep and twisted pathology. It is terrifying to watch and as a patriotic Democrat who voted for Obama twice I am sickened that all the good that was done is being undone and that a lot of bad is taking place. The future lies with the American people, whose actions at the voting booth will determine our fate.
4
Mr. Friedman:
Trump supporters (and many other Americans) don't want to feel secure. They want to feel superior and degrade their enemies For that, Trump delivers everyday. Trump supporters always wanted to denigrate to Mexicans, Muslims, liberals, blacks, women, university educated professionals etc. but now it includes preservers of western democratic ideals, anti-authoritarians and devotees to limited government enshrined in the American constitution.
Their end isn't security (or sensible policy); it is smugness and self-satisfaction at infuriating your enemy. Trump supporters adore him for delivering what they want even if his tax/trade/environmental policy hurts them personally. He makes them feel powerful and unconstrained and they love it. He is the perfect vehicle. A white guy born rich who nearly blew his fortune has few talents except reality TV. The republicans in congress are going along to see what they can get before it fades.
This column is all true, but irrelevant. He will be easily re-elected. He is giving his supporters exactly what they want.
7
Trump is doing what he said he was going to do during the
campaign. He knows how to manipulate the media thru
propaganda and he has a major media network to help him
do it. Unfortunately a lot of Americans could care less. As
long as they have security, flat screen TV's to desensitize themselves, a roof over their heads, food on the table, and money in the bank does the rule of law and democracy really
matter?
3
One of your bst columns, Mr. Friedman. Keep up the pressure on the Republican-Russians and their ignorant leader.
6
Most concise and thorough analysis I have read. As a former professor of French and German History for 40 years, I could never discover why sound middle class Germans went with Hitler. I always said it was the depression and fear of communism. However as a life long Republican until2016 I am dismayed to see my old party members roll over and support
Trump particularly after his tantrum with Trudeau and sell out to Kim Jong Un. Is the GOP selling out to their Dear Leader, Der Fuhrer on Il Duce?
5
Democracy is working exactly as it has been built. Twenty-five percent of eligible voters selected a non-politician, never-elected, never served in the armed services, non lawyer, non economist, non scientist, New York real estate businessman (with a few bankruptcies both moral and financial) to the Oval Office. The Constitution says that it is okay to do so.
What would you expect?
3
I would expect you, and all of them to remember that twenty-five percent is not the MAJORITY of eligible voters.
6
Leonard, I think you mean that this is the way the Constitution is written and so we are stuck with this hot mess of a result. If you mean this is what the Constitution says and that makes it all just super, you are dead wrong. The reason we have the system of amendments represents our national desire for "a more perfect union." Otherwise, we would still have slavery. Is this what you want? It may well be what trump and his base think is fine, along with some in the trump administration, but you sound smarter than that. Are you?
trump is the most dangerous thing to happen in the world since dynamite was invented. And according to a doctor, was it Doctor Jackson, trump will live to be 200. Oh we have so much to look forward to.
2
Are Americans feeling more secure today? Many of them are. Ask those who voted for President Trump and the vast majority will say they are feeling better about their futures and their lives. They once again have hope and optimism and something to smile about. The economy is booming, they are employed, they have spare change to buy more than just the necessities in life. They are content and are very pleased with the state of our nation. They have not felt this way in years and have Mr. Trump to thank.
WPLMMT: These people you speak of (and I know a few of them), are they able to look beyond their own nose at what's happening the country and the world? What will happen to their children? What sort of world we are leaving them? Seems that the economy was going quite well when Trump was elected and unemployment was low, so what makes them so happy now? Spare change? That extra $50 in their paycheck? Hardly worth the cost of what will surely be the awful consequences of his time stinking up the White House and everything else he touches.
8
Trump's image is the image of a an ignorant racist and sexual predator; the image of an incompetent business fraud who was bailed out by vast amounts of Russian laundered money. Trump's image is that of an extreme narcissist who believes that the US government is simply an extension of his corrupt family business.
Trump's most significant image is being the face of the Republican Party. No matter what Trump does to destroy the image of America as a bulwark of freedom and justice, the Republican leadership will stand behind him as they have since he won their nomination. The Republican Party created Trump and they deserve all the blame for the disgrace that is heaped on our nation daily. That is their image: Complete Hypocrites!!
6
Mr. Friedman, from my perspective, I have not felt secure since Ronald Reagan stated the following; "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
This statement and the philosophy behind it is still haunting us.
It literally made the concept of government and all its institutions suspect.
Worse, it also made us think that our rights somehow exist beyond the realm of government, while not realizing that beyond government is just a void and subsequent chaos.
It is the only means we have to define who and what we are as a people.
Now, Donald Trump has become a full realization of that statement.
Government is the problem and the cultural battles since the time of Reagan is how Trump came to be.
Thus, Trump does not have to remake America into his own image.
He is already a mirror reflection of us, our culture and our underlying dysfunction.
He is also the void and ensuing chaos that can only be solved by totalitarianism.
So no Mr. Friedman, I do not feel secure and who knows, maybe our enemy Canada will soon open its borders and offer us all political asylum.
Wouldn't that be ironic?
14
Regarding the headline of Friedman’s article:
NEVER
We are going to send a clear message to the Trumpist minority in November
Not on Twitter, Fox News or CNN
At the ballot box
Trumpists will be forced to face the fact that the image of America and the reality of America are the same: a free and thriving democracy, though imperfect, will prevail.
6
November 2018 will be the most important election in my lifetime. Vote like your life depends on it. Because it just might.
14
Pogo was right. We have met the enemy and he is us--we elected him.
4
What do you mean "we" ? It is not clear form the razor thin margins spread over three states (70K votes in all) that Trump really won.
We are indeed our own worst enemies when we allow a distortion of the electoral process to go unquestioned as we did with the "hanging chad" fraud in 2000 and the Russian interference and systematic voter suppression in 2016.
8
President Trump wants to reshape America for Americans and look out for their own interests. He wants to see Americans achieve success and prosperity which had been absent to so many Americans in the past. They had been forgotten by past administrations and Mr. Trump promised he would make their lives richer and more fulfilling.
We are the ones who always helps those nations in need with little support from other countries. They sit back and let us get involved and want to get some of the glory. They are not willing to give their fair share of their time and money and expect us to do the work. This has gone on for too long and President Trump wanted other nations to chip in and pay their fair share. He does not want us to be pushovers any longer. This was one of his campaign promises and he is delivering. His critics are unhappy but the rest of us are pleased for his speaking out against these injustices. It was long overdue.
2 words: Trump U
That belies your whole point.
This man is a dishonest cheat who had to repay 29 MILLION bucks to "Americans who wanted to achieve success and prosperity" and who this guy saw as hapless marks until some judge ordered him to pay them back. It is called fraud.
3
When history will summarize this darkest episode in our country history, the FREE Press will come out on top as an intrepid and fearless guardrail for this democracy, keep up our hope alive, we need you like never before.
Bravo!!! For all the tireless work of investigative journalism, honest media commentators, thinkers, experts, op-ed writers, historians, intellectuals, who fight tooth and nail for this country destiny.
5
Mr. Friedman lays out very clearly the danger which America faces by continuing to tolerate the Donald Trump administration. Electing a person whose only qualifications for the job involved a family-owned real estate development company, a failed casino empire and a reality TV show was a frightful miscalculation. The agent of change has proven to be an agent of chaos. In 500 days, we are losing our allies, our moral compass and our decency. This is not the way to solve our problems.
In a recent column, Mr. Friedman called for a massive vote in November down the Democrat line to stop Mr. Trump's onslaught. toward one-man rule. It is not a question of policies anymore. It is a question of stopping the drift toward autocracy and the loss of our treasured democratic inheritance.
5
Its not just Trump. Its also his enablers in congress, notably that spineless, treasonous McConnell. People of Kentucky, stand up and vote this piece of cancer out in 2020.
12
I'm shocked. With all the harm Trump has done to us, I wouldn't nominate him for a Peace Prize if he personally drank all the plutonium in North Korea.
4
Thank you, Mr. Friedman, for this sober-minded assessment of Trump's presidency. Unfortunately, sound and logical arguments such as yours routinely fall on deaf ears when it comes to Trump's actions in the eyes of his supporters. He can, and probably will, throw the Constitution of the United States out the window, then receive praise for his "ground-breaking" and "unprecedented" act from the likes of Fox News, Breitbart, and the rest of the deplorable (nay, despicable) right-wing media outlets. I'm beginning to think that the only way left for us in the resistance movement to fight back is to unite behind the succinct and memorable phrase coined by Robert De Niro just a few nights ago. I'd make myself a blue baseball cap, and print that wonderful phrase (in big letters) on both the front and back. In America today there are only two kinds of people: those who wear the MAGA cap and vote for Trumpists, and those who will, hopefully, accept my suggestion here, put on the De Niro cap, and pledge to vote persistently and consistently against Trump and his minions. Sadly, our Country is split between Red and Blue right now -- it's as simple as that. We no longer need, nor can we afford, logical arguments and long-winded essays by smart intellectuals such as yourself. All we need is the short, accurate, and attention-grabbing De Niro slogan to unite behind -- it's a sad day indeed!
2
I think I missed the last several decades. How many major reccessions. Are we do for another one? .,Social Security may or may not be there. Where are the increaces. Medical costs keep increasing at an unmanageable rate. We are still fighting an endless war with Islam. Sociologists from major elite universities are trying to recreate the world in their own image. Enviromentalist are taking over the world's energy policy doing what to cost and destroying the emerging worlds chance of escaping poverty? While international bankers bleed their economies. The poor are getting poorer. The middle class is is being destroyed. Millenials think they are going to be rich and the weathy are on the way to world rule.
I've been told it's OK to fear the future but I'm in good hands. It's not fear it's anger. No its not about gay marriage and I'm not ignorant. I would have to be if believed Trump is the problem and his presence is all that stands in the way of a perfect world.
As George Orwell said in his masterpiece, "1984," "War is peace, freedom is slavery [and] ignorance is strength.” He saw this kind of government in the making....and we are moving ever closer.
4
"The United States of Trump" would be an oxymoron.
1
Yeah, I'm feeling more secure. Obama's administration "negotiated" a nuclear deal with Iran that allowed Iran to develop nukes.
Climate Change is happening, but Obama's EPA was a liberal progressive activist organization hypnotized by CO2 while Michigan's water filled up with lead. It virtually ignored the Superfund cleanup, and it was directly responsible for an old mine breach that flooded a river with toxic materials. The Paris "Accord" allowed polluters like China to keep polluting while committing the US and others to $Trillions dumped a problem $$s won't fix. It was silly.
Trade deficits are OK, I guess because the USA can "absorb" $500-800Billion trade deficits, according to liberal logic. But we pay for them w/debt. It can't/shouldn't be sustained.
NATO "depends" on the US to foot the bill while other NATO countries skimp. Trump had the audacity to chastise NATO leaders for putting US taxpayer unfairly on the hook. The pundit class lost its cookies over it claiming the US was pulling out of NATO, which wasn't and isn't happening.
Trump got NK's Kim to the negotiating table, something no president had ever done.
Did you feel more secure when Obama, during a 2nd election run, told Putin's number 1 that, essentially, "Hey, the American people are dopes. Let me win the election first, then I'll have more flexibility"?
I didn't.
I feel better now. Our current president doesn't subscribe to giving away our country as some sort of penance. There's too much to lose.
1
With friends like Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, China, and now the Rocket Man's Republic of North Korea, who needs enemies? It appears that America's new friends are either connected to Comrade Trump and friends or they are making money for Comrade Trump and friends.
2
The future? What's that?
Trump's delusions of grandeur are dangerous to children and other living things.
He's a big stupid ugly blob of a cowardly bully, and he doesn't want to know anything that might open up his understanding. The big con does not lack punters who cling to his supreme fakeness.
5
Susan Anderson,
You may be upset with President Trump but there are still millions of us who are very happy with the progress President Trump has made. We feel safe, secure and are pleased with our lives. It is the liberals who are very dissatisfied and never liked Mr. Trump from the beginning. They will continue to despise our president but it is to be expected. I certainly feel more secure with President Trump in office than I would have with Hillary Clinton. Now that would have been truly frightening.
Liberals don't seem to understand that their "international order" has already come apart and there's no putting it back together. Whatever his weaknesses, Trump at least understand this. He should be even tougher, though, and couple the demand for trade reform with the continued American defense of Europe: for each retaliatory trade sanction the EU imposes, we should close a base, beginning with the ones in Germany.
The Republican Party, American, Russian oligarchs are making it come apart faster, while they line their pockets, destroy democracies, make the swamp global and loot the US Treasury. Leaving the exploding deficit to our children, and no funds to recover from the inevitable, severe, coming Republican recession.
2
Liberals are usually to the left on the need for the huge and aggressive military we have had since the 1950s. Thus would by inclination support the "closing of bases" that you suggest. It is the right-wing alignment between military and big business that keeps those bases open; that keeps us in our endless follies of war; that continues to weaponize and beat chests to get average Americans ginned up over something that they are harmed by, that brings we the people NO benefit. So dream away-- trump and his boys are never going to close a single base, never.
2
You don't seem to have noticed that the American-led international order has enjoyed pretty much bipartisan support except for the extreme right and left, and neither of the latter have any real influence. The War Party embraces Democrats as well as Republicans. Trump, however, is not a traditional Republican; he ran as a populist and since he was elected he's frequently expressed skepticism about the value of our participation in NATO. Of course the pressure on him not to act on his skepticism will be massive, and for that reason I agree with you that it's unlikely he'll pursue the policy I recommend – unless we demonstrate that the public will support him if he did.
"First Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own image, and now he is trying to remake America the same way — into a selfish, dishonest country with no close friends, totally unpredictable, free of any commitment to enduring values, ready to stab any ally in the back on Twitter if it doesn’t do our bidding and much more comfortable with mafia-like dictators than elected democrats."
I dreaded reading this column knowing how misled the USA is under Trump , his swamp creatures in his cabinet (& family) plus the abettors in the GOP but it was even more gut wrenching to do it.
America , are you really no better than Trump & his abettors ? If you are where are the million person marches every weekend pursuing this nightmare regime with pitchforks & tar+ feathers ?
8
Tom - Thanks for this great article. But you're preaching to the choir. The country is split in two: those who read your articles and generally voted Democratic, and those who don't even know who you are and voted for Trump.
What is need is to get your good ideas into the minds of the latter. I don't know how, but it must be done. Good luck.
10
Good column, not that anyone will read it who really should be reading it. It's very depressing any time you list all the ways things are heading south. And maybe the most depressing thing is how divided we all are politically - no middle ground is allowed. It's still a great country, but we have to work harder to fulfill its promise.
1
I haven't felt more secure since Trump became President. Like being tied to a tiger and having to get dragged along. No offense intended to tigers. At least they don't change their stripes on every whim they have.
1
You're giving way too much credit to Trump. He doesn't shape the opinion of his party, he reflects and channels it. His party feels persecuted and financially insecure. His so-called persecution by the media mirrors the so-called religious persecution of his evangelical devotees. His constant fighting with the media and his payback to the likes of Falwell and Graham (e.g., Gorsuch appointment, Planned Parenthood restrictions) give the appearance that he's fighting for his evangelical base. His overt bigotry gives hope to those who want to restore the dominance of the white male ( in the New South and elsewhere). His evisceration of regulations on energy extraction and environmental protection have increased the demand for low-skilled, good-paying jobs (the long term costs won't be felt for a few years). So yes, his base probably feels a lot more secure.
Not so the rest of us.
5
Yes Tom, I am feeling more secure because we have a President who is willing and able to stand against foes and allies who threatens America and taking advantage of American generosity. ISIS is gone and Kim is talking. Canada and China need to bring their tariffs down or get hit with tariffs on their goods. That doesn't mean we won't be their allies and friends. Trade deals are not one way deal anymore. If you are really concerned about climate change due to fossil fuels, tell Arab countries to stop production of oil. By the way, we are still waiting for little more heat in NY in June. Illegal immigration is down and unemployment of Blacks and Hispanics is down. Economy is growing, wages are going up and most American feel good. If people with pre-existing conditions cannot afford to pay for their treatment, let the Govt. pay to them directly instead of forcing insurance companies to cover them resulting high premium for everybody. Overall, America and the world are moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately TrumptyDumpty does not reshape the United States of America in his own dystopian image, he just fosters, nurtures and grows the resentments, low instincts and nationalistic hubris that already existed in large portions of the population. It will end with a national hangover or catastrophe but until then people will party like there is no tomorrow.
1
Thomas Friedman, you are my chief anchor in the current chaos. However I can’t honestly thank you for adding to my depression this morning. In response to your question, if I must think about it, I have never felt more insecure with a president, including the Bushes and Nixon!
My greatest dream is of the day we will never see or hear a single mention of our present worst nightmare.
Disbelief, dismay, disgust, dysphoria must be countered with daily determined distraction!
3
As has often been said, the economy faces a trap door because of Trump/GOP deficits: Fed spending increase against tax cuts for very rich and biggest corporations with less collection enforcement. The republicans are buying one more year to be paid off by future generations. Trick they learned with Reagan and followed with disastrous results by Bush2/Cheney in 2008.
One can sensibly argue (although I don't) that climate change data are inconclusive or that the worst case projections are grossly exaggerated. But to argue that climate change is a hoax, a vast left wing conspiracy promoted by nearly the entire scientific community for the purpose of gaining access to our tax dollars through bogus grants, is pure Looney Tunes. That this is the official policy of the President of the United States does not make me feel more secure.
3
Yes you're right about the "hoax" theory being just off the wall "pizza gate" crazy. But it is not correct that the climate change data are inconclusive. My scientist father has shown me many studies/data sets, and it's clear from many different measurement aspects that this climate change we're experiencing now is both real and very unprecedented. The climate has changed many times in the past, but gradually. What we're seeing is on a totally different very very fast and dramatic time scale.
3
Yes, that's why I said I personally don't buy it. People who think they understand how data analysis is done (maybe because they took a statistics course) talk about the "hockey stick curve" or "torturing the data into submission". These arguments don't withstand close scrutiny. Their claims of "cherry picking" are themselves based on cherry picking. But at least you can argue rationally about them.
I am dumbfounded as to why Trump supporters are so blind and cannot see what he’s doing to our country and its reputation! This article by Friedman is ‘right on’. I compare Trump supporters to people who buy items made by child laborers even knowing their source. They must not be wanting to hear and recognize that they should not support such a very bad president. They should go back to history’s lessons, for example, what Hitler did to Germany with his selfishness and prejudices.
2
Russia if you're listening...read this please.
Our continuing discussions of the president, a man devoid of all decency and moral character, is a waste of time. It thrills him to witness the hate and chaos in his heart reflected back by his supporters. He is a traitor as is his family and the pack of thieves that keep him standing. trump thinks only of himself and the media conveniently cries his name day after day, nourishing his sickness. Let's turn our attention to the accomplices in the government and focus news articles on them: Ryan, McConnell, Nunes, etc. as well as Bannon and Stone. Traitors all, put the heat on them. trump is nothing without them but a blowhard and con man, just as he has been his entire life.
6
President Trump is a bully, and has been successful as a bully. In an America of bullies, there will be a few winners (known in medieval times as barons or courtiers), and lots of serfs. That said, however, not everything Trump does or seeks is bad. He is acting the bully on international trade, which is morally repugnant and probably bad in the longer run, but his goal of getting more exports is good for the US in the immediate future. He bullied N. Korea into diplomacy with his lurid threats, and it's possible that will improve the situation there and reduce the risk of war. Nothing else has. And let's face it: his North Korean initiative will probably save the House and Senate for Republicans in November, and get him re-elected. Bullies are not always wrong, and not always defeated.
1
As a transgressive opportunist, Trumps m.o. will always be to promote and take advantage of instability. But it should be remembered that Trump would not have a political following if it were not for past policy choices that conveniently ignored so many. I can just hear Sarah Palin saying: how's all that insecurity thing working out for ya now? How the tables have turned...sad.
1
Relax everyone...Trump is just making America Great...however the rubes never understood that the word "great" was never fully defined.
1
Dano you misspelled the word "great". For sentient people the correct spelling is "grate".
The spirit of the America I was born into has been snuffed out by nearly 50 years of unmitigated shareholder greed and pandering to capital as prescribed by Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and their ilk. There is no integrity remaining in the social fabric that once wove people to their community, their workplace, church, school or government. That contract has been voided, nulled, rendered mute. Gigantic multinational corporations and even more monstrous private equity firms are the only institutions of any standing in this depraved new world. There is no place for the civic-minded among us. Look around your house at everything you own, all your stuff--those items once came from skilled craftsmen who lived and worked in communities with names like Pittsburgh, Toledo, Lancaster, Bethlehem. Countless communities, sold so far down the river, is it any wonder our friends and neighbors have lost their minds? The spectacle of Trump is just the latest nightmare in a long parade of gluttonous ghoulishness that has eaten the soul out of a once fine and proud nation.
7
You’ve outlined the problem, Tom, but miss the point a bit. The United States has always had Trumpism in its psychology.
It is also true in how the very worst qualities of what a male (if not female) can be (you list many of these qualities in your OpEd) are on clear display in this ugliest of Americans, our dear leader Trump.
Sadly, the National and in many cases State Republican Party has degenerated slowly but surely since Nixon towards what we see today. An amoral, business first villainous cabal with the audacity to embrace and be embraced by Evangelical Christianity. American Taliban indeed .
And so Trump, of course, does not “want” us to become like him. America, like the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany itself, has always had a darkness within it. In a profound vomiting up of the liberal bliss we were close to with Barak Obama, the electorate (with some help from Russia) collapsed into a racist tantrum yielding this awful man and his administration we are now hoping to survive.
