There's no fight Mr. Edsall. We all know where he fits in. He either makes Barak Obama the last American president to preside over a democracy or he doesn't.
194
One of Edsall’s great pieces. He performs a great service, personally querying diverse academic views on a given subject.
24
There are only forty three other Presidents, not forty-four, Grover Cleveland doesn't count as two, he counts as one, so Trump is actually the 44th President, though the first to be elected by the Russians.
33
Have any of these scholars noticed a parallel between America’s sorry condition today and Germany’s fall into Hitler’s dictatorship following a similarly tumultuous, violent period of political partisanship? Democracies do, indeed die. The question of “how” only arises after the fact, when the damage is already done. That is, if there are any scholars left to document it.
23
Mr. Edsall spends much of his column arguing against the loony conclusion of this Jack Balkin, who places Trump and Carter in the same basket. What next? Debating the merits of the flat earth theory?
7
And, for our next analysis, we'll compare the Entry of Augustus into Rome with the Wedding of Caligula to his horse.
6
He doesn’t. He is the worst person to hold the office in American history. Mitch McConnell is the worst person to hold the position of Senate Majrity leader, Bill Barr is a crook with a law degree and should be disbarred. The Chief Justice of SCOTUS should be impeached and disbarred for all the terrible decisions he’s made.
23
This article overcomplicates deciding who is The Worst President Ever. Maybe two occupants of the bottom rung, Buchanan and Trump?
9
He doesn't fit in and he belongs in prison.
19
Trump is pure evil plain and simple. The perfect storm was his to utilize solely for his enrichment and the destruction of this country.
Sadly Ruth Ginsberg not retiring when Obama asked as well as the blocking of Merrick garland nomination by the devil’s agent McConnell cemented our demise
We are doomed
There is no redemption coming
Well maybe the planet’s demise by Mother Nature or trump’s idiocy will give it another chance a billion years from now
13
He is a criminal who won an illegitimate election. He will be remembered as the worst president ever. There will be an * by his name.
He will either be the straw that broke the back of the new gilded age, ushering in a backlash akin to a new new deal, or the first Fascist dictator of a bizzaro evil America.
27
Trump is by far the worst president in United States history. It is ludicrous that after all he has done and lied about, we have to have this discussion. He has no respect for the office he holds or for the laws of the country he leads, end of story.
31
It is grammatically incorrect to speak of Trump in relation to "the other 44 presidents," as if there were two sets of 44 presidents, and it is factually incorrect to speak of Trump as one of 45 presidents. He is one of 44, with Grover Cleveland having served two nonconsecutive terms.
6
Most of us would agree he’s a solid 46th
8
Of the forty-four Presidents of this proud country and historic bastion of freedom for the oppressed from around the world, Trump is dead last without close "opposition"!
16
I'm in favor of the "Competence Theory". Does the individual demonstrate some (any?) level of competence? Cay that person respect the constitution, and govern?
Is there any president who fails that standard so spectacularly?
Trump is either the greatest (most incompetent) , or the worst (least competent). Either way - he will forever be "the most".
He's also a crook and a creep - the most? We'll see.
11
George W. Bush is the worst President ever in matters of substance, with Trump approaching at the clubhouse turn. Trump is the worst individual personally ever to hold the office.
16
We've had 44 presidents and 1 lunatic-fringe tin-pot dictator. We've started a new list with this guy. It's not even academic... it requires very little thought if you've had eyes and ears for the last 3 years... it's common sense.
We no longer elect presidents if they are republican, and we're no longer a democracy under this guy so we might never see another leader that isn't republican...
Meanwhile 70% of the country leans liberal, living in a handful of cities, in an electoral system that rewards geography over demographics...
And then you factor in climate change... and robots doing every human task inside 50 years... with those guys in charge...
Yeah, this ends well. Nothing in this comment is hyperbole... and my friends consider me an optimist.
13
Very strange arguments. Also a lengthy article will not help ro convince.
2
When I reflect on how Trump fits into the pantheon of presidents over my lifetime (back to FDR), I come up blank. But, even though I try to stay on track, an unrelated name keeps intervening. Hitler.
"The United States Office of Strategic Services [described] Hitler's psychological profile:... His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie#Goebbels's_use_of_the_expression
26
Join a liberal gun club. We may need to take the country back by force one day soon. Trump has no intention of giving up power.
5
Yes, Trump is certainly "disjunctive" in the dictionary sense -- "serving or tending to divide, separate or disjoin." His pathological narcissism demands that he act as if he is President only of his adoring base instead of all Americans.