8
North Korea hasn't fired any more missiles over the Pacific in quite some time. Are you feeling more secure Mr. Friedman??
Unemployment is at an all time low. Are you feeling more secure Mr. Friedman??
What will make you feel more secure Mr. Friedman? A nuke hitting either Guam or Hawaii and high unemployment?
Republicans' oft said line during the Obama years "We want our country back " code for get the foreign born black man out of our White House should be adopted by the Democrats. In this case we are losing our country and we want it back !
5
He is the worst thing that ever happened to our country. How pathetic that the republicans, with few exceptions have a yellow streak down their back and follow him like a flock of obedient sheep. Somehow he has managed to hypnotize his supporters to the point where they don't care that he is a racist bully, a braggart, an egotistical wanna be dictator, etc. These are very scary and dangerous times.
6
Like it or not, American is becoming Trumpistan, Make Trumpistan America again!
1
The low information white base has a 'hero' who tells them, at last, that education, critical thinking, experience, and good manners don't matter.
Racism and homophobia are OK.
And the white male god in the sky (hello?) likes them the best so - it's all not just OK, it's blessed.
So just belch and bloviate and bully your way around. Flip the bird to almost everyone - including your former allies (but not your pal Vlad who must have some serious dirt on you.)
Then the base can go listen to high school graduate Hannity (it's true), the self appointed expert on geo-politics. (please)
Of course, the base are also disproportionate users of "liberal" social welfare programs. But they can't seem to get that. (Hence, repeatedly vote against economic self interest.)
I am tired of being told to "listen" to them.
I don't need to "listen" to hate and factless theories. I don't need to "listen" to someone endorse a liar and a malignant sociopath.
I'm done listening, and Congress remains mute.
So go ahead base - you wanted him - you go him.
Revel in the hate and lies and let Rome burn.
You will see that you are the ones closest to the flames.
7
President Trump:
Keep your makeover. Better yet, you know what you can do with it . . .
Trump recalls a certain Saudi Prince I read about years ago, who purchased a beautiful Greco-Roman villa, and proceeded to paint all the statuary in flesh colors, in vivid anatomical detail, if you get my meaning. The neighbors were understandably up in arms . . . .
We here in the USA don't want any part of what Drumpf is selling -- international isolation; autocratic leanings; thriving kleptocracy; far right wing-extremist sympathies; xenophobia; nationalism, with an emphasis on the first syllable; racist; homophobic; mysogenistic; just plain sordid; and on and on, ad nauseum.
No thank you.
4
We, the People, have a "President" who has left us Bereft of Leadership.
He does not know enough to Care...or care enough to Know. In his being
as a diagnosable Sociopathic Personality Disorder, he totally comfortable
in chronic fabrication and blatant Lying. Conscience is no hindrance or presence to Him. He is bordered North/East/South/West by Himself.
Our CEO is Enjoying his occupation as our COA....(Center Of Attention)
Glory be to He!
4
Kinda corny, don't you think, Tom? And, my security, for what it's worth, doesn't come from politicians or journalists in any case.
Trump: Trying to Remake America in His Own Image
It sure looks like it is getting its way.
I think you have give the devil his due here. Trump broke with tradition on deal with North Korea and turned us from a headlong rush to war. That said, he is a terrible negotiator and that was evident in his agreement to stop joint military exercises with the south AND his statement that he plans to remove all American troops from the South. Kim has gotten almost everything that he wants from Trump with really giving up anything. Trump now will do anything to save the agreement because of his ego investment in his stupid comments about Kim and his pronouncement that the nuclear threat is over. He will never admit the obvious, which is that Kim spun him like a top by smiling at him and laughing at his jokes.
2
Trump was the aggressor in the so called rush to war with north korea. He spawned the threats and insults.
2
Mr. Friedman, the president has already succeeded in converting America from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. He promised to return America to her ugly past and that message is resounding throughout his Republican kingdom. He's an arson disguised as a Chief Executive. The hateful Fox News is his bullhorn.
He was an ugly duckling among swans at the G-7 summit last week, a rogue leader who typifies the angry and intolerant American that the world has come to despise and turn away from. He is a totalitarian leader, a baby T-Rex breaking out of his shell in his nest of hate and racism.
The shame is that his kind of leadership has taken root in America. Many millions of supporters and Congressional enablers see this man as a bright beacon of hope. Our beloved America that we once knew is slipping away from us.
6
It also appears now the South Koreans are feeling a lot less secure now too!
5
We can hope Trump will remake America in his own image......everyone starts by inheriting $600 million, then lies cheats and steals from many workers, contractors and just plain people who believe they can learn something from being a huckster in chief. Today Trump added to the joy he offers by criticizing congressman Sanford for having an affair, teaching all Americans that cheating on your wife is for winners named trump, not anyone else. What a disgusting example of ignorant thoughtlessness.
On second review, lets not allow trump to remake anything except his historic business failures.
3
Maybe the Nobel committee will recall that, before he met with Kim, Trump threatened to destroy North Korea with fire and fury like the world had never seen. I can't imagine a more stupid choice for the world's premier peace award.
6
When Trump was elected my liberal friends kept telling me that Trump would change when he entered the Oval Office. Having been brought up in NY..and followed Trump's career in the press, I told them, don't count on it. Trump is what he is, a shady real estate developer from the Queens, who even my NY ethical standards, was a businessman you didn't do business with. He has never hidden who he is...a racists, a liar, a serial wife cheater, and proudly anti-intellectual. Having said that, we now have a significant segment of our population who can't get enough of this valueless and thoughtless president.
13
Mr Friedman,
As for every American your first priority for America is as it seems:"feeling secure."But remember:the real danger is inside your totally weaponised country,not outside.
4
Same as former President, no?
Perhaps President Trump and Kim Jun Un did discuss denuclearizing North Korea and human rights atrocities. Or was President Trump there to discuss real estate opportunities for the Trump Organization?
“Kim, just invision the beautiful beach front vistas once we stop our joint military operations from obstructing the views from your condos and resorts? My guess is the cost to you will be negligible considering how you seem to have figured out how to keep labor costs down.... Here’s Donald Jrs. card. But please keep it on the downlow until he and Jared can come up with a back channel to communicate.
Ok so what you say, You me and Dennis, burgers in the back of my limo?”
1
All of what you’ve just written Tom makes sense. From Donald’s point of view, means, any means are justified to reach his goals. I co-produced Sammy the Journey, a movie about one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust. It’s a telling story of the horrible conditions Sam went through from 4 years old until the end of the war when he was 12.
In all the research that I did for the movie, I kept thinking “Would it be possible for another Hitler to arise on this planet”? Until Trump, I thought NO! But Eric, we have controls in America. We have Congress and the Senate. Surely they wouldn’t allow something like that to happen here. Really? REALLY????
Wake up America! It’s happening right before your eyes.
Ask the Italians. Berlusconi never made peace treaties with anyone. They might share your ignoblility of trump.
1
"Are you feeling more secure?"
Democratic party analysts looking for a pithy, easy to understand slogan to theme the upcoming elections could do worse than to adopt Thomas' line today.
2
“For now, I’d only nominate him for the “Ignoble Prize.”
Just the Ignoble Prize?
I think he should be in the Guinness Book of Records for Worst American President Ever.
And be recognized as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test’s “Man Of The Year.”
3
I got my hair cut yesterday, by a new person. It turned out she was a Trump supporter. Out of the blue, she brought up Trump's North Korea visit, and she said, "I hope Trump gets a Nobel Peace Prize for that." She laughed, and continued, "Not because I think he deserves it, but it would make all the haters go crazy. All the MSNBC people would be having strokes. It would be great!"
That sums up the attitude of Trump supporters. Not that they think everything he does is great, but that they just want people like Mr. Friedman, who oppose Trump, to be outraged by him. They think the outrage is funny and entertaining. They don't care about the country as much as they care about sticking it to anyone they see as the enemy.
Needless to say, I won't be going back to that place for more haircuts. But, it does make me realize that the country has already been made over by Trump: mean spirited, self involved, paranoid and eager for revenge on anyone they think looks down on them. If that hair stylist was any indication of what "TrumpWorld" looks like, and I think she was, it is already too late to save America.
15
Funny coincidence my hairdresser said almost the same about our current situation. I mentioned something about climate change and she jumped on that, saying there is no such thing. Seems like only a very huge impactful result of Trump’s/Republican policies will educate these Trump supporters.
3
And yet his base loves him. His approval rating amongst Republicans is sky high. His story is also the story of his supporters who maybe never bought into the supposedly kind, gentle, do-right narrative of the US since WW2. Now they are having their moment and relishing it. They are also revealing what we also are in addition to the feel good narrative: mean spirited, dishonest, racist and willing to cast aside their fellow citizens because of ignorance and narrow prejudice.
A teaching moment for sure, but with lots of collateral damage.
VOTE!!!!!
5
Ever since the SCOTUS decision on Brown Vs Board of Ed, America has been struggling out of the remnants of Jim Crow and hastening towards what TF calls the US of Trump. Civil and Voting Rights Acts speeded up the process that Kevin Phillips predicted would lead to a GOP majority in DC. Nixon's Southern Strategy, the foundation of various "think tanks" and the Federalist Society, and Reagan's adoption of the mantra "government is the problem" were all milestones on this slithering ride downhill from the Shining City. How come all these dots were allowed to hang out there leaving the pattern undiscerned? Was there a complacency, born of certainty of American exceptionalism and hegemony, a complacency that allowed America to sleep walk into various crises?* Not the least of those was 9/11 and the housing bubble that almost destroyed the economy. Yes, Trump is the nightmare face of America, but he has many helpers. His smoke and mirrors act in Singapore is without substance, but “the world is still deceived with ornament.”
*Ken Auletta recently gave us the term “confidence bubble.”
2
The scary thing among many scary things which you listed is how oblivious the GOP are to what Mr. Trump is doing. It feels like the GOP are dead, asleep, drugged and they just don't care. Is it that so many of them are afraid of losing money and power?Is it that they are racists and terrified of non-white people? What is wrong with the Democrats? Why has there been not more of an outcry?
Words are a start but where are the actions? Mr. Trump is enabling human rights abuses at our borders, supporting the war in Yemen. No wonder he relates to a dictator, that is who he wants to be. How to reel him in? How to stop him from ruining this country any more. Everytime I read something that he has done, I cringe and think this is not my country, how can we be a part of this?
1
No, I do not feel more secure. I have been anxious and scared since Trump was elected and he has proven to be even worse than I feared. I thought maybe there was a chance that he believed in democracy--but no, he is a lying racist bully who has done more to destroy this country and the world than I ever thought possible. What also surprises me is how few Republicans are willing to stand up for "truth justice and the American way."
2
Your colleagues at the Washington Post should read this today!
2
Sarcasm, Tom, is said to be the lowest form of wit. I assume you are -- through repeated resort to your question "are you feeling more secure?" -- offering it to help readers elevate our various capacities to dissolve the seemingly intransigent and crazy loyalties of Trump's base? If so, I appreciate the sentiment but wonder if you are feeling you are succeeding.
The disgrace and idiocy that are the hallmarks of Trumpist behaviour seem to me to derive from long-term addiction to materialist priorities. They spring, I sense, from two primary beliefs: (1) 'we don't have the time to philosophize'; and (2) 'we have the time to take only those actions whose results we will be able to believe have arisen from either our own actions or those of others with the same beliefs.
These beliefs are known as short-termism. They drive insanely workaholic societies into vortexes of isolation.
1
Some journalists are comparing the Kim-Trump Summit to Chamberlain's Treaty with Hitler but I think it's closer to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact between Hitler and Stalin. South Korea may be the Poland of our day.
1
How much more insecure can we feel, Tom Friedman? Oh, the horror of Trump's zeitgeist and wetschmerz is driving us Americans crazy! PS Justify won the Triple Crown, but was the crown micromanaged by the winning trainer at Belmont? Just askin' -- during these fraught and horrific times of Trump's Singapore love-fest with Kim Jong-un.
Yes, no one but his cult-like supporters will agree, no one else. Putin, Xi, Saudi's depot king and other dictators know how to manipulate this clown, now added to list is the "rocket man".
1
Americans, and especially conservative republican Americans, are selfish, dishonest, and ready to stab anyone in the back. Trump is just one amongst hundreds of millions
How else can you explain borrowing trillions of dollars in the name of children too young to understand, how else can you explain taking health care away from millions, or children’s or parents away from families, or moves to disenfranchise voters, or treating whole groups of non-whites as enemies rather than fellow citizens, or members of other political parties as traitors instead of fellow citizens.
Trump is just a megaphone for the true spirit of the American People—including the leberal elite
1
I’m a liberal and I wouldn’t do any of those things and I don’t know any liberals who agree with those policies either
3
@John Morton
Maybe learn how to spell 'liberal' before attempting to speak for them.
2
The Trump base thrives on insecurity. It's what they know firsthand from listening to right-wing pundits, conspiracy theorists, NRA, mega-church evangelists, and conservative billionaire elite offer them.
The supposed conservative right truly feels big government is going to ban or confiscate the guns, religion, and property. They also are brainwashed to believe progressive thought is a disease. OMG, we're needing more plain-talking liberals like Biden to convince the conservatives that big government is not the enemy of the people.
Then again, big Trumpian government might just be too Darwinian and cruel to the working class.
3
We have entered a Trumpian Twilight Zone where up is down and forward is backward. Lies have suddenly become truths. I live in a country where almost half of my fellow citizens have become strangers to me, members of a dark cult that speaks a “language” I don’t speak, sees things I don’t see, yet are unable to perceive what I can see. And even if they do see what I see – the destruction Trump leaves in his wake – they don’t care. Trump rips out their heart – they don’t care. I can no longer talk over the fence to my neighbor because Svengali Trump has him under his spell. We pass each other in silence rather than get in another argument.
It’s the “I don’t care” of Trump supporters that bothers me the most. We have come to that level of nihilistic cynicism. I-don’t-care is an easy way of thinking you’re winning, all the while losing. But for the Trump cult it’s: misery loves company; I’m with my tribe with my hand over my heart during the anthem. For them the important thing is to stand by America - united in a nationalistic clan – no matter how bizarre the landscape gets. It’s the dance band on the Titanic - just keep on playing.
And their leader – now King – keeps on winning. He appears unstoppable. (Nobel Peace Prize?) No one in power challenges him in any meaningful way. They are no more than flies that he swats away. He is a grotesque creature that feeds on human suffering and despair; the more he eats, the stronger he gets.
No, I don’t feel very secure.
6
I haven't felt secure since November 9, 2016.
7
OK, at this point, anyone with a brain knows this—and much more, like the amount of smoke around "this Rusher thing" and the attempts to obstruct the investigation.
It's time to hold Republican lawmakers responsible.
The damage Trump is doing to our standing in the world is blatantly obvious. Are they willing to be complicit in that? Are they willing to let an ignoramus and liar negotiate nuclear matters with a rogue nation?
It's plain enough now. Call them out by name and hold them responsible.
7
Please Mr. Mueller, move quickly so we can impeach Trump ASAP.
5
No, I don’t feel more secure. How could I with Trump who has done nothing to protect our elections from Russian meddling. Listening to Trump promoting condos and real estate at the nuclear summit is enough to scare the bejesus out of me ! Trump is a thug and definitely bought by the Russian mafia. His destructive actions toward our closest allies while simultaneously and profusely praising Kim Jong-un plays right into Putin’s playbook. Yeah, we should all be scared what’s sitting in the Oval Office .... a traitor to our American values.
5
Your right. look how nasty this country has become since Trump has been in office. most gateful.
1
I am feeling depressed to think that this man of total moral depravity and unfathomable stupidity is in any position of authority. It is beyond comprehension how he became President. He has no qualifications for this post, no integrity, no honesty, no knowledge, and no intelligence. He is an incorrigible liar, a demagogue,
and a con artist. He appeals to anger and resentment and to our worst fears. He reminds me of the worst tyrants in history. What is wrong with us?
How can we let this nightmare continue? What does this tell us about our country? Thank you Thomas for elucidating brilliantly the abyss that is Donald Trump!
8
I yearn for the day that I can speak of Mr. Trump in the past tense. May it happen soon!
6
Trump has a huge adoration for autocrats and despots, he certainly lacks respect for allies and civility. But there is something even bigger involving Russia. Russia has played their cards very close to the vest but their fingerprints are all over us, and Donald is certainly towing the Communist line. The huge question is why, and the answer involves money, lots and lots of money. We still need to follow the money.
Donald has undermined all previous accords/agreements with our friends, certainly not for the nation good or security.
Donald has no relationship with the truth, honesty or civility and he lacks the ability to even recognize truth.
And yet, Congress led by the fleckless, McConnell and Ryan, refuse to hear, see or speak. All their self-professed standards including the oaths to uphold the Constitution, were all garbage, once they met the Donald.
It is unknown, if this nation can survive the Donald or if we even have the wherewithall to survive.
2
Trump is trying to do exactly one thing: advance his own interests. This what narcissists do. There is no other goal or strategy. There is no other ideology or principle. All the analysis is "sound and fury, signifying nothing." When will people realize this? Trump's form of governing is exactly his form of running a business, which resulted in six bankruptcies. He knows nothing else.
Trump is a symptom of a terrible disease plaguing America. No one knew how sick we were until he got elected. His time will end, but it will take more than that to cure the nation.
5
So, Mr. Friedman, if the Democrats regain the House of Representatives in November, will be you be ready to say YES to an impeachment vote?
4
It won’t matter if the House impeaches him. There aren’t enough votes in the Senate to convict him so what’s the point?
Canada will stand up for its legitimate values & interest & come out of the current difficulties with the US well enough.
What will change, however, is that we as Canadians will make more serious efforts to resolve our interprovincial & Federal/Provincial disputes & otherwise to make our domestic common market more just, efficient & effective.
We will actively build on our CETA ties to the EU & our TPP ties with the Pacific Rim & we will focus on building insofar as consistent with our interests & values our links with Latin America, India & China, etc.
Trade & geopolitical cooperation between Canada & the US is important to both countries but, increasingly, Canada must balance these links through domestic & international diversification.
This need is in high focus now in the era of Trump but, regardless of the state of bilateral relations, relations will be on a sounder footing all around if Canada lessens its current dependence on US markets & relationships.
1
Given the results of yesterday's Republican primaries, and given the fact that Pence, McConnell, Ryan are equally evil in many ways, it seems that many have been fooling themselves to believe that we are (or have been) a great country. We are an embarrassment, and have been wearing a disguise for too long. The real US has emerged.
Still waiting for his tax return?
3
Reading the comments to his article, it is clear Mr Friedman is "preaching to the choir". I am not sure that his analysis is any more balanced than the most ardent of Trump supporters, however in that it fails to look at other perspectives or to provide insight into why this is happening. Why was Trump elected? Why do 40% of Americans support him? And what will you say Tom if the midterm elections show continuing support for him?
There is a reason for all this, and it is not irrational, it is not wrong. You should be commenting on this. You owe us more in your columns.
2
When i traveled to Europe in the 'W' Bush Presidential years and said i was from Texas, i was pummeled by disbelief that America would elect such a 'Dotard' as its leader! It turned out to be true as the Bush republicans took a surplus and gutted it, walked out on the climate accord, destabilized the Middle East with its boastful rhetoric followed by invasion of Iraq, disregarding the inspection teams assurance there were no weapons of mass destruction, intending all along to colonize the Iraq for its oil. The 2008 recession left all but the wealthiest 10% in dire straights. Obama corrected that and killed bin Laden despite all the hateful grandstanding and obstruction by republicans. By 2016 Economy is back on track -stocks reach record highs and health insurance and climate change is showing remediation and Russian is warned of its tampering in our political process and derided by human rights abuses and the invasion of Ukraine and meddling in Syria. Hmmm Now/ we are back to the same old republican agendas that broke this country and put CEOs salaries in the stratosphere at the expense of our own stagnated salaries and ran healthcare insurance and medical cost higher.... what ? all for lionizing dictators with human rights abuses while insulting our allies and a temporary tax break that will benefit the richest corporate entities while the rest of America stumbles and reverts back to the same failed republican policies. do i feel more secure?
You and I have the power to feel more secure.
It is called the vote.
8
The contempt Trump has just displayed toward our allies at the G7 and cozying up to the likes of North Korea, China, and Russia crosses the red line. Trump represents an existential threat to the country. His presidency cannot be allowed to continue.
At this point, I do not believe it will be left to the Supreme Court to decide, especially after Bush v. Gore. It will not be left to our elected GOP officials now in control of Congress in the wake of their recent wholly feckless behavior. It will not be left to voters after the results of the last election. Soon, Robert Mueller will hand down indictments so incriminating that Trump will be forced out of office. And whoever then assumes the presidency will be served with a clear and present warning that Trump’s type of behavior will not be tolerated. I would truly be stunned if we don’t hear from Mueller very, very soon. There really are patriots out there who have fought for our country, and they are not going to allow this insanity to continue.
3
I pledge Allegiance to trump and the United states of trump. One Nation under trump with liberty for none and Justice for one.
All for ONE and only ONE!
1
It seems that Republicans prefer to act on emotions of fear, anger and strong tribalism, then piecing together whatever logic will follow to make that reality hold. They end up fearing things they shouldn't and not fearing things they should.
1
It's not both sides that "contribute to the problem" it's the Republican Party and its base, groomed and nourished by 30+ years of lies, racism and hate by Fox News and the entire multi-billion dollar right wing media empire. No compromise, no democratic institution, no fact, no lie is beyond their use for exploitation in order to stay in power. Their only mission being reward the rich sociopathic plutocrats, who now hail even from Russia, who fund the GOP (and now the NRA), and are then rewarded with tax cuts, political patronage and freedom from regulation. GOP planning goes no further than schemes, distractions and lies to win the next election. That is the Republican image of America, and Trump is the ultimate, most Republican, Republican.
5
Only problem with this column is that Tom is preaching to the converted. Trump's disciples are not into reading anything but a Fox chyron or a five word bumper sticker.
1
For a couple centuries we believed that the balance of powers defined by our Constitution would stop a headlong descent into this self-inflicted damage to our reputation and our democracy. The balance of powers, however, works when each part of the tripartite structure functions efficiently. Each part of our governing structure has significant power to stop excesses of the others.
With the whole world watching, our balance of power safeguard has broken. Our Executive branch, in the single person of Donald Trump, has taken political, intellectual, and moral positions that diminish our ideals and aspirations. This is occurring because there is zero restraint from the majority GOP party in Congress which lies supine or genuflects during this assault on our values. Further, there is an tremendous effort on the part of that same GOP to eliminate an even-handed judiciary, most notably with the Congressional theft of the fulcrum of the Supreme Court. And when you have a system where all three of these branches work together to disenfranchise the vote by brazen voter supression and gerrymandering, the political system is broken.
We can only hope that the GOP understands that it is not merely inflicting damage on the opposition party, but on the system that has been the envy of the world for centuries. Congress is a disgrace, and it must take the brunt of blame for not exercising its authority and its duty to preserve our values and our now broken government.
1
I believe that's already here, particularly among Republicans, and at least since Reagan.
A good summary of some (only some) of the worst of Trump. Now let's go after those who carry out his anti-American program in Congress, people for whom nothing is off the table if it gets them and the GOP one more vote. In fact, they'll vote to take away YOUR vote. They've done that already, in dumping the Voting Rights Act and purging voters' roles on baldly fictional claims of fraud. -- Americans? No.
You can trust the GOP to be the Anti-American Party.
They really should run on that slogan.
1
Thomas, "Lordy", if there is a tape recorded by our adversaries or by some Hollywood sound recordist of the private conversation between Trump and Kim Jong Un while they were together all by them selves in Singapore recently, then we can hear something like this in that tape,
Trump : "Kim, I must admit that I was totally impressed by the beautiful beaches in your country that I saw in my "Situation Room" while watching your missiles flying by those White sandy beaches as swell as while they took off from your country's beaches. I swear I could use those beaches by opening up scores of Trump named golf courses or opening scores of Trump Tower and Casinos that I've all over the world."
Kim : "Sure Mr. Trump. I can give you hundreds of acres of my beach side property out of millions of acres that I own only if you promise to lift the sanctions put on my country by you and friends in Europe."
Trump : "Kim my son, I promise to do anything you say if I can lay my hands on such a prime real estate properties for free. I'll even make you a fifty-fifty partner in this joint venture."
Kim : "Thank a lot for such a generous offer, Mr. Trump. And since you're as old as my father would be if he was alive, I'm ready to give as many slave labor as you want for your hotel and casino business."
Trump :"Don't forget Kim that you're an equal partner in this business too. So if you can donate your slave labor into our business, I'll give you a percentage on my international rump Inc. too."
The only choices we had to lead this nation were Trump or Clinton.
No question we made the better choice.
Cannot imagine Hillary Clinton getting N. Korea to the negotiating table.
Cannot imagine Hillary Clinton reducing my taxes.
Cannot imagine Hillary Clinton erasing onerous regulations.
America is in a better place.
1
Just wait until you can't afford health insurance, the water you drink and air you breathe becomes irrevocably polluted, you start having to reach a little deeper into your pocket for consumer goods -- thanks to tarriffs against the U.S., or Heaven forbid, this country winds up in a nuclear war.
When America is not a better place for all, it's not a better place.
2
Reply to N. Smith:
Already can't afford health insurance since 2012
Water and air are cleaner than 40 yrs. ago.
Trump may have just prevented a future nuclear war.
@Tuco
The conditional word here is "may".
No guarantees were signed with North Korea.
Another thing. Check out:
https://environmentflorida.org
You'll be surprised.
We have a chance to right this ship in November, but only if all Democrats and most Independents see whats happening to our country and are dismayed enough to get out of their couches and vote. We cannot let the GOP gerrymandering and other attempts to block our vote work. Hopefully, we recognize the problem so let's take action. If we all vote, even Russian attempts to give our vote to the GOP should not work. We can do this.
2
Yet in his weird way, Trump is succeeding...he clearly believes that his approach works and will achieve the results he wants. The question is why -- what forces in our society have made Trump possible, made it possible for a type of person hitherto considered "unworthy" to be president to survive and even thrive? I submit that we're only beginning to understand how our world has changed.
As an American, watching Trump's behavior with Kim made me feel as if I was being bathed in blood.
Meeting with Kim: fine.
Creating a hagiographic video, bizarre, but aligned with Trump's belief that reality is whatever he can sell.
Praising him, in ways that are akin to lauding Hitler, because Kim's people give him such adulation, profoundly disturbing.
Trump believes that he is no more duplicitous than other Presidents and politicians, just bolder in how far he will go publicly to get what he wants. He has gotten away with making outrageous accusations and constant lies, creating his own narrative, and attacking the work or prior administrations. A lot of us see through it -- but we haven't the power to stop him.
So when I see the President - supposedly our President - rubbing noses with a ruthless killer - - i feel dirty, too. I wish he did.
3
That all these Trump-American's embrace his caustic, mob-boss style is truly distressing. That the GOP Congress does nothing to control his worst impulses is even more frightening. Checks and balances have simply been replaced by checks, the ones that are written to the Trump Organization and every House and Senate Republican. We've all been sold out.
5
A country split by division with dirty air, dirty water, a landscape denuded by robber barons, national parks open to resource extraction and what remains is run like a theme park. Bread and circuses will dominate the national legislature just enough to keep the restive workers from revolting. All public offices in all three branches of government will be opened to the highest bidder. The rule of law will be buried.
6
I share all of the sentiments here expressed. But there is a wider context to this descent into chaos than Mr. Barnum, I mean Mr. Trump. The cherished agenda of the Republican Party, as enacted by Republican lawmakers at all levels of government, has been evident for at least the Obama years, paving the way for their present president, who is glad to be bolder in public and more precedent-shattering than any other member of the GOP. Behind this cherished agenda and the serviceable lawmakers are the elite movers and shakers of business and special interests with seemingly unlimited funds to corrupt politics in America for the sake of advancing their own aims. I believe that political analysis should use a wider lens than focusing on Mr. Trump's deleterious decisions, a focus that should reference the Republican Party, their longstanding agenda and their gleeful sponsors.
4
The quote, "an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people" (attributed to Jefferson), appears to be true. It may be too late to save our democracy and the sooner we realize it, the better.
3
Trump is symptom of an already (longtime) rotten GOP. With a U.S. electoral system favoring minority rule, and state voter suppression laws, they are now solidifying their anti-democratic, anti-meritocratic, non-egalitarian, xenophobic and racist goals on the rest of the country. The new regime is here for keeps (like the Kim regime).
6
I agree with your overall theme, but have to differ on the latest challenge to Obamacare. The elimination of the ban on pre-existing conditions was inevitable once Congress eliminated the mandate. Without the mandate, people who believe they won't need health care (some accurately, some not) won't buy it. This leaves a sicker population in pool, increasing the average cost. In the industry, this is called a death spiral.
The real crime was elimination of the mandate. A friend of mine suggested the mandate and penalty should have been cast as a "emergency room access fee", since people can't be refused at an ER. Until Americans become so like Trump that they are willing to let people die outside the door of an ER because they can't pay, these Republican decisions have hurt the nation.
5
To those on the outside, looking in, many Americans seem exactly like Trump now. I don’t know that “bodies in the streets” would bother them all that much.
1
It is discouraging to have to agree with you.
It seems unlike it personally effects many people, they just don't care. That must be why "bread and circuses" has been an effective political strategy for centuries.
Ayn Rand would be proud: Trump Shrugs, daily. The universe revolves around him, and Kim, and Putin who are all Shrugging. Ah, these libertarian despots would let the weak and the meek simply die. Who needs them? That is what gulags are for, right? Will someone tell Trump how to spell too?
NK is a national prison. Russia is an insignificant economic petro state, and Trump is turning the US into an island of corruption, and ultimately a diaspora of despair.
The white racists who support this reborn confederate may see, eventually, that he is hurting them as well.
In the meantime, we lie awake at night hoping for a miracle in November.
11
And all these deeds coming from a man who essentially ran a populist campaign that promised to drain the swamp and defend the interests of the forgotten Americans. His most ardent supporters will never admit their foolish gullibility because, like their great champion himself, they are hostile to facts and to all Others who threaten their supremacist fantasies.
6
A methodical argument for the way things certainly seem to be heading right now in our America-centric world. I do question what direction we can head though? Mr. Friedman, you offer great insights into the problems we are facing, but like president Trump with health care, you offer no replacement, no alternative path. In a nation rife with poverty, hate, and injustice, what is it that we should do? Perhaps you could write another piece following this up, with how to take on some of these challenges at a more accessible level for your readers. Trying to take some issues on at the federal level proves futile, but attacking them head on at local levels might be our best bet to steer the ship called America, back on course to avoid any disasters. Thanks
You and other keep talking about us becoming Trump Nation instead of recognizing that we ARE Trump Nation. The damage he has done is already here and will have a lasting effect on this Country long after he is gone. Of greater consequence, as your colleague Paul Krugman pointed out, is the Republican Party. I'd only add to that the inability of Democratic Party leaders to do anything except mumble curses in a corner that nobody hears. I use to be an optimist, but the last two years have wiped that away. Even if democrats win back the House, Trump has done so much damage so quickly that all the Kings horses and Men will not be able to put the United States back together again.
9
"it is way too soon to say what will be implemented out this Singapore fling. If it’s the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, I’ll personally nominate Trump for the Nobel Prize."
A phrase like "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" is easy to utter, but it seems to have no discernible meaning. Would the Korean Peninsula be denuclearized if the North Koreans had no nuclear bombs and the Americans removed theirs from the peninsula? My guess is the Americans would say yes. Or would the Americans still having their bombs on ships, submarines, etc., within a few minutes striking distance from the Korean Peninsula mean that Korea really is as nucqearized as ever? And are the Americans ready to give up their intercontinental missiles that could strike from America?
It's as easy to throw a phrase around as it is to throw the bombs around, even if the bombs have been moved a few kilometers off shore.
Further, the idea the removing the North Korean bombs but keeping the American bombs would be highly destabilizing. Remember, the only time atomic bombs were dropped on a civilian population was when only one side had the weapons. That's why the Soviets obtaining the same weapons in an odd way stabilized the world through "mutually assured destruction."
The idea that the world would be better off with "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" is a policy worthy of Alice in Wonderland. Words mean whatever one wants them to mean, to paraphrase Humpty Dumpty.
The insecurity I feel is for my children and for my children’s children. Security means having access to quality childcare at affordable cost, access to quality education at your local public school, followed by higher college or vocational training without incurring crippling debt. Once out of school, security means there will be job opportunities that enable them to establish families with roots. At my stage, security means my senior years are funded by a fair pension and the Medicare system. All of these pillars of security are under attack by the GOP. I keep wondering - what is it that today’s GOP voters think they are voting FOR? Not security for their children or their children’s children, that is certain.
9
This is exactly the way Trump runs his businesses. Everything is great until it isn't. And when it isn't, you walk away. Declare bankruptcy. Bust out. I'm not sure where he will walk away to when the debt overcomes our ability to maintain infrastructure or when contagious illness finds the CDC understaffed and health insurance unavailable. Maybe to a new hotel in North Korea. Near the ocean. It'll be great.
10
This is exactly the point. The wealthy can just helicopter out. Their money has long been preserved elsewhere anyway. Ordinary Americans can just be left to stew in the mess they voted for. Think TWD sans zombies.
Opened up the times with Trump name everywhere. I wish the times would take him off the front page and delegate his activities to the back where he belongs. By giving him attention, even bad he relishes it because he’s on the main page. It’s hard to read ANY paper anymore. He’s not my President and not my idea of reading material.
5
Time will tell, and history will eventually review and evaluate, the Singapore conference. Remember the September 1938 meeting in Munich between PM Chamberlin and Adolf Hitler which hoped for "peace in our time"? Didn't work out that way. Certainly it is better to talk than to fight but Kim's record of rule by dictatorship doesn't seem trustworthy.
4
Mr. Friedman
The President is meeting with Kim Jong-un to prevent nuclear war.
Not exactly. There were no guarantees signed, which pretty much leaves this all up in the air.
Just wait until the next Trump tweet storm to see how it all plays out in the end.
1
That's true.
He's offering beachfront condos on the North Korea beaches in exchange for de-nuclearization.
Stos Thomas
It is tragic that some think nuclear war is a joke. The President is attempting to prevent the U.S. from being attacked by a nuclear missile and other countries in the world.
Trumps news conference was a display to the world of a man and nation in deep trouble. His constant use pf platitudes shows his 5th grade mentality.I'm not spiritual but god save us.
4
Trying?
You must be kidding, that's already happened, we're way past trying
1
Even the headline, before reading the article, brings the thought that "That would really be a disaster." Now to press onto the article.
1
The only hope for the United States of Trump is that loosening the EPA regulations and abandoning Obamacare may exterminate millions more of Trump followers than those horrified by the man and his followers.
6
Does this statement qualify as an imprecatory Psalm?
Maybe Mr. Friedman is in the wrong business. But then, again, maybe not. When self-glorification rules the world, it gets torn apart at all the seams, journalistic, religious, you name it. In any case, if the Kim-Trump exercise in self-promotion is all that's involved in this summit, it will fall apart, like the other things Mr. Trump touches.
All unfortunately true Mr. Friedman, but also unfortunately true is the fact that 60 million Americans voted for President Trump. And they apparently like what he is doing to our country despite the fact that everything he has done is completely against the common good, our own self interest, and everything that America has stood for. The Republicans have joined the Trump cult of personality, which has much more in common with dictators, authoritarians, and despots than democracy. It is not a surprise that President Trump feels more of an affinity to Putin, et al, than our longstanding allies. We are in for a very long bumpy ride.
4
You can't be serious. Pay any price to do the right thing? Maybe during WWII, although our unwillingness to accept Jewish refugees, or bomb rail lines into the concentration camps, not to mention fire- and atomic bomb civilian targets says otherwise. Since then we have repeatedly iintervened in other nations when we did not like election results (Iran, Chile etc) We lied our way into wars (Vietnam, Iraq). Trump is horrific, but to paint our past in such glowing terms is foolish.
5
Trump is the product of a selfish, self-centered population. Those labels apply just as much to liberals as to conservatives these days, so don't take that statement as a partisan attack.
America deserves Trump.
2
I never would have believed that I would ever read an opening paragraph like this about the President of the United States. It makes me cry for a country I no longer live in but love none the less. This traitor to everything "American" must go, preferably by vote, so that he cannot cry foul or become a "martyr".
1
Uh, huh. And we can look to the likes of Samantha Bee, Bill Maher and Robert de Niro (who somewhere along the way confused an outtake from "Analyze This" as enlightened political discourse along with the rich A-list enablers who reveled in it) to provide America with a viable alternative?
Actually, I think we’re looking to Congress. And Congress is looking back over its shoulder, as if to say “Who, us?” — instead of taking responsibility for balancing out the worst instincts of this President.
1
we have a president who doesn't take his job seriously and could careless about America. Friedman et al spend countless words trying to foresee the country's future and he spends none.
Such a noble beginning for the country only to end like this.
2
Am I feeling more secure? No, nada, nope. The man-baby "leading" our nation has caused so much chaos and unrest not only to this country, but the world. He is so intellectually incurious and stunted that this country is literally going backwards in all fields.
3
Trump is the leader of the incurious, supporters who march in boot-step to this nihilist, their dedication based on notions they have not researched objectively, instead simply getting their impressions from 'fake news' sources like Fox News and the Internet.
They are sycophants, and exhibit little difference from what emerged in 1930's Germany when the common man on the street was told only one man could deliver them from their current state of affairs, their predicaments. You can fill in the blanks for yourselves.
4
I read the post before I saw who wrote it. I thought New York would never develop those values of Trump because there are t many Jewish people in NYState. My son was killed on his stupid motorcycle five years ago, so I read and read and read Holocaust books about the Jews and some Gentiles who had it so much worse than I. Except for Wynn and Adelson, most Jewish people practice the values mentioned in this article. My family came from England in the early 1600s. There is little record of them in England but thought they might have come from Germany to England. We are short people. I like to think we were fleeing a pogrom in Germany and brought the Jewish values with us.
1
It is surely one of the most ugly images. As Trump was starring in his greatest show ever in Singapore, America is locking children in cages.
Even if you want all the immigrants out, ask yourself if locking children, some as young as 2 years, in cages is justified. Blaming the parents is NOT an option. The gross, ugly and cruel policy should be stopped immediately and yet the Trump administration is proceeding full speed without any major pushback.
So America has defined itself downward at warp speed since Trump took office.
Trump has lit and stoked the fire of hate and his cult are basking in the glow of the fire.
I say time to join together and put this fire out for good, once and for all.
6
Very much apt and on the mark. If only people would stop to think and hear. But the time for charlatans is now and people want to destroy the old institutions and they are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Trump is a destroyer of faith trust and stability to promote his brand of hard line dictatorship. Even America can fall prey to hate and distrust and fear. It is now in free fall mode.
My hair is thinning, but I will not do a comb over. (sarcasm...objecting to the gross image)
Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who voted against repealing Obamacare...
...voted FOR every other thing pushed by her fellow Republicans.
She, if anyone, and her state deserve what they get for their obvious shortsightedness.
I always voted Democrat but I would vote Republican to get rid of Trump.
Donald Trump's posture of strength is a complete sham and reflects the behavior of an elementary school bully, who for all of his huffing and puffing is underneath the worst version of a coward.
There is nothing admirable about berating and punishing people who do not have the recourse, like immigrants and asylum seekers, or even, as in the case of Canada, impetus, to get in the ring with you. The threat is imagined if not outright projection, the fight is between a bully and a paper tiger.
Nor is there anything admirable about pushing the excessive powers one has over the line into rank exploitation. The blurred boundaries allowing overt corruption at the highest levels of this administration are the result of long time assumptions of characteristics that are non existent within this crew of opportunists and outright miscreants.
But, as Friedman illustrates, perhaps the most appalling aspect of this amoral presidency and its enablers is the faux patriotism in lieu of true dedication to democracy, not just abroad, but at home. Have we ever had a president in thrall to dictators and disdainful of our allies, along with the rule of law, fair play and community? I would argue, of course not, or not only would we have been forewarned, but most likely had it succeeded no longer the functioning democracy that is still hanging on by a slim thread.
Donald J Trump, whatever his popularity ratings on any given day, is a lot cause. It's the rest of us that have to wake up.
Resist. I refuse to become what that charlatan is and has always been.
1
I’m sorry Trump supporters but blaming others for your problems is fodder to Trump. The people you call elites were from the backwoods but realized the importance of education. Immigrants take on jobs that Americans don’t want. Not the high paying jobs but the backbreaking jobs in the fields and slaughterhouses. You complain about illegals but the people who hire them are immune from prosecution despite the law.. Do you really think Trump is interested in you? His family takes in billions from investments and foreign governments, the tax cut benefits Trump and friends not you. You will lose healthcare, Medicare, and Social Security. Cheer on!but don’t be surprised that we scorn your adulation,
1
Outstanding work, as expected, from Mr. Friedman. It is a shame that most folks who read this already know many of these things. Those that don't read, or have trouble reading more than a paragraph at a time, will continue to support the worst president that this great country has ever had.
Voters: NO APATHY in November. Please vote!
4
Watching Trump attack and insult allies while warmly accepting vicious dictators and strongmen, I marvel at the 87% support level he enjoys among Republican voters. Trump's sarcastic, dismissive tone while threatening Canada with costly tariffs for an imaginary insult, compared with his effusive praise for the murderous North Korean dictator amazes me. This morning Trump tweeted
"Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!"
"People" were not assuming that. Trump's total confidence that the North Korean problem is now diffused is absurd. Trump has decades of public history that demonstrates his style. His simpleminded approach is to always declare himself the winner, regardless of the facts. His litany of business failures have all been spun as personal wins for him, often because others ended up taking the biggest losses but always in defiance of observable reality. I wonder if Republican voters can continue indefinitely to be duped by lies and false confidence. Sadly, I suspect the answer is yes, and that when Trump's incompetence precipitates a major downfall for the U.S., his base will still not waver.
3
I am not feeling more secure. No, no, a thousand times, no. And people who continue to support Trump truly need to ask themselves the same thing. Please think about the person you are defending and rallying behind. Imagine if Trump had the unfettered power he seems to admire in people like Putin and Kim. Just imagine, given his greed, his ego, and his vengeful nature, what he would do. He would steal every dollar and lock up every dissenter, and if you suddenly decided you didn't care that much for him after all, there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it, because you didn't resist his power grabs while you had the chance. Voting for Trump was one thing. Continuing to support him now is a sign that you don't know the history of demagoguery or are blinded by willful ignorance.
1
Citizen of the world, please don't forget Mitch and Paul.
Without them he could be rendered powerless. Stuffing the court, refusing to bring laws that the entire Congress would support. He is not a dictator yet but they are letting him behave as if he is.
Stop blaming Trump. We, the voters, are to blame. Trump on his own would be much less powerful. His enablers are the Republicans in Congress - both Houses - who, in supine acquiescence, empower the Donald. And who empowers the Republicans? We the voters. Thomas, in the NY Times you speak to the converted. Get out into marginal House constituencies and Senate seats and spread your message. Be a guest on Fox, absorb the bilge they spout at you, and spread your message. We, the voters, need to connect and communicate. We the anti-Trump, pro America voters need to win - BIGGLY - in November 2018 and keep America great!
2
Sorry. Trump IS to blame -- and 'We, the anti-Trump, pro-America voters need to VOTE...BIGGLY.'
2
America has already become the United States of Trump. To be sure this has taken decades of right wing media propaganda to accomplish. The election of Mr Trump is simply the culmination of this long process. I do not see things changing much for the foreseeable future. Mr Trump's base is enthusiastic, organized and on message. The opposition seems to be dispirited, disenfranchised or disinterested. It has no leader and no core message. The upcoming midterms will truly be a plebiscite on America's future. Personally, I am not optimistic.
1
So the president of the U.S. warmly shakes the hand of a man who had his uncle and brother assassinated, and insists the citizens of North Korea remain ignorant of the world while they starve. Two preening egocentrics join hands.
2
To sum it up - trump is an abomination.
2
Yes.
What may ultimately save us from Trump is the reality of his age. As an overweight, non-exercising, poor-dieted septuagenarian with dementia in his family history, Trump (72), is much older than all your favorite dictators were when they initially assumed power. Pinochet (58), Peron (57), Mao (56), Marcos (48), Putin (48), Franco (47), Hitler (44), Mussolini (39), and Castro (33) all were significantly younger than Trump, and although some lived to rule into old age, it was their initial ability to consolidate control of the state security apparatus as relatively young and vigorous men that secured their power. Trump and his little army of worshipful minions are doing the best they can to dismantle government institutions and replace them with an “executive fiat” form of governance, but time is really on our side – if we are lucky.
USA is no longer a democracy "of, by and for The People."
USA is now a monarchy, and not a benevolent one, except for the wealthy.
Congress has abdicated its legitimate powers to King Donald. Republican Senator Corker, on his way to the exit, said from the senate floor this week, that all Republicans are afraid to "poke the bear." A tweet storm would ensue. Their political career would be over. Yet election to congress was never meant to be a full time career. Congress officials were sent to represent their districts and states, then return home. Think George Washington.
Now the courts and Justice Department are buckling.
The thin veneer of civility and tolerance has been ripped off the face of USA. We are now tribal, in thought, word and actions.
It took fifty years to evolve to this mean monarchical state, but here we are.
4
Please, stop telling me what I already know, over and over and over again.
Trump makes me nauseous. The fact that tens of millions of Americans now display cult-like devotion to the man, and refuse to tolerate even the slightest criticism of his most obvious shortcomings and egregious lies and misconduct smacks of the rise of Adolf Hitler. And the realization that Trump and Trumpism are now the face America turns to the rest of the world is simply mortifying.
Nevertheless, we long since have crossed the line between energizing outrage and enervating outrage overload.
It's time to stop wallowing in the quicksand that is Trump and start hoisting ourselves out of the muck.
Please. Just stop.
1
How?
1
Much is being said on whether Trump made a good or a bad deal. What is not being mentioned is that there is no deal. There is only a promise to make a deal. So all discussion should calm down until we see what is going to be proposed. For the moment, what we know is that Trump gave Kim a gift (cancelling the military exercises) in exchange of a promise to make a deal. It may be a kind of carrot for Kim or it might be giving something or nothing, hardly a hardball start. Trump may beat down a competitor on a building, but so far he has not shown that he can beat a nuclear competitor.
The Republican party chose Trump, nominated and elected Trump, and accomodated his know-nothing style. Even impeachment will not stop him. The irony is that he is not accomplishing much, including with this last stunt with NK. Read New Yorker article comparing T with Kaiser Bill.
The US is tossing aside it's allies both in Europe and Asia and becoming isolationist. Facing Russia in Europe and China in Asia,the EU, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan will have to manage on their own. They will probably militarize and maybe even acquire nuclear weapons while fortress America becomes more racist and drives more citizens into poverty.
We've seen this before in 1914 and 1939 but this time with nuclear weapons ,the stakes are much higher.
To avoid this,it is imperative that the Democrats take over the House and impeach the president. Even he won't be removed from office,the trial in the Senate and resulting press coverage may wake up the population and lead to a real federal government, free of the present political and economic pollution, at some point.
1
I always wondered when I heard the MAGA meme, when was the last time America was great. Now I know:
No one cared about the climate,
Pollution was OK,
Everyone was on their own when it came to health or retirement,
Isolationism,
Science is for nerds and dweebs,
Being in debt is great.
Sounds like early 1900’s America. So we are moving backwards while the world moves forward. So sad.
1
Am I more secure?
Not when the President of the United States uses the Justice Department to reward his friends and hurt his enemies.
Not when the President of the United States uses his office to shore up companies and industries that win him votes and penalize those that don’t.
Not when the President of the United States demolishes political careers based solely on whether the candidate licks his boots.
Not when the President of the United States declines to do anything whatsoever about election security despite intelligence officials’ unanimous agreement on Russian hacking.
Not when the President of the United States demolishes the western democratic alliance because the other top western leaders’ knowledge, intellect and judgment makes him feel inferior.
Not when the President of the United States says the rule of law does not apply to hm.
Not when the President of the United States lies to the American public six times a day.
Not when forty percent of Americans believe everything he says and support everything he does.
9
Throughout history, no empire lasted forever. The same will be true with the American empire.
Sadly, far too many Republicans feel more secure under a dictatorship, rather than a democracy.
The word "patriot" can never be applied to Republicans now.
6
"Both parties have contributed to this problem, but Trump has just sharply exacerbated it..."
Not really. Under Clinton and Obama the deficit went down. Under Clinton we even had a surplus. I am a Democrat but I have no problem acknowledging their mistakes. The deficit is not one of them.
8
Appreciate the article though given all the bad things the country now stands for, there's nothing left to pick from that isn't best left on the shelf.
No. I am not feeling more secure.
2
"Are you still feeling more secure?" Well that depends on who you are.
If you are an Evangelical Christian you don't need science proving man is causing climate change because you have faith god is changing the climate to bring about the end of days.
If you are an Evangelical Christian you don't need Obamacare to provide health insurance for your child born with a leaky heart valve because you have faith that god, not doctors, will cure him.
If you are an Evangelical Christian, who needs allies when you have god on your side? Yeah, many citizens of Canada, Great Britain and the European Union are Christians but god sides with us against them because...well, we act bigly Jesus-like, especially in how we treat those rapists, drug dealers and their mule children coming from Mexico.
If you are an Evangelical Christian you don't care if Trump makes progress on denuclearization of North Korea; in fact, you hope he will infuriate Little Rocket Man because the end of days will come sooner if Trump can start a nuclear World War III. But in the meantime you are thrilled that you have Neil Gorsuch to help take back control of women's bodies.
Evangelical Christians don't need security; they have their faith which is summed up by, 'the end justifies the means.' Trump is the epitome of that faith because he doesn't care who gets hurt in his pursuit of self-aggrandizement and they don't care about anyone else so long as they bring more babies into the world and the world ends. Soon!
11
God help us.
3
It's depressing that so few in our country care to vote, and those that they do act like Hitler's Germans, worshipping at the shrine of their pretend glory, until the pyramid falls. The rationalization of cruelty towards the poor and vulnerable makes of us an uncaring, untrustworthy, despicable people. The knee-jerk hatred towards immigrants denies our birthright and bespeaks our fear that we are not up to the task of competing in a freer world. Our lack of vision on healthcare, education, infrastructure, human rights, and the environment, and the degradation and gaming of our tax system and government to benefit the wealthy impoverishes us all. Trump needs limits for the protection of all. Republicans are too cowardly. Vote for Dems in 2018. Also major changes in laws affecting millions should not be made on twitter on a whim. Vote!
3
Why doesn't "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" curb the pretensions of God's little pet goldfish?
They are surely the most dishonest people in the US.
2
We have already become the United States of Trump. Great tracts of our nation are populated by those driven by little more than hate and greed. How do you think Trump got elected in the first place? We are a society in decline - we have surrendered any moral high ground we may once have had and shown ourselves to be ignorant, venal, petty, incredibly bigoted, totally amoral and undeservedly arrogant. It’s sad.
1
Ignorance is lamentable.
Wilful ignorance is despicable.
1
The problem--in the absence of checks and balances--is that he's succeeding, and not in a good way. Where are our elected 'patriots' when their country needs them? Majority resistance to this lunacy comes only from those leaving congress.
If/when a nuclear confrontation should arise, who will stand up against such a Dr. Strangelove? What cowardice.
The problem is that Trump did not come out of the blue. If this vile, ignorant, sociopathic little man is President of the US, it is because he already reflects the values and prejudices of a large part of the American electorate. Trump is an American problem but he is a manifestation of the very worst in the American character. The man and the people around him are so vile that they are almost cartoon villain. Literally everything good and decent, they are doing their best to destroy. It would be fascinating if it were not so sad and if it were not a comment on the minds and morals of so many "ordinary" Americans.
1
The vain arrogant Donald Trump will find out it's bad not to have friends. Even an all pro Mr. Everything athlete needs team mates and fans. Europe, Canada, and Asia are big places and can't be brushed aside while the lame brained Trump flies solo in his foreign policy philosophy (whatever that is). It's no help that our congress stands on the sidelines and ignores it's constitutional duties as a check against a wayward president. As we continue to diminish in the eyes of the world we have only ourselves to blame.
4
As Trump might put it, he is trying to rebrand America with the Trump name.
4
Trump wants to win the Nobel Prize? You can nominate him for the "Ignoble Prize". I'll nominate him for the "Goebbels Prize" for his moral depravity towards women and his embrace of murderous dictators around the world.
9
In the year before I was born FDR and Adolph Hitler came to power. FDR’s mandate was to help those Americans who were devisated by the great depression and his efforts were to make our people more secure and to know that government belonged to them and they should be protected by laws, like the NRA and Social Security. Hitler the lied to his people, gave them scapegoate, lied incessently and served the German version of the .01% with the aid of funding from Wall Street and major American companies, like Ford Moter Co., IBM, DuPont, Chase Bank, and many more.
I remember the depression from my childhood, my older brother fought in WW2, one being killed. How do I feel now that in my mid 80's my Social Security may be cut, my Medicare might be trashed and the man in the WH is using Hitler’s playbook to obtain office and stay in power and destroy what FDR and post war America built and is using his office to enrich himself and destroy the Western Alliance and stabbing our friends in the back? Not secure at all because I read history. Why are the majority not in the streets? I am sick of minority government.
Get registered to vote now and show up at the poles on election day. The time to really be in the streets is during the lame duck session for this Congress.
16
Tom, you’re right on as usual, but wow I’m feeling depressed—the truth really does hurt at times.
7
And six months ago I was thinking ‘how could it get any worse than this’ ...
It will, there is always a major crisis in every single Presidency, and I fear the worst is yet to come. Whatever it will be he will make it much worse. With trade wars definitely coming, I cringe when he looks for his next attention scam. Say like, tomorrow....
8
Add the in-your-face, naked aggression of the Trump nationalist identity to their version of homeland security and I cannot help but feel this is becoming a place I cannot call home. That as a lover of the land and of the native land community, I stand out as an other.
6
It is surprising that the White House has not been painted gold with a huge neon TRUMP sign flashing over the portico. Trump is an extreme narcissist and sees the US government as an extension of his personal world. But there are really no surprises in Trump's behavior. He is who he is and always has been.
The true gut-wrenching shock comes to us from the Republican leadership who are so afraid of losing Trumpist votes that they allow our nation to fall into disgrace and disarray. After the G7 fiasco where Trump opted to promote Putin's interests over those of the United States, after the Trump-Kim Comedy Hour which proved yet again to the world that the President of the United States is an incompetent know-nothing who seeks constant personal glory, we must ask again and again: Where is the Republican leadership that has the patriotism to put a muzzle on their mascot Donald Trump? The apparent answer is that they are hiding under their desks.
We awake with a complete sense of anxiety and insecurity every day that Trump is in the Oval Office. The Republican one-party state we live in must be expunged from Washington by massive voter turnouts across the nation that will overcome all the efforts of the GOP and the Roberts Supreme Court majority to suppress and corrupt our electoral system.
16
The saddest thing of all is that this is all just personal with Donald Trump. He was born oppositional, so the deregulation, dismantling of healthcare, idolatry of thugs, and tax breaks for the wealthy (read: himself) are all meant to serve his oppositional needs. He believes in nothing but himself. Any attention, negative or positive, will do. In just a few short months, he has destroyed what it means to be an American, all in the service of his own personal ego. He is no mystery. What IS a mystery, though, is why so many have fallen in line behind him. Do I feel secure with Trump as president? Absolutely not. So why do so many others? If we can find the answer to that question, we can turn this nightmare around.
8
Trump's abuses can be expressed in the news and in books until the cows come home but it will not sway his supporters. For whatever reason, the fact is that they will believe him in whatever lie he wishes to state at the moment he states it. The only thing that will change this is that a new candidate announce their bid for the presidency and start running for a Post-Trump America.
There are many dangers with this strategy but in the end it will be the only one effective unless Trump implodes. This candidate must be of certain stature that they could meet with our Allies to discuss ways back to a positive relationship and also support the media attention. An individual unafraid of the attacks by Trump which will come and be able to redirect those attacks to show Trump for the weak, childish, ignorant, lying con-man he is.
Trump's supporters need to see an alternative because this is all becoming too normal to them and a single alternative point of focus is required as balance.
And the central point of this run should be to restore the democracy that has failed since the beginning of this presidency. They need to speak of the failure of congress to do their job, to explain the purpose of departments that have been ravaged and abused, and to defend the order that had been established and the value of that order.
5
Trump's supporters are NOT the MAJORITY.
That's why trying to convincing them otherwise is not an option or even possible. Forget them.
Getting other Americans to VOTE against breakdown this Republican gridlock is what's called for -- and necessary NOW!
I understand Americans' inclination to gauge the political state of the nation based on the actions of the executive branch, but we ignore the role of the other two at our peril.
Yesterday's Republican congressional primaries were discouraging in their knee-jerk disapproval of candidates who opposed Trump: a conservative monoculture does this country no good.
And the current Supreme Court -thanks in part to McConnell & Co.'s perfidy- promises the same descent into the negation of many of the elements of the Great Society that promise, promised, truth & justice for all.
I don't disagree that Trump represents many of the more odious urges of the American polity. But let's please pay equal attention to the powerful moneyed forces that support the entirety of the government's success in diminishing the nation's security -both foreign and domestic.
7
I've always believed that honesty forms the very foundation of ANY relationship. Without it, there can be no trust, and without trust, no healthy relationship. Donald Trump lies compulsively on a daily basis. It says whatever comports with his reality at any given moment. I'm feeling very insecure. I believe our country is in decline, and Trump is like a runaway train. One must ask, where are the Republicans. Where are other members of Congress. How will we be able to undo the damage caused by DT's ignorance, meanness, and obsession with settling scores over the slightest perceived provocation. I wake up everyday feeling sick to my stomach, and sad about the whole situation.
7
Trump's policies are like his face make-up: one solid color if you look at the front, a bit of a mess if you look from the sides.
3
Of course we not feeling more secure. The constitution set up a system of government where as a balance of powers exists between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches of the government. This has apparently failed. With each new Trump outrage, the GOP congress is and has remained silent.
Need a example? The consistent stepping all over and violating the emolument clause. This is more salient this week as the income generated by Trump and Family has just been released for last year.
What ever is really going on, who ever is behind the not so bright Donald Trump, who ever has the Congress so terrified as to keep their mouths shut, who ever is behind the Fox/Limbaugh propaganda machine (which has created a pro Trump base) all of us have no reason to feel the least bit secure.
Goodbye democratic republic, hello autocracy!
10
1) Any democratic candidate running for President needs to absorb this piece and start talking.
2) Elizabeth Warren should stop being the anointed candidate. Now.
9
A democratic prospect needs to be the front for a reality TV show.
Please. No more reality TV shows -- what we need is more REALITY.
I agree wholeheartedly. However, I wish that every person in the US would read this entire article, not just NYT readers. I would like to have Mr. Friedman's writing be required reading in high schools and colleges.
Trump, a man with no firm plans or strategy for the country. The only thing predictable about Trump is his overwhelming narcissism...Trump "alpha and omega". Everything else is subject to his whim.
It is not America First, but Trump First. How can any country trust this man when in one breath he dumps his best allies/friends (viz, Trudeau and Canada) and embraces the worlds most heinous tyrant, Kim Jon Il..
1
Trump can be "forgiven" for not understanding that creating global insecurity would make the world less secure. His sense and feel tell him those two things aren't the same thing. Creating insecurity about everything makes him feel more secure. Saying that an insecure situation is secure and even wanting a prize for that insight makes him feel smart. Makes sense, right?
2
Side bar comment: I am never sure what writers mean when they refer to the Ugly American (or, here, Ugly America) because my recollection is that the Ugly American in Burdick and Lederer's novel was the good guy who got things done by "going native" and was looked down upon by the other Americans in the fictional country.
It is difficult to know where to begin or where to go with current events since we are relentlessly inundated with the horrors of the Trump presidency.
I do know that America made it through the Revolutionary War. We developed a system of self-government that has held, with all its flaws, for almost a quarter of a millennium. Anti-slavery forces triumphed in the Civil War. We made it through both World Wars and have staved off a possible holocaust in not allowing another one. America has continued to prevail over the dark forces of tyranny and fascism. Trump is no match for us.
I don't know what form Trump's downfall will take. It may be Mueller. It may be American voters wising up. It may be our elected officials rising to the occasion. It will probably be some combination of these. All I know is that America as a whole is infinitely stronger than Donald Trump. He will be swept into the ash heap of history where he belongs, sooner or later. He is awakening a sleeping giant, and his presidency will not survive it.
The lives of some people are meant to serve as a warning to others. Trump is one of those people.
9
I hope hope hope you are right. Please be right.
Mr. Friedman, If the horror show you so aptly describe all comes true.
Our human race will mutate into a new lifeform to cope with whatever remains of our once glorious planet. And all the Evangelicals in the whole world won't be able to do one darn thing to prevent it.
4
Thank you for this wonderfully written op-ed. What scares me and makes me less secure is the complete acceptance by both the republicans in Congress and the wealthy who have lost their honesty, morality and sensibility all because they are making more money. It’s simply sickening.
22
And isn’t that why he was elected?
Still, the Leftist seek a power that is absolute and permanent. At any cost.
In a word NO. The reason why Trump or any other president is elected is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the rights of ALL Americans....not just those who voted for you.
Well said. We’ve elected a rogue, and we’re on our way to becoming a rogue nation.
8
The juxtaposition of Mr. Friedman's column with that of Ms. Boylan moves me from sadness to depression. What future does this country have if Trump succeeds in remaking us in his selfish image?
6
Donald Trump was duly elected as the President of USA. He represents America to the world. He is what USA stands for. That's American Democracy.
3
And how's that working for you?
4
Ha ha ha. Boris, please.....
1
Umm, I beg to differ.
He won less votes.
He is just an example of how the Republican gerrymandering of states nationwide has made the electoral college undemocratic.
The republican party no loner exists. It is now the trump party. This is how Hitler got started.
We need Mueller to put an end to this. Now more than ever. America is on the brink of doom. And so is the world.
20
Agreed. Except that the world will move on without America. Doom will not befallen the rest of the world.
4
We are not only feeling more secure. but we are more hopeful about the country's future than we have in quite some time. Here's who are more secure: millions who saw their premiums balloon under Obamacare; tens of thousands of workers back in the manufacturing sector; more blacks, Latinos, and women with jobs; millions formerly terrorized by a now defeated ISIS; untold millions freed from the menace of North Korean nuclear weapons; veterans now treated with dignity and respect, and a military funded to secure the lives of every single American. But to Trump-haters, none of this matters. How credible is that?
you have to stop listening to Fox and friends...what policies have been implemented by trump and GOP congress that has brought "better" health care, jobs... the North Korean meet and greet has no substantive policies behind it...just the bluster of trump saying all is well... Veterans have been treated with the utmost respect every since the wasted Iraq war started...I am a vet of that misadventure and people continue to thank me for my service...
1
Yes, Thomas, America is a progressive country on its way downhill. As fate has it.
5
There is one aspect of all this that troubles me a great deal. Many Americans want this. They voted for him because they felt no one listened to them.Others are getting ahead and they are not. They assumed winning for them was guaranteed. And in order to get back on top they don’t care who loses. They don’t care who suffers. They don’t care if other people die from treatable illnesses or lawlessness in their own countries or civil war or brutal dictators. And hatred for America will rise because America has no empathy for anyone else. They, in short, have only one priority: themselves. So when they lose healthcare, inflation gobbles up their small pay increases, and they watch their tax break disappear while Republicans eliminate any government assistance they could benefit from, they will once again cry “No one listens to us”. And they will get no sympathy from the 60% of America that had agreed with them in 2016.
15
Trump has increased the amount of risk in the US economy significantly with his misguided trade war, debt financed tax cut and personal meddling and picking favorites among industries and at the level of individual companies. The potential disruption in global supply chains and domestic power production could strand existing assets and cause managements to defer new capital investments.
Whatever short term benefit we might have gotten from the corporate tax cuts have been whittled away by his ineptitude and the stench of corruption that he and his minions carry with them. I reduced my US Equity holdings by a third and sold my foreign equities this week and will hunker down until we get some clarity on the midterm election .
Right now,there are no adults in the room exercising oversight on the Idiocracy he has installed in DC.
12
You are correct. I don't know how Wall Street has not caught on that the instability should be crippling the stock market. But it isn't. The gamblers out there will ride it to the just before the crest and then bail. They know when that will be since the restrictions on insider trading will never be enforced now. We are going to experience a recession that will recycle many times now.
1
He might be trying but, in the words of the Economist, "there is no guarantee of anything that even resembles success." The conservative magazine says Trump's major foreign policy fumbles -- scrapping the Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, launching trade wars with traditional allies while flip-flopping on China, and going unprepared to a summit with Kim -- all give the impression that the great dealmaker actually "comes cheap and can be played...the chances of Mr. Trump being looked back on as a latter-day Reagan are nil."
12
What Mr. Friedman et co still does not understand is that in the United States of Trump, he and his ilk are not meant to feel secure. Just the opposite. The more insecure Mr. Friedman is the better.
Everything Mr. Friedman complains about is, according to Mr. Trump's supporters, is exactly what Mr. Trump should be doing.
Mr. Trump does not have to re-make the US in his image; it is already is there. Mr. Friedman is the aberration. He just can't see it because he writes for and talks to only those who feel as he does.
6
What a great point about needing Canada if there is another 9-11! Could the US have toppled Saddam without the help of Canada.
I guess we'll never know since, according to Mr. Friedman, Canada always has our back.
"Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien's decision to break with U.S. President George W. Bush on the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a very public and rare expression of Canadian sovereignty that many critics here feared would jeopardize U.S.-Canada relations for years."
1
Despite jeopardizing US-Canada relations, our most important relationship, we told you not to invade Iraq. We wouldn't join because the justification for it was invalid, it would be destabilizing and the war in Afghanistan wasn't finished.
Iraq wound up costing you immensely, in both lives and dollars, it gave rise to ISIS, and the battles continue. And, as the UN inspectors and almost all of your allies told you, there were no WMD.
Having your back also means telling you when you're wrong. That's the difference between a friend and a sycophant. Its why the former is valuable and the latter is useless.
Thomas is wringing his hands, again lamenting the many known defects of Trump.
Instead, how about lamenting the venality of the GOP Congress bought-and-paid for by the Mercers, the Kochs, the Uihleins, the Wilks? How about analyzing where their ideas came from, and how they have managed to take over the country just with a little planning and a lot of money?
26
Don's base has no time to check and see if they are feeling more secure. His only question to them is, "Are you feeling more angry?" Don is stunningly insecure and his method of self-comfort is to mask his fear by keeping the voltage of his anger higher than the voltage of his fear.
He deviously equates patriotism and anger. His disciples conflate their anger with patriotism or moral indignation. Being "for" America equates to being against fill-in-the-blank.
Since Don hasn't the substance to conceive of true greatness, all he has to pedal is the greatness of greatness—an empty word somehow associated with money, bombs and the power to intimidate and make up silly schoolyard names for opponents.
His superpower is hypnotism. And, of course, the way to avoid being hypnotized is to not watch or listen to the hypnotist. But people in pain and fear seek out hypnotists to blunt such feelings. This does not make them feel more secure, it makes them feel less of anything except anger—that shiny, overpowering feeling that puts their rational self to sleep.
11
What ever comfort he gives to some, settles them into eternal apathy. That is deadly for our Democracy. Register, vote. Flip the House and Senate. Do your homework on candidates carefully. Beware politicians wearing cowboy hats.
The U.S.A. was destined to have a charlatan (read the great article in today's NYT about charlatans) at the helm because we are no longer a "country." We have become the United Chamber of Commerce of States: a loosely connected bunch of zones competing against each other both culturally and economically. The glue that holds it all together are a cadre of rich, self-serving oligarchs who couldn't care less about infrastructures, schools or health care systems that serve "the serfs." The Chamber simply wants to fill its coffers without cost no matter the consequences to the "little people."
18
mrfreeze6 - Kind of severe, but not that far off the mark. Free enterprise is a good thing. But, unfettered free enterprise has long proven itself to be a bad thing. Clearly, corporate goals and culture need to be tweeked for some companies. The profit motive is important, but not the be all and do all motivation. Many companies do show a social conscience - far too many do not or claim to but put it far down on their list of goals. Time to up there game.
2
Mr. Obama could have fixed this, no?
As long as the Chamber (and its enablers) are in charge, I don't think we will ever return to a time of "capitalism lite." The owners of this country want it all for themselves and they have the power and influence to game the system in their favor.
"God forbid we become the United States of Trump. That would threaten our future and the stability of the world. The world has come to rely on an America that, more often than not, has been ready to pay any price and bear any burden to do the right things, say the right things, model the right things and stand for the right things — when others were unwilling or unable to do so."
Yes, like spending 5.6 trillion in the Mideast, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, leaving behind utter chaos and invading sovereign nations on false pretenses. You mean that kind of "right thing"??
3
Mr. Friedman, with Trump sycophants being successful in the current primaries and Trump polling very high (mid 80s percent) among Republicans, I guess at least Republican voters are feeling very secure.
The real question isn't why Trump is the way he is, since he has been that way his whole life. The question is why GOP voters think isolation, hatred, selfishness and dictator-love is a good way to run our nation and handle our relationships.
I have no idea.
28
One idea
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton gave us Mr. Trump.
Clinton gave us Bush who gave us Obama.......
Yes, I am feeling more secure. Thank you for asking.
2
Are you really that afraid of people with dark skin?
This column is so absurd. Trump hasn't remade this country in his own image. The voters have. We need to reframe the way we look at his voters. It's not what they are for that matters, it's what they are against. Trump defies the normal metrics for success because his voters don't support him for what he does. They love him for what he's against. Trump is against the political establishment ,the media, the Republican Party, the Bushes and the Clintons. Trump is against rapid change which for the working class encompasses everything they had but fear they are losing. Trump is against globalism and unrestricted immigration which has taken jobs from many Americans. It's not that a third of US voters are fervently on the side of Donald Trump - what's more relevant is that they are adamantly on the opposing side of a culture war that's been brewing here since the 1980s. Trump isn't causing this populist revolt, he's reflecting it. It's Conservative values vs Liberal values. Liberals are going to lose. They've been losing at a pretty steady clip for the last six years. During this time we have lost the Presidency, both House of Congress, the Supreme Court, the majority of state legislatures, Governorships, & most important local offices. In 24 states, Dems have almost no political influence. This trend will continue. Why is the Democratic Party in shambles? One reason. The majority of voters no longer are buying what the Democrats are selling. That is a fact that can't be denied.
1
Yes I do feel more secure. One thing: restricted immigration, legal and illegal.
It is probably true that the chance of a nuclear exchange between the US and North Korea is smaller now than it was a few months ago; it is also true that the reason for heightened tensions was Trump’s rhetoric. Before we heap praise on Trump for decreasing the chance of war, we need to remember it was he who almost started one.
38
Mr Friedman, the North Korea deal that Trump just brokered is a breakthrough deal that the world have never seen - it's a big thing, you should admit it. For peace, everything is worth a try. Of course there is good Trump and bad Trump, get used to it.
1
They didn't "broker" anything.. 1 nasty dictator and another nasty wannabe dictator looking for photo ops is not a deal.
Come to New York...and ask anyone who has ever done
business with trump how good his word is.......
how many he has stiffed........Puhleeze.
1
There is no deal yet! Nothing, Nada! Thats the point.
1
No, I am not feeling more secure.I feel scared! I feel scared that Mr.Trump honors dictators, dishonors our friends and allies and has turned his America First doctrine into the Trump First enterprise.I am scared that Mr.Trump does not honor our Constitution or the men and women who work to defend it.I feel insecure, scared and indignant and I will VOTE in November.
23
Okay, people, we are all angry. We are insulted. We grieve for our Constitution, for our long-cherished values. We are appalled that the sacrifices our parents and grandparents made in the wars are now trampled underfoot by someone who, motivated by nothing more than spite and ignorance, rallied millions who could look no further than the ends of their spiteful noses.
There are more of us than there are of them. We can take back the country. We can throw out the sorry, complicit, Republicans who have spent the last three decades doing their best to destroy what is great about America. We can restore what is good about the country. We can be kind, forward-looking, compassionate, visionary, inventive, creative, inspiring, and fair. We can take care of our neighbors. We can be nice to each other. Isn't that a fundamental precept of those who voted for him? To love they neighbor?
This is a moment for the chastening of America. To remember that this country is by and for the people, not the personal piggy bank of greedy billionaires. Our hardworking, mostly poor, many exploited, and many more enslaved, ancestors, built this country. The rich exploited their labor and got richer. That doesn't have to continue.
We can change it. Take back the country in November. And maybe even convince a few misguided trumpeters to come along for the ride.
Vote as if your life depends on it. Because it does. Nothing could be more important than your vote on November 6.
37
"Vote as if your life depends on it. Because it does".
The lives of others depend on it also....the children seized from their parents, hoping to immigrate (how traumatized are they, and their parents?).....your children, in schools that are falling apart, with inadequate supplies......folks without hope of medical coverage or timely treatment......
peoples of other countries, affected by US-instigated regime change......; one could go on.
Nothing could be more important than your vote - in any election. Nothing could be more important than speaking up, and in taking action.
Canada defeated a Trump-ish Prime Minister and his government a few years ago. It CAN be done.
Nicely done sir. The only thing that scares me more than your list is the fact that tens of millions of his followers will never leave him. When he has made enough money, he will cut them loose and they will move down the food chain in search of a new messiah. So will the Russians, and the big money. They are likely to find one. Will any institutional brakes be left to stop our descent ? It certainly won't be the court system.
6
I am not an historian but I do recall that at some point in America's short political history we had a political party called the "no nothings". I truly no nothing other than their name. No nothing of what they stood upon or why they came into being. I know only that Mr. Trump and is weird MAGA bunch stand for ignorance, and greed above all else. They are true No Nothings. Our country's government now values greed above kindness; greed above humanity; greed above long lasting alliances. All of our central government is focused on collecting power, and demanding that we pay tribute in cash or words to Mr. Trump or his minions. Our vast resources; places we have held and valued of ages are now being sold off to the highest bidder. Our children's fortunes have been given to bankers and investors in a tax give away. We embrace foreign demigods as great world leaders. The "no nothings" are in power.
8
The best advice I can possibly give to those Americans who see Donald Trump as he truly is (an extreme narcissist) has been brilliantly documented by the distinguished Professor of History at American University; Allan J. Lichtman. He has now forecast correctly every Presidential election for 30 years. He not only got Trump being elected (one of the very few); but also had the vision to write a book about the dozen reasons why Trump would be a total disaster for the U.S. and the World. One chapter alone (The Unrestrained Trump) chillingly details how such a man with a clear "Napoleon complex" would try to bend an entire nation to his narcistic will. The book I refer to is of course titled " The Case for Impeachment." Ignore the prophetic warnings by Professor Lichtman at your peril!
17
Just finished Comeys book. Wow. An eye opener. Trump clearly mentally unfit. Vile and self serving. We can and must do better.
What will we be celebrating on July 4, 2018?
Will we remember the values that formed the basis of this country or will we be going through the motions while the authoritarian values of Trump and conservatives rule?
Liberty is liberal. Freedom from oppression of the monarch is a liberal concept. Equality is a liberal concept. Self rule, representative government, and judged by one's peers are all liberal ideas and values. The United States itself was, and is, a liberal idea. Conservatives (Tories, loyalists) lost the war of independence and they have been fighting the battle ever since in reimpose authoritarian values.
Something to think of when Trump speaks of the presidency as ruling or a regime or when conservatives usurp patriotism and the flag.
9
This is what you get when you have a propaganda channel like Fox News and Sinclair repeat, repeat, repeat the Trump message. What will it take for Trump supporters and enablers to see and feel the damage this administration is doing so beautifully pointed out by Tom's piece? They must feel the damage of these policies. Right now they are counting on Trump to solve all their problems. They do not yet realize his solutions are empty promises designed to enrich the Trump family, Republican donors and other pay to play participants.
8
Nuclear proliferation and global climate change are the two most critical scientific issues we face. This administration’s attitude is “we have PhDs on call if we need them” or words to that effect. Wrong. Listen to experts, then form your opinion.
So says this PhD.
5
Except for the nobel prize nomination...that’s exactly how i feel...fearful of the future that has arrived.
Post 2008 recession there was stress, certainly. I did not have a job for a while. But i knew and felt the country, the northeastern (at least) were working toward a better world, brighter, more compassionate world for all. Corky yes but that’s how i felt.
Today, after recovering somewhat financially (to be clear...during the Obama administration), i have to make two financial decisions. 1. College for my daughter. 2. Investing. I chose income property. I have examined both like Amazon style. I don’t belong to an upper class so those two investments are my life savings. The winner, Canada. My decision was already at 85% because of the developments of the last 18 months. The threat to our ally, friend, neighbor and the loving country of Canada did the remaining 15%. So from feeling to reason, why in the world would i spend my life savings in a country with very little planning, short-side policy, and aggression from the base every time we point their hypocrisy. The “base” will probably congratulate me because under their eyes, i am not worthy of the greatness of the United States so i should leave. Well, i am not leaving. I am voting in November. I am resisting. And I am investing my little pathetic money outside the US purely as financial transaction and the uncertainty of MAGA (aka as Make America Gag Again).
5
Friedman is once again spot on. But he could have broadened his scope to include, as he has in previous columns, a complicit Republican-controlled Congress that has let Trump run unchallenged in his assault on the Constitution. Per the Constitution, one of the duties of Congress is to "...promote the Progress (sic) of Science." Not only has Trump failed to appoint a science advisor and given nods to science deniers, he has praised EPA Director Pruitt, and candidate for the most corrupt official ever to head a federal department, for his efforts to knock down as many environmental protections as possible. Trump is at once attacking efforts to expand the number of participants in our health care system while undermining environmental regulations aimed at improving public health not only in America but worldwide. The absence of Congressional push-back in an area clearly denoted in the Constitution as part of Congress' "job description" should be on the minds of anyone voting in November who opposes a government that reinforces, or worse, celebrates ignorance.
2
A reliable and trustworthy voice in the wilderness of poor news reporting. Mr. Friedman has maintained a position as a respected and well-informed observer of the world we live in and has steadfastly offered observations based on research and founded in truth. Because he hasn't fallen into the trap of simply reacting to Fox News propaganda, his opinions are refreshing and usually sobering. No, I don't feel more secure. However, I know I am better informed and intellectually capable of making sober judgements about issues that matter, beginning with the survival of America the beautiful and our better angels who inspire wise governance.
1
In the larger sense, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have Trump, he’s the avatar that proves the rule: You can’t have an economic system run by a different set of values than we expect our political system to follow. Too many Americans buy into the idea that there’s nothing wrong with a capitalism that reflects the ‘animal spirits’ of the market, and any regulations to limit the collateral damage to the community of that battle of animal spirits is inherently bad. Trump is the embodiment of those ‘animal spirits’—he describes it as his gut, his instincts—that determine whether one is predator or prey. The problem with this is that it transfers the values of an economic strategy onto a political system that was never, and should never, be designed that way, if we still care to believe in the values that made us ‘great’ in he eyes of the rest of the world. The rest of the world didn’t see greatness in discrimination, victimization, and obfuscation—the law of the jungle—that is the darker corner of the American story. They saw greatness in the good will, charity, and friendship that benefitted everyone, while expanding the economic pie, through shared opportunity...and made us the richest superpower in history. It’s not bad to want to MAGA, but it IS bad to see and believe Trump as a champion of what it actually was that made us what we, and the world, recognize as ‘great’.
6
Citixen, very good thoughts, nicely written. This should be a NYT PICK for this column. It is important for the American citizen, and hopefully voter, to get on-board with real involved citizenship, and cast a sophisticated and responsible vote. I am reminded of a quote from Pres. Obama, as he was prep'ing to leave office, "The highest office in the land is not president but citizen." Let's do our jobs!
Trump, MERIT-LESS AND A SCOUNDREL.
1
Good summary of Trump and his administration and its many failings. But yesterday the citizens of South Carolina voted out Mark Sanford in a Republican primary in favor of a hard right Trump acolyte.
Maybe this is just South Carolina being South Carolina? Maybe it's just the new Republican party being Republican? Maybe this is the new America rising out of the swamp of the current politics?
1
The rhythm of this column mirrors the breathlessness of the reporters
I see on what little television news is inflicted on me (by
my wife, while preparing dinner). The basic fallacy, I suspect, is
to impute the bad stuff to Mr. Trump, the person.
He's clearly is an actor. But who's writing the script? This, as
a journalist might say, cannot "be learned" at this point. The arc
at any rate, is definitely Old World. Divine right of kings, maybe
even divinity itself. This script must end, of course, in a
recapitulation of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. American
or French?
The Republican Congress could step in and use their mandate of checks and balances to keep Trump from continually taking us down the path of Dictatorship. The Republicans need to step up and do what they can to stop some of Trump's worse blunders.
It is obvious that Trump's advisors have little to no influence over his actions.
Do I fell more secure? No, even September 11, 2001 did not make me feel this insecure. For a short time we were one with each other and the world.
Trump has fast ruined that moment.
5
Sorry, but Trump has already shaped the USA in his own image. We have let him run the country for a long painful time now, and his appointments, compliant Congress, and judges have given him the power to do it.
There's no pretending it can be stopped or easily reversed. There are vestiges of what made America great left, but they are on the run. And so is civilization across the world.
It's as if God has decided we have had too much of free will, and it's time to take it back from the mass of humanity and concentrate it in dictators that conspire in a cabal of evil to rule us. Probably as a lesson for failing to live up to our responsibilities. With vast freedom comes great responsibility. Well, perhaps not in Trump's case. And that is the lesson.
1
Sorry. But that is not the "lesson" for those of us who saw through Donald Trump to begin with, and don't forget -- WE are the majority.
No, I’m not feeling more secure. As long as Trump is president, how could I?
2
If Donald Trump is trying to remake America in his own image, not only are we in deeper trouble than previously thought, there's no reason to doubt this isn't true.
But what's even more frightening, is that he may very well get away with it.
With an overly enthusiastice support base that he caters to hand and foot, and a narcoleptic Congress content to do nothing while ignoring the reason why they're supposed to be there, and Trumpicized Republicans in control of all three branches of government -- nothing short of a popular uprising of the American PEOPLE appears to to be the only solution, and salvation to save our country before this president changes Department of Justice laws to install himself in the Oval Office permanently.
And for those of us who decidely fall outside of Trump's American vision for this country, there is no other option.
RESIST. VOTE!
11
Is it fair to say both parties have contributed to the deficit when it He past two democratic administrations left it shrinking?
9
First, the headline is silly, because pretty much every Presidential campaign consists of proposals for "remaking America", into the candidate's preferred image. Voters then choose which image/remake they prefer. Secondly, please explain why it is "selfish" for Americans to want other countries to EVER foot any of the bill for their own protection, this after decades of US taxpayers shelling out to be world cop and world sugar daddy. And why is it "selfish" to want national borderlines recognized? Other countries' borders are respected, so why not US borders? If you want to see "selfishness" and smugness, Mr. Friedman, please look north or across the Atlanic. Canada is, maybe like Norway and Switzerland, essentially a rich upper middle class country. Canada has infinitely more available, unoccupied land than the US, higher wages (thanks to smaller population and strict immigration policies), and offers much easier access to health care and education. The US accepts around 1 million LEGAL immigrants each year (meaning that figure only counts LEGAL immigrants), while Canada's extremely strict immigration policy allows less than 300k, even though Canada has more land and a growing economy. How is the US "selfish" given statistics?
2
The only reason this headline seems "silly" to you is because like some Americans, you can't see the forest for the trees.
This isn't about trade tariffs against Canada some phony show of patriotism, or even immigration, as Trump would have you believe -- it's part of his overreach in reshaping every aspect of this country, starting with the U.S. Constitution.
Wake-up.
Add to all of Mr. Friedmans's points this; we have one branch of government that has, for all practical purposes, ceased its role as a check on the president. Rather than put on the brakes, they cower in the Cloak Room and pretend everything is fine. As Senator Bob Corker said yesterday, they "are too afraid to poke the bear."
Feel more secure?
Perhaps it is WE who should consider moving TO Norway.
23
Punish Republican acquiescence in 2018 then hold your breath till 2020. The true challenge is finding the right challenger. A doorstop could do a better job in the Oval Office. However, as we learned in 2016, not anyone can beat him on the campaign trail. Right now he has incumbency and a decent economy to his advantage as well. According to one academic paper, those are the only two variables that ultimately predict election outcomes. Everything else is statistical white noise.
Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe the Mueller report will lead to an impeachment investigation. However, I wouldn't count on Trump ever getting removed from office. Half his base would need to mutiny in order to end Trump's term early. I'll summarize their position by quoting Sean Hannity. "If you have more proof that this is not a witch hunt, I don't believe you." Justify has a better chance of winning two triple crowns back to back than Mueller has of convincing a partisan Senate that Trump really did commit high crimes.
So again, the best way to get rid of Trump is to vote out the Republican Congress in 2018 and prepare for 2020.
38
Mr. Friedman, your column makes powerful points. Still, a good forty percent of the population are lulled by Mr. Trump's Siren song. Consider this post that I spotted on social media:
"President Trump did very well in Singapore. Obama, Bush, Clinton could not have done this. Why? First, because President Trump is a proven negotiator/businessman, while the others are politicians who make careers out of putting themselves first. Second, he is an American. He loves his country and wants it to continue our 250 year history of allowing its citizens to be free."
Many share this perception. And I doubt you can persuade them otherwise. At some point, by his own emboldened behavior, only Mr. Trump will persuade them otherwise.
21
"Obama, Bush, Clinton could not have done this....(they) are politicians who make careers out of putting themselves first."
Tom,
This is the Bizzaro world that is that of hard core Trump supporters. Everything is exactly backwards.
1
Once somebody falls for a con, they will do almost anything to avoid having to admit that they were dumb enough to be taken in.
Mr Trump, Fox News, and Right Wing radio you mean.
Great and insightful as usual. I am so depressed over what has happened to my country since Trump assumed the presidency.
How could this be happening? I wish the midterm elections were tomorrow. Or even better, today.
The political pendulum needs to swing the other way and soon.
38
What an outstanding summary of the situation by Tom Friedman - I wish all Americans would read it. It is sad and frustrating that in just 16 months so much damage has been done. However, it is important that those who agree with this analysis focus on the upcoming mid-term elections. Commenting and complaining has its place and must be done, but please the far more important task, being engaged in the upcoming mid-terms. Remember this can all be changed at the ballot box in November - a loss of either House will dramatically reduce Trump's power, minimizing the immense damage, and further dividing the Republican Party. At the same time, if 2018 is a status quo election and Republicans continue to hold power, this will get far worse - Trump and his Republican protectors will be emboldened.
34
Editorial writers lament. Immigrants who have been her for decades, some of them born here, quake. Other nations can't find words (in our language or theirs) to express their shock and amazement. None but the very wealthiest live better than decades ago. In the face of this, and everything else you mention in your article, Trump's support grows? There is a much deeper problem here. I fear Trump is not attempting to remake America in his image. He simply is a presidential personification of America's real image.
41
Wow, frightening thought. I'll continue to have faith in the 60% waking up to the dangers ahead and get out to vote. If that doesn't help, God help the rest of us.
3
The dismantling of the ACA is getting little attention, and it is frightening. Our 25-year-old daughter suffers from a hybrid of autoimmune disorders. When she turns 26 in December she will no longer be covered by our insurance. She gets up and goes off to work every single day, sick or not. Because we live in Massachusetts, she will not be refused health insurance. She would be crippled financially for the rest of her life without coverage. What is wrong with people who keep voting to do this to themselves?
93
Apparently for a lot of Americans hatred of people with darker skin and/or resentment of the “cultural elite” trumps everything. Who cares if you lose your health insurance or your job if you finally have permission to be openly racist?
1
I've heard a lot of talk among them about "culling the herd". No use for folks that slow down the profits, apparently.
1
75 years of wealth, power and respect that comes with leadership of the free world erased in 500 days and the Party of Strength and Responsibility's response is silence. Amazing.
76
Trump does not want the United States of Trump; unity frightens him.
He wants the Merged Entities of America; ME instead of US.
22
I will feel more secure when the Dems take control of congress. And will feel even more secure if the Dems take control of the senate and the 2nd worst politician in the country is relieved of his leadership role.
Yesterday Dems flipped a congressional seat for the 45rd time Tsince Trump and the Russians won. This is whar RESIST is about. Resist! AND TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK TO VGREATNESS . VOTE IN November.
39
Policies can reversed. Taxes can be raised and lowered.
Most difficult to reverse and change are ingrained attitudes of political and cultural hostility. Without trust, mutual dignity, and a common vision, the family falls apart.
The current leadership, rather than soothing and healing this delirium is actively working to exploit and increase our nation's sad predicament.
The start of a solution: let go of "I've got to be right," respectfully listen, and open the heart of empathetic understanding, even while disagreeing. Humans can solve problems with communication.
This can't be legislated. It's up to all of us.
27
Unfortunately one can not "open the heart of empathic understanding" when talking to a Trump voter, at least in my opinion, and I do not discuss politics with them in order not to flip out.
1
Agree that this is not easy and it can be very uncomfortable to engage. But what other options are there for resolution and improvement besides fighting or separation?
Everyone going into their own corners and withdrawing closes off the opportunity to communicate, hopefully skillfully.
Reply to DB Cooper,
This wholesale attack on Trump voters, aka working-class whites is inaccurate at best, and a vicious canard at worst. Painting an entire group as bigots is bigotry, itself.
People are nothing if not complex. Many Trump voters have seen their communities fall into despair, their men dying early deaths from opioids and alcohol. Are they bigots?
Yes, there are a core of bigots among Trump voters, but millions voted for Obama before turning to Trump. Are they bigots?
The Times reported, recently, on a Tennessee town that rallied in support of illegal immigrants after an ICE roundup. Are they bigots? allhttp://tinyurl.com/yboshuw5
In fact, these townspeople are the very working-class whites that many readers denounce as ignorant racists, often in sweeping, angry and apocalyptic terms.
Blaming is a learned response. Blaming leads to hatred and bigotry. But blaming rarely solves problems. As David Brooks argues eloquently, we need to restore a sense of community if we are to solve our problems. That is what young, Democratic candidates in the heartland have been doing, successfully.
The angry, hate-filled rants that we encounter daily in The Times reader forums do not help this process of healing; they undermine it. They serve the very purposes their authors claim to oppose. They play into the hands of the true, ignorant racist, Donald Trump.
29
Just now reread the column. There is no reference to Trump voters, only to Trump’s policies and the repeated question: do we feel safer now than we did before.
48
“...do not help this process of healing”. To me this implies there are no longer any problems for the sides to argue over. As stated by Russel there is no mention of trump voters in this piece only references to the damage being done to not just this country but the world over. Healing will begin when we get back not to America First but to world health and prosperity for all; or at the least a combined pursuit of these issues.
18
Dear Mr. Cohen, no one can fault people for voting for Trump given their economic circumstances and the deeply flawed alternative presented by the Dems, even if one ignores Trump’s vile pre-election behavior. But since he has doubled down on that behavior since his election and has chosen to destroy our institutions, debase our allies, sow division among Americans, elevate corruption within his government, and praise despots while admiring authoritarianism, it is apparent to me and millions of others that sufficient time has now been rendered to judge Trump supporters as dangerously lacking in any type of moral discernment.
15
I bet Iran has observed these proceedings with great interest.... and are glad Trump has pulled out of their deal, so they can now carry on with their nuclear development, with no reprisals...or inspections to fear. 'Cos they can always quote Trump not ensuring the same in NK, so why would Iran allow what NK did not, especially after a PERSONAL meeting with the US Pres. Something very devious going on here, and I think the mid east (and Kushner) is what to watch while Trump diverts attention to the Pacific....
16
Mr. Friedman, Donald Trump isn't just "trying" to remake America in his own image, he's succeeding.
He's succeeding because of an unprecedented level of cowardice that has taken over the minds of Republicans in Congress.
No matte what Trump does, demands, says, shouts, tweets, or freaks out about, this Congress aims to please.
Through silence. Through obeisance to an emperor with no clothes who's not worthy of our magnificent system of government, because he's trashes it daily, and has been since January 20, 2017.
No, I don't feel more secure. That sinking feeling in the pit of stomach I had Election Night has only deepened with every strange move Trump thinks is bold to shock the world but ends up biting America where it hurts.
The North Korean caper is just the latest, and the worst. What was REALLY said when the two of them were alone. What other promises were made in addition to concessions freely offered with nothing in return?
Just look all around us: He's gutted government, gutted healthcare, pitted American against American, alienated allies and encouraged dictators like Putin--whom, he eerily seems to be directed by. Example: The Russians have been pushing an end to war games for the past decade.
It's time for all of us to call a spade a spade, because this president is a clear and ever-present danger to the economic, political, scientific, psychological and cultural health of our nation.
372
@ChristineMcM " What was REALLY said when the two of them were alone." You asked a question that is so easy to answer - how to launder money give by Putin and Xi. Both leaders have one thing in common -they are for sale. Kim family has stolen billions from countries while his country suffers terribly and Trump has stolen the same from people, banks, businesses and countries. It is easy to determine that America just got sold out bigly. It doesn't make America more secure but unfortunately it does make America more like Trump everyday he is in office.
28
Speaking of the Russians, at least twice this week (and the week is young), while I was cruising the Net, I came across two articles that were written in Russian. From what little I could tell, the articles were fairly benign, but the fact that there were two articles written in Cyrillic was startling. We don't have to worry about whether or not the Russians are coming. They're already here.
7
Well said, Christine. I couldn't agree more.
Here's what makes me feel more insecure than anything: the GOP leadership knows everything you wrote about and is remaining silent because they are afraid to cross the "nationalist base" of their party... but even more scary is the unwillingness of EITHER party to cross their donors who want to rake in profits at the expense of the environment and the well-being of workers.
117
Get use to it. DJT will be reelected. Bernie Sanders is running again and will lose again and take the rest of us down with him.
As Bernie sees it, he’ll never have a better chance to win than to run against DJT, but he’d be wrong. Bernie has no chance to be POTUS in this country ever. He may have a chance to be the winner in a party run but never a national one.
18
I thought that Bernie was running again for Senator of Vermont. In which case, fine. But anyone who runs for POTUS should, in my opinion, be under the age when most people retire. Properly done, the job of President is physically, emotionally and mentally more grueling than that of Senator, and there's a lot more riding on it if the President dies of old age while in office, or falls and breaks a hip than if, God forbid, a Senator dies or falls.
"Bernie has no chance to be POTUS in this country ever." How many said that in 2016 in reference to DJT?
Meltyman
I never said DJT couldn’t be POTUS I said he could win, America is a rightwing country at heart.
With team comprising of the hawks like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton who share Trump's impulses if Trump is embarking on the uncharted path of shaping America in his own mould, it is going to be a great disaster as he he would be the last to own responsibility for his actions guided more by his gambling instincts than the well contemplated policy support.
12
This a great article in terms of identifying the issues and why we are less secure than anytime I can recall in my life, except for the 10 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Can anyone imagine Trump having to deal with an immediate problem now as potentially catastrophic as that one?
The refrain "are you still feeling more secure" is chilling, but problematic. The problem is that the "yous" who need to consider this are not reading the Times and have no interest in facts, consequences, character, history or logic.
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Yes, and because that group, if they ever read this article, would answer YES. Why? Because white supremacy reigns.
It has come to the point where Trump has a 'Fake' Movie trailer promoting his meeting with Kim Jong-un, created with all the fervor of a Major Event without an ounce of subtlety or nuance, mirroring the persona of his Majesty Himself. This is the donnybrook we as a country have arrived at, the other side of the mirror Lewis Carroll's Alice found herself in, where Up is Down and all logic is thrown out the window. I pray American voters come to their senses, those voters who thought this man was the answer our country needed. Vote in November, using both heart and mind, for the health and well being of our nation.
63
Every day I feel like telling Trump and his supporters the same thing Robert De Niro said at the Tony awards. I don't, but that doesn't mean I don't want to. They ( let's call them "they") seem to only understand and speak in grunts and slogans that say to "us" what De Niro said.
They are becoming successful at dragging us down to their level and it's getting harder and harder to find a language they understand. So go ahead and get it off your chest and tell them what De Niro said and do not under any circumstances apologize for it.
Then we can pick ourselves up out the sty they live in and get back to work to banish all those "theys".
30
My cynical take on the efforts of Trump to propose the face to face meeting with Kim is that has a more devious purpose. Is it possible that the entire Summit in Singapore is designed to create an International crisis that might be used to protect Trump from having to appear before the Mueller Committee? I believe that a sitting President may claim that the pressure of attending to urgent matters can exempt him (or her) from having to answering a subpoena. Whether or not it accomplishes anything positive regarding denuclearization of Korea, it is certainly creating a timely distraction from the Investigation by the Mueller Committee
26
Well actually everything in the real world is a distraction from the Mueller "Committee". We wouldn't want the possible denuclearization of Korea to interfere with the indictment of Russia companies that did not exist at the time of the alleged crimes. Mueller has presented no evidence of any collusion by Trump but I'm sure that Trump's distractions are the only thing that has prevented him from doing so in the first year or so of his investigation. By the way, there is no "Mueller Committee".
1
Interesting. How can you not see collusion? All sorts of campaign staff and backers had contact with Russians. Some of them famously lied about those contacts. Why lie if it's business as usual? Trump is in Putin's pocket trying to destabilize the western alliances.
"The world has come to rely on an America that, more often than not, has been ready to pay any price and bear any burden to do the right things, say the right things, model the right things and stand for the right things — when others were unwilling or unable to do so."
Uh, like the Iraq War?
14
More often than not, Mr. Seekins.
The Iraq war was a massive error, but more often than not - say, 50.00001% of the time over the course of our whole history, and looking at our ideals more than our actual behavior - our better angels have ultimately ruled us.
13
As part of the complex multilateral negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership that Mr Obama supported, the former Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, agreed to the elimination of Canada's Supply Management System and the dairy tariffs that support it and was discussing legislation laying out the financial arrangements for doing so. When Mr Trump backed out of the TPP, the elimination of Supply Management also was thrown out. Opponents of the elimination of Supply Management in Canada were, needless to say, opponents of the TPP, but there were enough other attractive components of the TPP (concessions by some of the many countries involved, not necessarily the United States) that the agreement was seen as win-win overall. With multilateral agreements involving many countries, that is much easier to achieve than with bilateral agreements.
18
That is interesting information. So Trump pulls out of the TPP in which Canada had agreed to eliminate its Supply Management System (leading to high tariffs for dairy and poultry), and then attacks Canada for its tariffs on dairy and poultry (Canada has no tariffs on other American imports). That's pure Trump logic!
13
Has nothing to do with logic. Has to do with what the public will swallow without thinking at a given moment in time.
Beyond not feeling secure in Trump's conservative world, witnessing the fundamental paradigm change, that of an "America that Protects" towards an "America that Threatens", destroys the heritage and pride of values and beliefs of many like me born at the term of WWII bear, now increasingly shamed by their desecration.
35
I feel really insecure about the long-term prospects for this wacky goodwill phase that's supposed to lead to something better. The wild twitter feud of the last year necessitated a major rapprochement to stave off nuclear war - and Trump is now as irrationally in love as he was previously hate-filled, only a couple of months ago. In a few months from now, when nothing much has come of this farce, he'll be whining that he was stabbed in the back and that will be the end of that. Fortunately, Mattis has Trump's number - big time - and I doubt those military exercises will be cancelled any time soon.
26
I hope & pray that you're right.
Brilliant piece! It's content, reasoning, and tone are precisely spot on. It sets forth a framework that every candidate for political office should embrace. The question it asks, repeatedly ("Are you feeling more secure?"), is THE one that every candidate for political office should repeat, mantra-like, two or three times a day. Even if you think that, ultimately, Trump will be good for the country, or for your company, or for your family, or just for your own retirement, "Are you feeling more secure?" is exactly the thing to be talking and thinking about, long and hard.
57
Outstanding response to Friedman's brilliant article.
No, I'm not feeling more secure--I'm feeling stunned, seasick and scared. The best of America is receding; the worst is being borne on a tide of Trumpism that I fear won't be ebbing...
113
It can be made to ebb, and I increasingly am thinking there is no such thing as "too far" in making it ebb.
6
The Democrats have been a minority party in Congress since 2010. They did vote for Obamacare by increasing taxes on the rich, but not a single Democrat voted for the great tax cut for the rich in 2017. They are not to blame for the fiscal insecurity of our country.
People voted for Trump because they trusted Republican Congress people to be financially and ethically responsible.
The only solution is to vote for politicians who uphold the Constitution.
56
"I’m glad Trump sat down with Kim Jong-un — nothing else has worked."
Except for the sentence above, Thomas Friedman’s column about the erratic behavior, faulty decision-making, personal avarice, willful ignorance, moral emptiness, grandiose narcissism and vengeful cruelty of Donald Trump is directly on target.
As far as Trump’s sitting down personally with Kim in Singapore, that theatrical production was an enormous error.
Kim received immediate world stature which he has not earned. Worse, in a desperate effort to create the illusion of accomplishment, Donald Trump signed an agreement which made all of the concessions with nothing substantive from North Korea to show for the meeting.
No face-to-face meeting of an American president with the leader of North Korea should have taken place until a true denuclearization agreement was ready to be signed with a detailed, vigorous inspection program and a plan for supervised dismantling of weapons and launchers.
Until such a detailed agreement had been worked out by representatives of the relevant cabinet officers, no proposed relaxation of sanctions should have been announced.
63
Trump runs the presidency like he ran his business – often into the ground. The NYT reported two-thirds of his business ventures failed or failed to meet his hype over a decade through 2016. Like Trump University and Trump Steaks.
He cares only about promenading in today’s headlines. Results don't matter.
Look how he is rebranding everything from healthcare to global trade in his name by undermining:
1) the Affordable Healthcare Act and the social safety net, while slashing taxes for corporations and the richest 1%,
2) global efforts to combat climate change, endangering the world,
3) American and global prosperity by instigating a trade war – mostly against our allies,
4) American unity, choosing instead to drive division by vilifying any who dissent, and
5) our alliance network that has largely preserved global peace for 70 plus years – while embracing the world’s most vile dictators, like Putin.
And now we are to trust him with whittling our forces in South Korea in hope he and Little Rocket Man will hold hands and denuclearize the Korean peninsula? If their plans blow up, literally, Trump will likely blame Hillary.
Trump is beyond thinking through his actions. Consequences don’t matter to him. All he cares about is the TV show he’s producing and its rating.
Trump is like a guy riding an incontinent elephant through town, to the gasps of the amazed crowd as they see it coming. But willfully oblivious to the mess left behind for others to clean up.
108
Your last paragraph is a classic and must 'meme'.
I'm sorry, but trump didn't remake the Republican Party in his own image. The GOP has been busy remaking itself since Reagan declared government to be the problem not the solution, but it took a quantum leap first it opened its doors wide to the tea party. When trump came along, he was a leader very much in the party's image. Oh, a few Republicans say they don't like him but most have their fingers crossed, because they get what they want like tax cuts, stolen Supreme Court seats and repeated attempts to gut Obamacare.
226
"... because they get what they want like tax cuts, stolen Supreme Court seats and repeated attempts to gut Obamacare."
These domestic issues are extremely serious, but the contempt Trump just displayed toward our allies at the G7 and cozying up to the likes of North Korea, China, and Russia crosses the line. Trump represents an existential threat to his country. His presidency cannot be allowed to continue. I don't know what voters and our elected officials are going to do, but I sincerely hope Mueller does the right thing.
1
The GOP & the KOCH Bros. created the Tea Party. They also created the lawsuit that instigated the SCOTUS Citizens U decision, which gave them the launch pad to do so.
A friend just emailed me that she feels like she's watching the Titanic not turn.
105
US's neighbors and dissed-on allies are feeling very insecure, too, because of Trump's runaway behaviors.
We will suffer "collateral damage" , despite our efforts to defend ourselves and stabilize our economy.
Our consolation is that we don't live in the country he is demolishing. Small comfort.
Wishing that the " Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue" will be over soon, for the sake of the world.
1
Don’t know what has happened to our country. Just a few years ago a candidate could not get away with an honest mistake m. Today no less than our President can lie, cheat, insult, change facts, denigrate women, minorities,
fire anyone at will, insult judges, institutions and nothing happens. This is not my country any more
773
Howard Dean was undone by a YELL.
2
For a perfectly cogent explanation as to why none of this matters, see DB Cooper, above.
Looked at another way, Trump is our Dart Vader: he has embraced the Dark Side of the Force of the American psyche, and will use that power to get away with whatever he can to enhance his wealth and ego. His legions who have also now embraced the Dark Side empower him.
What happened is that the voters in gerrymandered districts lost the power of their votes and the Republican minority and their hateful platform won. If people don’t like it the only remedy is to turn out en masse in November and vote straight Democratic. They are no angels but they sure as H— are not the devils who are in charge now.
"God forbid we become the United States of Trump."
There is a huge problem with that statement. For Trump's base, man is no longer created in the image of God. God has been recreated in the image of Trump. As long as Americans are willing to embrace a cruel, clownish god with no moral sense, we are the United States of Trump. We are a nation with no justice, no empathy, no equality, and no future.
185
Traveling in Europe, we hear Americans apologizing to Canadians, tourists all. Everyone here is very sympathetic that Americans have gotten themselves a chump.
Not feeling any more secure. Just feeling like I’m trapped in a Reality TV show.
55
"With the increasing crowding of the planet, it becomes more difficult to exist as an individual, and easier to become subject to the tyranny of the commonplace. The real world recedes, artificiality pushes into every arena in life, and the mass man's days are filled with escapist thoughts and dalliances. Those who can provide escapist, unreal ideas and entertainments become society's leaders."
—Tom Shachtman, The Inarticulate Society: Eloquence and Culture in America
Published in NINETEEN NINETY FIVE. Can you say "prescient"?
36
Bill Clinton is an entertainer too.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
3
"Tell me, are you really feeling more secure today?"
Yes. It seems much less likely today that Trump will nuke Korea and throw us into a long nasty war. At least in Korea.
As for Iran? I hope now he does the same thing there, putting his name on the deal as the "fix" and signing a letter with a flourish instead of doing Netanyahu's war. I'm still not feeling at all secure about that.
14
I agree....however whats happening there is' I fear, driven by Kushner and Netanyahu....
Suspect Iran will now use what's happened in Singapore to its advantage....
Trump did not remake the Republican Party, in his own image or anything else. He just destroyed it. He built nothing in its place. He can't even build a staff for himself.
Trump is not remaking America either. Fortunately, America is too big to be destroyed by four years of bad leadership.
Instead, America is reacting against Trump. I see two reactions, one failing, and one succeeding.
The failure is the Never-Trump approach, blaming outsiders like the Russians for the collapse of the Democrats behind a truly awful candidate, and for their own refusal to present the ideas voters wanted to hear.
The success is seen in the special races, and in some of the more promising mid-term matchups. It is new ideas, candidates saying what She refused to say or do last time. It is not full Bernie (which I'd prefer) but it is real policy choices plainly presented as things possible and to be done, things voters longed to hear.
These policy choices are especially potent because they are so very much not what Trump is doing, and what Republicans blocked before him.
So Trump's success has been to destroy the Republicans, whom we so needed to be rid of. America's success is the failure of the rest of what Trump is doing.
We could get from this a revitalized Democratic Party, and Republicans swept back out of the way. It is a long hard path to get to that, but the Democrats made that path necessary when they failed us by pushing the status quo, refusing to move into the future in 2016.
18
Well, look what we got now instead of your maligned status quo of 2016. Gorsuch on the SC, dismantling worker protections and Unions and the ACA, tax heist for the rich, persecution of non- whites who can be asked for their papers by ICE anytime, repeal of consumer and environmental protections and the loss of Western democratic allies (for now). We did move into the future allright, but it’s the opposite of the future you or Bernie envisioned. Give me the 2016 status quo anytime over the socialist Bernie dream that never materialized.
2
I can think of several contenders who were "truly awful" candidates, but HRC was not one of them.
As to "real policy choices plainly presented as things possible and to be done, things voters longed to hear" --- that was exactly what HRC had to offer and that is precisely why she won the popular vote.
Obviously you and those you purport to represent in your comment had a basic inability to perceive a woman candidate as a strong and viable choice for President. It is you and your ilk who refused to move into the future. Instead, we have been hurled back 50 years into the past.
Don't you worry about a strong and revitalized Democratic party. Winter is coming.
4
Anna -- Yes, but now we have a hope of better in just a few years, whereas with Team Hillary it would have been hopeless for another generation, total victory for the Wall Street crowd and assorted hawks to loot us.
America all by itself elected Trump with its undemocratic electoral college,make believe political partys,television dominated elections resulting in Trump victory.The USA is now a tv reality show with no script.
56
...and the world's readiest nuclear arsenal.
1
And Russia didn’t help? Not even a little bit?
1
And lots of help from Republican gerrymandering.
2
Oh, I'm just starting to feel more secure.
1) That I know the FBI is nothing but a political hit machine that takes its orders from George Soros and Barbara Streisand.
2) That the Justice Dept. used to be the deep state controlled by billionaire globalists and is now the personal lap dog body guard of Trump.
3) That my little cottage industry business is about to be hammered with huge parts cost increases because of the tariffs on steel and aluminum. Not to worry, the really big blow will come when all the electronic parts I use, which are made in China and nowhere else, go up 25%.
4) That millions of registered voters are about to be thrown off the rolls.
5) That the ACA is about to collapse because of Trump and I will be left without insurance. No problem, in a few years I can go on Medicare which is broke and on the verge of collapse. I will schedule any illnesses to occur then.
6) That my Social Security is on the chopping block of doom. But that's my fault because I never struck it rich. I was too busy earning a living.
7) That when I was a child, believed that the post WWII order would keep me and my country safe forever and would never falter. How could we forget what the fascists did. Trump just broke it to make America great. Silly me.
8) That values and religiosity were fundamentally connected.
9) That science was respected and revealed the truth about nature.
10) I'm getting depressed with all this glorious security.
787
Mr. Rozenblit, Extremely well said. You express what so many of us are feeling. Thank you for continuing to speak out. We need your voice, now more than ever.
47
Bruce, you are my favorite commenter. Thank you for this post.
24
Right on the mark as usual. A devoted follower.
1
So to answer your question: No, no and no. Then again, as a Venezuelan, I didn't feel secure when he won. I recognized him, you see. We had one of our own in the form of Hugo Chavez: another blowhard con man.
Until Trump, I am not sure I ever really hated another human being. Feared them? Sure, there are some murderers that scared me. But I always saw them as broken animals whereas I see Trump as the devil himself.
The devil has divided us. I lost several friends--one of 30 years--over Trump and I am hardly alone. Trump ripped into the social fabric of this country, destroying relationships big and small.
The devil has confused us. Even as I cringe, there is a part of me that says "well maybe he IS a disruptor." I know better, but with Trump, the danger of cognitive dissidence is always around the corner. Up is down, right is left, wrong is right.
The devil has tempted us. He whispered into the ears of whites everywhere and suddenly mild mannered people are booing, hissing and yelling at hispanics ALL THE WHILE ignominy is happening at the border. I literally feel sick 24x7 about what is happening to the migrants--and it sickens me to see people I know shrug and turn away. Where is our moral soul?
The thing with Trudeau is par for the course. Really.
My only hope--the only whisper of hope against the devil is one word. One word only: MUELLER.
....and when this is done, I will never again vote Republican. They made an enemy out of me.
364
Decades of Fox news have made it impossible for half the population to see what's really going on.
1
The Big Question: will Justify be invited to the White House?
12
But wait, it's all a reality TV show, isn't it? If things don't go as planned, don't they just cancel the new season? Nothing to worry about, right?
21
"On Top Of That", Monday, June 11, 2018
Good Morning Family,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada is the perfect person to acknowledge what bullying truly is now that Donald Trump is U.S. President. Even soon to be Premiere of Ontario, Canada Doug Ford, Jr. is sticking up for Trudeau in a recent tweet. Just waiting to see what Trump's tweet response will be. Don't hold your breath. Because I don't read Trump's tweets. So I won't relate what is said.
11
Mr. Friedman, for us oldies, do you remember that old Seinfeld episode, the theme of which was "Bizarro-World"? The basis was Elaine's new group of friends who were total opposites from her own clique, from character to behavior to ethos. We laughed and enjoyed this half-hour comedy and then, well, forgot about it...until now.
Fast forward twenty years or so and we find ourselves living in a real-life bizarre paradigm. Evil has become good; public service is now self-service; greed has replaced charity, compassion now bigotry, racism, and nativism. Our close allies with whom we have shared an historical friendship are now our enemies, impugned by a man not worthy of his title or office. Our "former" enemies - thugs, dictators, murderers, who relentlessly oppress, suppress, and violate human rights - are presently "looked to" as our new geopolitical partners. You ask if we are feeling more secure. I can only answer for myself. And that is: No. I'm afraid for others and myself. But we can not take this lying down. It is vital that we fight this administration...Trump, his Cabinet, and his Congress. It is up to us.
45
I know that this is petty, but I am in no way ashamed of it, so here goes.
Here's how "meek and mild" Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is. Watch the whole video, Mr. President.
https://youtu.be/XuSpZ3_5pTc
Can you top this, Mr. President? Care to give the man you call a dishonest wimp a try?
11
Justin Trudeau, in one of his past jobs, was a bouncer at a nightclub. There is no question he is "tough enough" to take someone like Trump. The point, however, is that this is irrelevant to any intelligent human being. Not to Trump, but to everyone else.
10
“Trump: Trying to Remake America in His Own Image”
And he’s doing a good job of it. Witness the the ATT-Time Weiner merger. The time of robber barrons are returning.
8
Oddly enough, Trump opposed that merger. But not for the reason you think. He hates CNN and wanted to block the merger to hurt the network.
2
How to feel more secure:
1) Support Congressional and Senate candidates who will support a constitutional amendment for direct election of the President, as well as state legislative candidates who will support ratification of such an amendment.
http://www.nycbar.org/pdf/report/SFX101.pdf
2) Vote to throw Republicans out in November. If you can't find any new reasons to do so, try some of the old ones--they're pretty good:
"Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them ... They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."
— Harry S. Truman, October 13, 1948, St. Paul, Minnesota, Radio Broadcast
61
Thank you, Ohio Guy.
A little dose of common sense Harry is a good innoculation for depression-by-trump.
1
Please notice what Trump did this week with his many stunts during the reality television show that was the G7 and Singapore Summits.
Did you hear much in the news about the Mueller investigation, the Justice Department snatching immigrant children from their parents or the work of the administration to remove coverage for pre-existing conditions in Obamacare?
Whatever this guy is, he has crafted the art of distraction and deflection and America is following this circus with rapt attention just like it did during his run for the presidency in 2015-16.
It’s the spectacle of the circus that feeds his followers, tossing insults at allies and empowering dictators like Kim on the world stage. For cable television, 24/7 Trump coverage shows no signs of abating.
53
I feel very much not secure. I believe Trump is purposely destroying the United States. I believe he has instigated a revolution that is about 50% complete and his aim is to be the dictator. Trump does not love the United States. Trump loves Russia and other countries that have dictators. Trump and Russia are overthrowing the United States using the weapon of deception in politics. He seems to have won over the Republican base already. Fox News is Trump's enabler. They do not report the enormity of damage that Trump is causing to our nation.
114
You are right. This is what is happening whether we realize it or not.
Trump loves Trump and money and luxury. That is all.
Time for me to go over to the DNC's website and make another donation. And might I add, you too? I won't put the URL here, somehow I think that must be against Times policy, but just Google "democrats" and choose the site that ends in "org".
I'm doing it now. Don't be a slacker. This article just about sums up every reason to spend all day on that site donating. If we don't take steps while we can, Trump's kind will come for us eventually.
47
Even better, get out the vote and vote blue in every small big election everywhere.
Yet %87 of Republicans , the party of the patriotic and religious , approve of Trump . SAD
65
I used to not like the word patriot, because it had been tainted by flag waving Republicans and murderous war mongers.
Now we are at brink in which the word takes on new meaning: patriots are needed to step up against the tyranny of greed and the stranglehold of oligarchic idiocy.
And pox on any church, that believes Republicans are doing God's work.
2
We are NOT feeling more secure, but I'm pretty sure Russians are, and by association our 'so-called' president is. He was more upset with our allies fighting back over his tariffs then he continues to be over Russia interfering in our elections. It is quite possible that is because he knows they got him elected and he owes them BIGLY! No one is above the law in America. You'd have to go to Russia or North Korea to gain that kind of corruption. We are a nation of laws, which is no respecter of persons' celebrity, notoriety, or wealth. Sorry to say Mr. President, but justice will be served. The day of reckoning is coming.
23
The party of Lincoln is now the party of Trump. This "so called" President, this "third rate" leader, this "low IQ" man is a contradiction to all that is good and noble in America. And yet his party's leaders continue to bow and pray to this neon God they made. What gutless guttersnipes.
40
When Trump was, beyond our wildest dreams, elected I began feeling depression, mixed with feelings of numbness`and disbelief. I even held out some hope, as foolish as this now sounds, that the electoral college would somehow up-end his election. I began a scrapbook of articles which were to me right on-point and spoke from a very educated, intellectual place and I thought that when collecting these articles I could read through them and they would make me feel better. In short order the articles I saved were, more or less, 3/4 of the both the NYTimes and the WaPo on a daily basis -- what a futile effort, how ridiculous this endeavor of mine so I ended scrapbooking.
What does one do when it becomes so clear that this president cares not a whit about anyone other than himself? In my life I believed that good triumphs evil, I believed in my wonderful country. Can it really be just this one person who has ruined so much of what I love in this country while the GOP stands on the sidelines?
Thomas Friedman's article is brilliant, perhaps I will cut just this one article out. I am not feeling more secure. Far from it.
51
" ready to pay any price (trade imbalance in the billions) and bear any burden (unemployed in the tens of millions because of outsourcing) i to do the right things, say the right things (apologize to the world for being America), model the right things (deaths in the thousands in failed attempts to shape Muslim countries into democracies) and stand for the right things (open borders to any and all, any time, all the time) — when others were unwilling or unable to do so. (and become the world's patsie)"
2
"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental—men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a numskull like the idiots he faces it is easy"
"In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum."
"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, 1920
Dumb and Dumber 2018
257
It would be an insult to Lewis Carroll to refer to Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Even characterizing them as Saruman and Sauron wouldn't encompass the stupidity and evil we're seeing. I think we need to add a few more creatures to the swamp. Alligators, crocodiles, a few very hungry piranhas, and after they are satiated some tornadoes or hurricanes. No arks needed. There's nothing worth saving and I never thought I'd say that.
Trump and the GOP, the Grease Our Palms Party, have gone far beyond George Orwell's "1984" with what they've done or undone. While the likes of the Koch Brothers, Adelson, and the others may be thrilled at the anarchy being created, the rest of us would like to be able to make plans, to raise our children, retire rather than drop dead on the job or in the street. We'd even like to have a leader we can respect, one who doesn't alienate our allies in favor of the local petty despots.
It's about time Americans learned that it takes more than a loud mouth and feel good one liners to make a leader. I don't think we can survive unless we do.
26
As a former Baltimore resident, H.L. Mencken is, unfortunately, extremely relevant at this time. Thank you Socrates.
19
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, 1920
Or more likely a politician who really has only love of power as their only fealty. Sounds like a lot of our presidents from times past. For that matter, it sounds most politicians in our nation's capital.
1
Apologies to G and S’s Major General
My name is Donald Trump, I am the world’s greatest at everything
i never read, listen to Fox and send out tweets like ills of spring
At making deals I have no peer I outsmarted that little Kim
I was so cunning and he never knew that I had snookered him.
I am the greatest admirer that Vladimir Putin has had
A saintly man who in his actions never never did things bad,
I love all peoples, naturally i do prefer the color white,
The other shades I’ve often said it turns out just are not as bright,
Now Pruitt of the EPA is doing such a dandy job
My enemies all slander him and call him overspending slob
My VP Pence, a little dense, now flatters me both night and day
But deep inside I know that he wants POTUShood in every way.
46
Brilliant, as always. Thank you, Larry.
1
Actually, I do feel more secure today than yesterday, and certainly more secure than I did three months ago, when the idea of a North Korean cargo ship armed with a nuke blowing up 12 miles off the Seattle coast on a day with a big west wind kept me up at night. I would venture to say that the majority of the country agrees with me. Maybe not those in the east coast bubble, though.
As for remaking the nation in his image, Trump is learning from the best, President Obama: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." (Oct. 30, 2008 speech).
4
He did transform the US by creating stability out of a free falling economy (handed to him courtesy of the GOP). Republicans conveniently forget the ills they visited on this country
17
Anyone who was kept up at night by fear of a Korean Cargo ship blowing up needs to see a mental health professional. Phony crisis from A to Z. Phony prez. There was zero chance of a nuclear attack from NK before and there is zero chance now.
3
Are you feeling more secure? no way,
Most Americans would say "alarmed and uneasy". That is what a poll by the USA Today/ Suffolk University found recently. 42% of those surveyed said "alarmed and 33% said "uneasy". I agree with them. You cannot make America great again by insulting your closest allies. America is not the most respected nation anymore under Donald Trump neither we are more secure. I totally agree with you if we have another 9/11 how many of our allies would support us? Donald Trump has rapidly made us the "ugly America"
22
Actually, if, God forbid, another 9/11 happened, Canada and Canadians would again do their best to help out of simple compassion and humanity. We couldn’t not help. Now, on the other hand, it might be difficult to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US in the next one of its wars.
16
Canada contributed 1.29 percent of it's GDP to NATO. The US over 3.5 percent. please tell me why we should subsidize Canada's defense?
Can't argue with the NATO spending numbers at all. We do need to get up to the 2%. However, I will point out that it is to the USA's benefit to have a non-hostile non-nuclear country as your nearest neighbour. I don't know if Canada ever demanded that you protect us, since it is in your own best interest.
And if the deficit continues to grow who's to say that massive reductions in Social Security and Medicare won't be on the table after all? The fact that Paul Ryan is leaving congress doesn't mean that other, even loonier folks won't try to tear up the final vestige of the social contract the U.S. has made with its senior and disabled citizens. And despite Trump's assurances that he won't cut those programs who's to say that those assurances are worth anything more than the ones he's previously countermanded?
46
Trumpland. Hucksters. Shysters. Conmen. Fraudsters. Liars. Racists. All welcome. No green card required. Whites only. All welcome.
32
How do you figure both sides contributed to the debt? Clinton built us up to a surplus which Bush overspent. Then Bush created a calamity handed to Obama, who reduced the deficit every year possible while the GOP blocked every attempt at fiscal stimulus to help get us out faster. Now Trump gives away a $1.2T plus in tax cuts.
Both sides? Who's left? No sir, not both sides.
235
"How do you figure both sides contributed to the debt?"
https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-maj...
3
Trump seeks to remake America in his own image? What a MONUMENTAL mis-read, Tom. Trump was elected because he accurately fine-tuned an image for use with an American electorate that ALREADY had embraced that image! Trump is the American everyman writ large, supplied with billions of personal wealth and wearing suits that Mafia dons wear. He is kitsch because WE ARE kitsch. Except for the elites who are becoming less relevant with every single passing day.
Hey, you’re the guys who believe in an unlimited franchise calling on every beer-drinking yahoo with an opinion to exercise his or her “best judgment” with a vote cast by any means that relieves the act of ANY inconvenience and even effort, supremely confident (despite mounting evidence to the contrary) that this will keep Dems in their high-office sinecures forever. How’s that workin’ out for you? But I’m the one who wants to make voting as inconvenient as we can, to limit the effective franchise to those engaged who are most likely to be informed, regardless of their ideological convictions: there should be a lot FEWER excessive beer drinkers at the polls – “D’s” OR “’R’s”!
You lose an historic election … and it’s not only not your fault but you’re constantly agitating to reverse its outcomes. Trump is understandable to the common man, and all of a sudden the common man is trashed as “deplorable”. You guys should try some soul-searching, a dash of coherency and a proper regard for how UNimportant you’ve become.
7
Trump may denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, cure cancer, provide America with a really GOOD $1 cigar and even get Melania to do another GQ spread, but he’s not worthy of acknowledgement because he doesn’t look and act like Tom Friedman. Ever consider that what America REALLY needs is fewer Tom Friedman bubbles?
And, some advice: leave David Brooksian, navel-lint-plucking columns to David Brooks. He does them much better.
1
As General McAuliffe once put it: "Nuts!" Trump won't cure cancer; he IS himself as toxic as anything his pals in Moscow, Beijing or Pyongyang have ever come up with and aimed at the heart and soul of America. Or are those people suddenly worth more to us than are the allies who've supported us through two world wars and a fair number of catastrophes since? "Tariffs" from Canada and western Europe? Nuts. Tax cuts for the rich? Nuts. The wanton destruction of the ACA without prior implementation of an adequate substitute? Nuts. Cheering a falling unemployment rate while also telling Americans that immigrants are stealing their jobs? Nuts. Nominating supreme court justices who will put an end to women's reproductive rights? Nuts. Dismissing evidence that unarmed black men are being targeted and shot by over-anxious police officers? Nuts. Exposing our citizens to increased toxicity in their air and water? Nuts. Bringing Russia back into the Gang of Eight after hard evidence that Vlad has been tampering with our elections and those of our erstwhile allies? Nuts. Plucking reasons to support a snake-oil salesman posing as a statesman out of thin (albeit polluted) air? REALLY nuts. BTW: If being informed, educated and sensate casts me as a member of the "elite" I'll accept that designation and wear it with pride.
If you really believe Trump has anything to offer the common man, there's a degree at Trump university I'd like to sell you.
Nothing Trump has done so far in his presidency has helped the common man. His anti- intellectualism does appeal to some people who often have degrees from elite private colleges. Money will buy you anything these days including a college diploma.
41
Mr. Friedman, allow me to riff on a famous rhetorical question. ''Are you better off than you were four years ago?''
Are we better off than we were 17 months ago?
Donald Trump has taken a buzz saw to the policies and achievements of President Barack Obama since he assumed office on January 20, 2017. Aside from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that shifted the national debt squarely onto the shoulders of the shrinking middle class to the permanent benefit of the one percent, just what has Trump accomplished?
Are we better off than we were 17 months ago?
America has gratuitously yielded its pre-eminence in several international agreements: the Paris Climate Accords; the Trans-Pacific Partnership; the working, effective Iran nuclear deal of 2015. President Obama was respected around the world. Is Trump?
Are we better off than we were 17 months ago?
We had a healthcare system that, for all its flaws, was working and only needed bipartisan support in Congress to to improve it. Trump wishes to wreck it for no good reason except that the man before him brought it into being.
Are we better off than we were 17 months ago?
President Obama's economic achievements eased us back from the abyss to where, today, Trump dishonestly claims credit for another man's work.
Are we better off than we were 17 months ago?
The eight years prior to Trump were scandal-free. That is hardly the case now as a many-headed hydra of corruption flings its arms around us: Russia; E.P.A.; Kushner, etc.
475
"....but, but, but the economy! The jobs!"
In other words, ME ME ME ME ME.
I was on a cruise in February. Some people were in the elevator with me. "All I know," said one overweight white guy with a 90s haircut, "is that my firm is suddenly doing well. That is all I know. Coincidence? I don't think so. I think it's Trump," he said to his nodding compadres.
I sucked in my breath as the elevator went up, and I thought about the fallacy and the SELFISHNESS of the thinking. I considered arguing on the facts but then something deeper hit me.
I looked at their smug expressions, and I thought about all the misery I have heard from all kinds of people. From my Jewish, African American and Muslim, and Asian friends, to my LGBTQ peeps to my large community of fellow hispanics. I thought about how after 40 years of living in this country, I feel apprehensive about being hispanic. I thought about the climate and our morals and decorum. I thought about the migrants and the border and healthcare and my anger got the best of me.
When the elevator doors opened to my floor, I stepped unto the threshold, held the door with one hand, turned around and looked at them all square in the eye.
"Well, all *I* know, is he is a moral disgrace. I think he is disgusting and if you give a pass to his policies, I guess that renders you complicit....and oh yeah, by the way, the economy was in this trajectory thanks to Obama, but whatever, facts don't matter right?"
It wasn't much but it helped.
610
@GWE, NY: I beg to differ. It was a lot. You could have let it slide—like 63-millions let it slide on Nov. 8, 2016—“a day that will live in infamy.” You spoke truth to power; that takes courage, my friend, especially when the numbers are not with you. You shamed them—that is, if any Trumpista can feel shame. I’ll fight alongside you in *any* foxhole.
3
Just a little devil's advocate moment here. A Trump supporter would point to Bengazhi, Clinton's emails, birth certificate, Kenya, Obamacare, et cetera. We all should be aware of our own blind spots. Others of us would point to birthers, obstructionism and McConnell, Garland, Citizens United, SCOTUS politicization, the right wing effort to make Obama a one term president. Lots of scandals in the prior eight years.
Snookered!
12
No, Mr. Friedman, I don’t feel more secure with Trump and his wrecking crew. But we need to start with fixing a nontransparent and unverifiable vote-counting system. Statistical and pattern evidence from exit polls indicate that vote counts are being shifted to the right. And today, extreme rightwing Republicans hold the largest majorities at the state and national level not seen since the 1920s.
Why the U.S. State Department Would Not Certify Trump’s Election as Legitimate https://tinyurl.com/y8a7gqn9
Mark Crispin Miller: Can US Elections Really Be Stolen? Yes. https://tinyurl.com/y96scqlt
“The system is both computerized and privatized. Private companies tell us what the vote is. And we have no way to check it. We have no way to tell if it's honest. That’s the real danger here."
Computer experts fmrom top universities have proven over and over that electronic voting machines can be easily hacked without leaving a trace.
Victoria Collier points out in her article below that Jimmy Carter and James Baker stated in their report for the nonpartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform: ”There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries.”
Harper’s Magazine: How to Rig an Election https://tinyurl.com/y9xx63f6
German Court Rules E-Voting Unconstitutional https://tinyurl.com/za778ju
Other democracies have gone back to counting ballots by hand after realizing the vulnerabilities with computerized voting. It’s the gold standard.
88
Trump is a sociopath as we have all said for the millionth time. You have to sign on to believing his bunk.
No Thanks.
52
Trump gets almost 90% approval ratings from Republicans because of all the reasons you listed, they love a tough take-charge guy. In his book, that is a win. Hard to argue with success. Besides, elections have consequences, this is what America voted for. Stop complaining and enjoy as Trump does is thing, MAGA..
3
He lost by over 3 million votes and I fear,the consequences.
18
You credit Trump with the economy Obama created. Right wing media didn't tell you it improved until the night Trump took office.
9
Correction: America did not vote for it - he lost the popular vote by over 2,900,000 votes.
5
I haven't felt secure since 9/11/2001. Trump has merely added to the insecurity I'm feeling. Obama ameliorated some of it. Bush started an unwarranted war with Iraq. He signed the Patriot Act. The police stopped being approachable in my village and became prisoners of their cars and computers. We're not even sure if they know how to walk on the sidewalks any longer. Add to that that they are extremely belligerent whenever we approach them.
Trump took office in January 2017. Because of funding cuts that were made to a program that paid my salary I haven't worked since July of 2017. I can't save for retirement when I have no job. I can't afford medical care even if I am on Medicaid because I'm not earning anything. I'm back to living in my mother's home. I'm one of the lucky ones because she could take me in. I'm going to be 60 this year. It's not my idea of fun to be unemployed, living in the parental home, looking for a job and getting nowhere fast. It's not my idea of fun to be told that it's my fault I can't find a job. It's depressing.
Trump is merely the latest in a long run of inept politicians. The most inept ones are members of the GOP, the Grease Our Palms party. These politicians won't do anything unless it helps them or their rich donors and that, by default means that you and I are worthless to them. Trump is doing what they want to do: destroying America for 99% of us. They've lied to us for decades. Too many believed the lies.
184
Our American adoration of Capitalism is also implicated. I've asked people many times to define "capitalism" and they confuse it with Democracy. Nope. The root word is "capital", which means MONEY. We have now branded ourselves as people who judge everything by and are propelled solely by the compulsion to have more money and frame and value everything by the amount of cash they have. There's a word for that. Greed.
5
“If interest rates rise even moderately … budget experts believe that nondiscretionary spending on interest on the debt, government health care programs and Social Security will leave virtually nothing left for us to invest in improved bridges and roads, scientific research, new weapons systems, education programs and housing.” Tom, you’re a smart man who has a pretty good sense of human political behavior so you should know EXACTLY where Trump and the Republicans are going. Yup, you got it, PRIVATIZATION. Public roads, schools, housing, and research programs will ALL be turned over to DeVos’, Carson’s, Pruitt’s, and especially Trump’s relatives and cronies. Privatize profits and socialize costs has been the GOP long game forever, and now they just might win.
269
Mr. Friedman, you need not speculate about what would happen if another 9/11 materialized; it already has in Donald Trump’s presidency. As you have aptly analyzed, he has undermined our own health, our global commitments to protect the planet, and our longstanding relationship with our allies, all to give succor to our adversaries who want to see democracies defeated in their attempts for world domination.
He has singlehandedly destroyed the foundations of American Constitutional law. He has terrorized children crossing our borders and insulted our nearest neighbors.
Thank you for staying strong. We need your voice and direction.
149
We're not a banana republic. We're a Trump Coal republic, stuck in 19th Century, robber baron " economic thought " and policies. White makes right, the Rich get Richer, the Man rules the House (and Senate ). And freedoms just another word for nothing left to CHOOSE. If you're not Rich, just gather what crumbs you can, and be grateful. Seriously.
166
America has indeed done many good things in the world, but we've also done some pretty rotten things. Overturning elected democratically elected leaders that we didn't like, setting fire to the Middle East, torturing people are things we have done abroad, and at home we suffer from an inherent racism and other bigotries we have never really looked in the face and worked to fix. All these things are components of our Achilles heel, boiling down to International arrogance and various domestic bigotries. Now is really the time to decide what kind of country will want to be. Shall we keep Emma Lazarus' poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty, or shall we erase it in tribute to the followers of Trumpism?
50
We must never forget that this man did not seize power. Trump may be trying to remake America in his own image, but he is the reflection of over forty percent of us, right now. This is the America they very much want.
Trump was elected by more than 60 million white voters who believe, as he does, that demands for equality by ethnic or religious minorities are an attack on their privilege. Trump supporters continue in lockstep with him because he believes as they do that as whites, they should exercise sole control of this country. They are the "real" Americans. As long as he continues to tell them this, he will remain in power. Trump will remain in office as long as this 40% of our citizens want to continue to cling to their hateful, disgusting bigotry.
Trump voters do not care if they lose their healthcare. They do not care if they lose their jobs. They do not care if their children grow up in a safe, decent environment. And they do not care if we're now a national pariah.
Trump could declare martial law, and his base would stay with him. In fact, this is what they want him to do. They would be thrilled if he rounded up minority citizens like my family, stripped us of our civil rights, and worse. We need to take the gloves off when speaking of Trump voters. Trump isn't remaking the country in his image, but his voters are remaking our country in theirs. Those of us who detest the bigotry he and his supporters stand for need to start fighting back. It starts now.
1216
I have asked Trump supporters if they would support Trump as president for life who named the GOP as the sole legal party in a rubber stamp legislature. Some have said that they would do so gladfully, especially if it hurt "libtards". Yet we are told time and again we must come to understand these people and never, never condescend to them. I think you are absolutely right, this is a big part of what America is. We need to let go of our romantic fantasy of this as an empire of goodness. history told us that was never true, current events underline that we are no better than other nations of hate and chauvinism. Nothing exceptional about that.
168
So well said.
8
Reply to DB Cooper,
This wholesale attack on Trump voters, aka working-class whites is inaccurate at best, and a vicious canard at worst. Painting an entire group as bigots is bigotry, itself.
People are nothing if not complex. Many Trump voters have seen their communities fall into despair, their men dying early deaths from opioids and alcohol. Are they bigots?
Yes, there are a core of bigots among Trump voters, but millions voted for Obama before turning to Trump. Are they bigots?
The Times reported, recently, on a Tennessee town that rallied in support of illegal immigrants after an ICE roundup. Are they bigots? allhttp://tinyurl.com/yboshuw5
In fact, these townspeople are the very working-class whites that many readers denounce as ignorant racists, often in sweeping, angry and apocalyptic terms.
Blaming is a learned response. Blaming leads to hatred and bigotry. But blaming rarely solves problems. As David Brooks argues eloquently, we need to restore a sense of community if we are to solve our problems. That is what young, Democratic candidates in the heartland have been doing, successfully.
The angry, hate-filled rants that we encounter daily in The Times reader forums do not help this process of healing; they undermine it. They serve the very purposes their authors claim to oppose. They play into the hands of the true, ignorant racist, Donald Trump.
2
We are living a waking nightmare, but Trump, as evil as he is, isn't doing this on his own. He has the help of the cowardly Republicans in Congress and Fox state news.
Our democracy is approaching the breaking point. Appeals to reason, decency, our history or even our long-range interests fall on deaf ears. We must continue to do everything we can to win in November.
Who would have ever imagine we would be in this place?
702
Congressional Republicans aren't being cowards. They're acting on principle, however evil. Look at their behavior in response to President Obama--they had already embraced the cynical ideology that propaganda & hatred drive politics, and that the end justifies the means. Supporting a fascist conspiracy theorist is no different from holding the country's credit hostage to politcal demands, holding fake investigations of political opponents, suppressing votes, or designating Court seats for their own party. They can, so they do. Trump is only what they have long been: corporate weapons for controlling politics.
11
We and especially Germany saw this coming right from the beginning. We were warned.
1
The terrible reality is that Trump has undone much of what President Obama did. From the policies Trump has dumped, to the diplomacy he shuns, to the coarseness he embraces, Trump has given the United States a different (and obnoxious) character to Americans and to the world.
The silver lining is that all presidents impart themselves on the nation they lead, and none of them lasts forever. President Obama reversed much of what his own predecessor had been known for, particularly the warmongering and financial recklessness.
Trump won’t be in power forever, and he will not forever define America. We can, in the meantime, vote in a Congress to check Trump’s reach and also do our own part to be environmentally responsible, as the damage done to our one planet will long outlast anyone’s time in power.
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NM - "The terrible reality is that Trump has undone much of what President Obama did."
You must realize that undoing what Obama achieved is what is driving every action of this so-called president. Between his racial bigotry and his animus over Obama's jokes at the Correspondents' Dinner, he is willing to do anything to counteract any action that Obama took. And, if that means destroying a country while he is at it, so be it.
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Well said. The base, just as the regime it worships, is an enemy. The line is drawn.
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While I'm sure your optimism is appreciated, it's probably a little late to say "he will not forever define America."
There is an old adage, "once bitten, twice shy." Trump has revealed the ugly interior of a great many citizens of your country. How can anyone now believe there won't be more people just like him in power in the future?
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When the financial meltdown occurred in 2008 I watched almost daily briefings by President-elect Obama. He and his advisors and future cabinet telling us what actions they would be taking to reduce our risks of another Great Depression.
I felt more secure then than I have in the last 18 months. Our current President is unquestionably ill prepared to carry out the duties of the executive branch.
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To cherrylog 754 from down the road in Jasper - Do you ever wonder if this insidious freak show we're living through might have been avoided if the Obama administration had DOJ do a forensic criminal investigation of the crash, identified more than a few Wall St. culprits and sent them to jail? I do. I understand his wanting to concentrate on mitigating the damage, but I think even many of us who didn't feel the most extreme adverse affects felt hugely let down, and that it might have given rise to this burn the whole thing down attitude. Beyond that, I see it as long festering racism and resentment against those evil elites - as depicted by Rush and Hannity, at al., which circles back to the perception of an ivy league black man, in service to Wall St.
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We live with many factions that want a helpless federal government. Southern Evangelicals want nothing stopping them from imposing their version of religion on everyone. Neo-Confederates want nothing stopping them from winning That War. White Nation wants nothing to stop them from expelling minorities and rejecting immigrants and refugees. Capitalists want nothing to stop them from accumulating all the money. The federal government stands in the way of total faction frenzy. Maybe Ike shouldn't have gotten rid of E pluribus unum back in 1956.
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Best comment ever. I challenge a NYT columnist to build on your analysis, which is spot-on.
Agreed! And none of those groups you mentioned care much if Trump is antithetical to what they believe and the way they live their lives as long as he and the lapdog Republicans can facilitate their desires. In other words, they'll hop into bed with anyone who can do them some good.
And what is the common thread binding all of those groups (except perhaps for the capitalists)? Sheer unadulterated stupidity, that's what. The country is being held hostage by folks who could not spell cat if you spotted them the "c" and the "t".
I am not sure which comes first..the chicken or the egg. Is Trump remaking America into his image? Or, Mr. Friedman, is it the opposite? That being, is this quintessential showman who knows his audience all too well audaciously reflecting a more vociferous and more radical segment of our society? I would wager it is the latter. Nativism, bigotry, and racism has always simmered. But because of the fear, insecurity, and, I dare say, ignorance of half of our nation, Trump has given them the green light to "be themselves." That's the thing, you know. We on the left are the "elitists," the "politically correct." However, the sad reality is because of this opening of Pandora's Box, this volcanic spewing of evils and ills, our stability and safety across the spectrum has never been more at risk, at least during my lifetime.
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You need not dare to say a large percentage of the country is, shall we say, cognitively challenged, and intellectually incurious. It's a fact, and on at least one occasion Trump famously professed his love for them.
In answer to your question, Mr. Friedman, no, I am not feeling more secure.
The only security I feel is the knowledge that as I am in the last 1/3rd of my life, my range of choices will progressively narrow until I wink out with the other seniors in my cohort.
Mr. Trump is the anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to dross. He preens and struts about the stage, making himself bigger by making everyone else smaller. He swore an oath to the Constitution but he does not act as if it is a standard or even a guideline. To him, it is but an option, easily cast aside in his hagiography.
Try leafing through the book on your shelf, Mr. Trump, which you speak of so highly to your evangelical co-conspirators. You know the book I speak of, although by now it must be very dusty. It is the Bible. Here's a small sample:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (1Co 13:1)
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We do have the ultimate power. It's called our vote. Especially powerful when you consider the small percentage of citizens who use this power.
We need to vote starting with local as well as national politicians. That is how we can and will counteract and stop the Trump agenda.
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Amen.
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As one of the seniors in your cohort, Douglas, I share your misgivings, as well as your assessment of Mr. Trump as the "anti-Midas."
But you know that your suggestion to him that he actually read something for comprehension and reflection falls upon willfully deaf ears, don't you? Ah, what to do in this utter mess we find ourselves in? It is a puzzlement.
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Trump may not have mastered the art of the deal, but he has certainly been effective in manipulating public opinion. We will not be able to counter the negatives Mr. Friedman identifies until we find a way to change that.
Apparently, Trump's gut resonates in ways that appeal to his supporters. If Republicans show disloyalty, they will be primaried and, all to often, lose.
There's an answer to everything. Trump and his minions charge ahead in an alternate universe and nothing seems to stop them.
The 2018 election is our only hope and polls apparently show that it might not be a Blue Wave after all. Help!
He has the bully (pun intended) pulpit and he's not restrained in using it.
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WHY are Congressional Democrats, and Republicans so quiet and unable to say or DO anything effective to push back against this undermining and dismantling at home and abroad ?????
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Worst of all, he is pitting Americans against Americans, not in a well-meaning debate based on facts but in an ill-meaning punching each other mode. For a head of state, his contempt of his country's long-cherished values is truly reprehensible. And, he does all this for his own benefit, defying all norms, laws, morals, ethics. It is hard not to feel sad for those who have been mesmerized by his random utterances about anything that may pop into his head.
It is sad to see America being dragged down by this man who badly pretends to be the president of this country with no regard for its wellbeing.
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With all due respect, I must disagree, as Americans have always been pitted against each other in one form or another.
Surely you remember the Civil War and all the racist and socio-economic aspects of it.
Nothing has changed.
The only thing that Donald Trump has done is capitalize on it by sowing ever more seeds of dissent.
And the tragic thing is, he has obviously gotten away with it.
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I can only echo your observation about how Americans are being pitted against one another by this reckless, narrow-minded, and unceasingly self-serving person. It is the worst!
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Some form of conflict, mainly in the ideas domain, is unavoidable even desirable. One also hopes that this country has come a long way since the Civil War. Alas! All it takes is a man like Trump to take us down to that level once more. Let us hope that the rekindled awareness of the horrors of the Civil War will bootstrap the society to pull itself up rather than going down that hole once more.
Maybe Trump reflects the American populous, rather than what is suggested by the column's title. Realize that, at best, 50% of the eligible voters do so, and if that 50% was split between Trump and Clinton, then 25% of eligible voters cast ballots for each. The 50% who did not vote seemed not to care about Trump's worldview and manner of treating people and institutions. In other words, 75% of voters apparently have no problem with this, and so perhaps he is US.
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thats how it looks to the rest of us in the real world
For him to be successful, he indeed needs a receptive audience. However, any leader has a responsibility to lead responsibly, and has the power and authority to lead, or mislead, their constituents. Obama used to talk about appealing to our "better angels"; trump has no interest in that, and that is the tragedy. He is deliberately guiding our country into a very dangerous corner, one from which we may not recover. That is all on him.
@Melitides It wasn't 50/50 of the voters it was the seriously skewed Electoral College that effected the result... NOT the majority of votes cast!!! The EC was a post Civil War concession to the Confederate states & the freed slave population!!!
'Trump: Trying to Remake America in His Own Image'
Very unfair to MrT! Character assassination! Verging on - gasp! - fake news! How so? Because had we not already arrived at the unhappy estate of affairs you accuse him of leading us towards, there is no way he could possibly have been elected. Mr T is a sign of the times, not its perpetrator. Credit where due - the US electorate; those who voted, and those who didn't.
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Start as far back as you want but a good place to go was with the passing of the Civil Rights Act and Republicans 'southern strategy' where they fanned the flames. Then there was Newt in 1994. Then elimination of bipartisan councils that conducted serious assessments, debates, and built solutions to advance America. Add in Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the hate media. Add even more to the brush fire and turn it into a raging forest fire with Citizens United. The cancer of the angry right and its brew grew to stage 4 when in walked the biggest and angriest of them all: Trump. That's how we got here. Where it's going is even scarier.
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I live in the U.S. and sometimes have trouble wrapping my head around how Trump supporters could believe what they believe and support things that will bring about their own destruction.
We were not led towards hating our allies. Hating our fellow Americans. Many of these problems were there before --- but Mr. Obama presented us with finer morals and a positive attitude. With good leadership we would have a positive attitude but there is no light at the end of any tunnel Trump is leading us to except the spotlight on his ego and the money the 1% is making.
1
What is Trump's end game with all of this? After all of our institutions are torn down and world order is destabilized, what then? And I don't understand why everyone's so afraid of him. Honestly, if everyone stood up to him he would fold like the coward he is. The emperor has no clothes people. But he sure thinks he does. Enough.
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That’s just it, those who can stand up to him do not.
They are afraid of him because the Republican voters support him. Party policies over many years created conditions ripe for election of the tRump catastrophe and now this unsavory character has full control and virtually no Republican is willing to put the good of the country over political survival.
Yes. Enough, enough, enough already!!!
Mr. Friedman: Mr. Trump won a national election. He IS a reflection of the way millions of voters think, including those who do not care enough to vote. We have a Congress who thinks Trump behaves like a President should behave, with no respect whatsoever for the rule of law, honor, integrity, or simple courtesy. In short-----This horse has already left the barn, and you are apparently just beginning to realize what this means. For most of us, this is the new reality of America, and a very sad thing it is.
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well corraling (sp) horse back into the barn has to be our first order of business: beginning the first week in november 2018..get the vote out
true, but Trump lost by a considerable amount of low vote. The counties HRC won produce 2/3 of GDP, so as seen with the Rosanne debacle there is still considerable ecenomic influence to bear
He actually LOST the election by almost 3 million votes. Never forget that. He was GIVEN the election by a committee of unelected folks -- the Electoral College.
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President Lincoln in his Gettysburg address was prescient not only about the 1861-4 Civil War, but the cultural civil war America is now ferociously battling.
Lincoln, a truly great man and great president said, "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure."
Mr. Friedman might also have summarized his outstanding article by stating that America is now engaged in a great cultural civil war. Just as in the first civil war, the two sides have dug in their heels and the acrimony is ferocious. If America does not recover its best values in a post-Trump era, there will be a vast reshaping of world leadership, as other nations take up the mantle in leadership of compassionate freedom, we hope and pray.
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If only HRC were in the WH none of these problems would exist
Trump's foreign policy has been a shambles thus far. That's because he only thinks of personal glory. He has demolished foreign projects he could have built on, for his ego makes him destroy everything Obama has done. If he is trying to make America in his own image, it's the Reality Show one, where he can declare "You're fired."
However, America is much more than this Twitter King who has divided it, shamed it, and discarded the meek, among other self serving acts: Surely, this cannot be the new normal.
We must rise again & survive this ego blitz.
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It goes beyond Obama as Trump claims to be the single best president ever - superior to all who came before him.
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What's making me feel less secure is that apparently millions of my fellow Americans don't care what Trump destroys as long it it makes people like me and Friedman concerned, or even better, outraged.
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Doug Hill - You have summed it up exactly. I feel like I am standing on shifting sand. Nothing I thought about the decency and intelligence of so many of my fellow citizens seems to be true.
Sooner or later Trump's supporters will suffer the consequences of his actions. But it will probably be later.
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Trump's supporters are not thinking of you.
Indeed, they are not thinking at all !
He has an amazing ability to speak to the worst version of ourselves. When you listen to his speeches to his supporters, he gets the most cheers for his most violent and negative comments. Hate is in; brotherhood is out. Racism is in; tolerance is out. The Ku Klux Klan is the group to join, not the League of Women Voters. I keep thinking he wants to take us back to the 1950s, but then Truman and Eisenhower were our presidents and neither one would approve of him. I continue to hope that we will get this out of our system and be able to move on to a better world, but at what cost and what have we taught our children?
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He is the proof the humans are just one more soulless animal species living in the godless universe. He makes dictators like Xi and Putin look like nice guys.
IMO, Trump perfectly represents the people who voted for him. They are all like him.
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