6
Most Americans could not name four, let alone forty-four former president, but even if they could, NONE of those other forty-four come close to Trump in terms of greed, bigotry, corruption, illiteracy, stupidity, cruelty, or contempt for the people of this nation and their government. Trying to slot Trump into one of several theoretical boxes is a waste of time that ignores the fact that he and his supporters literally want to disassemble the structure of the federal government in order to legally destroy the right of anyone who is not white, male, and christian, to fully participate in all aspects of our society. that is NOT an academic exercise.
10
The Times, or Edsall, or both, have blundered with the title of this opinion piece. It should read: "... With the Other 43 Presidents," not '44.' Trump is indeed the '45th President of the United States, but Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and the 24th, hence there have only been 43 men before Trump who were President of the United States.
3
His record as President should be erased from history and put in the dustbin. Never to be acknowledged or spoken of. He is a pox on our society and world.
12
Last Fall, I was working for the campaign of a Dem candidate for Congress. It was a longshot, and she lost (no surprise).
One afternoon, when I was phone-banking, I spoke with a nice woman. She said: "I'm over 80 years old. I lived through the Holocaust. I never thought that I'd ever live long enough to see our country become as bad as it has become under Trump."
That brought me to tears....
17
Well the best thing for PA is that James Buchanan is no longer the worst president!
6
Trump has always been repulsive, taking up too much space, too much attention, and requiring too much maintenance, and giving too little to the cause. Perhaps candidate George Wallace would have been a lower rated president if he'd been elected. But Trump will always be the loser that building on a foundation of sand relegates him to hold.
9
"The Fight Over How Trump Fits in With the Other 44 Presidents"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dead last. The Fraud is an abomination and a disgrace to America and what we've stood for.
He personifies greed and hypocrisy.
He's shown the world just exactly what republicans are.
9
Vladimir Putin would love nothing more than to have Duh Donald hand over The United States of America to The Soviet Union without a fight.
For God's sake, don't re-elect Trump.
9
Trump is the leader of an authoritarian populist movement. When the leader of any populist movement is gone, which will inevitably happen, the movement falls into disarray and infighting--or into the hands of an incompetent successor. Trump is inseparable from his movement; without him, it will fade away. Which, given his enormous ego (and insecurity), is probably exactly what he would like. Who within the Trump movement could ever lead a rally like him?
The U.S. has never elected a populist like Trump (save, perhaps, for Andrew Jackson). For comparison, consider Latin America--especially Venezuela after Chavez, which is a textbook example of what happens to a populist movement without a charismatic leader.
Pelosi's fear, however, is well-founded--if Trump loses in a tightly contested election, there will be political violence by Trump's followers. It is also a good argument for impeaching Trump--even if he makes it through the Senate, he cannot go into 2020 with any sense of legitimacy (and the craven Republican Senators who stand with him should lose their reelections).
8
The Kochs have been out to create an oligarchy for decades, and they're coming pretty close to achieving their craven ideal. When Trump's lackey, Mitch McConnell, years ago declared that he would never work with Obama, it really signaled the end of any pretense that the U.S. government is striving to maintain its two hundred year old democracy. What with obliging outside oligarchs - such as Putin and others, on board, America is in deep trouble. 2020 really is make or break. If only the majority of citizens were capable of fully understanding what is going on. But then, if they were capable of any insight, Trump wouldn't be in the Oval office today.
8
I am deeply unhappy with these scholars and thinkers who are still using conventional terms and notions to describe Mr. Trump. They are lost in the woods. The old words and concepts are inadequate, but they don't have the imagination and mental wherewithal to come up with anything else. They mention Carter when Goebbels is the better match. They remind us of Hoover's "chicken in every pot and car in every garage" when it would be far more accurate to say "two families in every garage, and the meth's hidden in the pot." They dwell on the destruction he is doing to his own party but neglect the destruction he is doing to our flawed, beloved country and its flimsy democracy. They can't see the difference between Google creative destruction and The Great Leap Forward when 50 million died. They talk of political tactics but all I can see, from sea to shining sea, is the Republican apocalypse. They'll do anything to seize power and retain it forever. If we do not give them everything they ask for, they'll blow the whole thing up. Think Bonhoeffer in 1933 warning the Germans that they were falling for an idolatrous personality cult. That is the sort of mental strength and prescience that is needed now.
9
The past 70 years have been a respite from mankind's worst instincts. That seems to be over.
9
Perhaps Trump should be regarded as another transformative president, rather than a disjunctive one, but one transforming the nation into a dark and dysfunctional entity. He certainly has nothing in common with Jefferson, Lincoln, or Roosevelt, but does share certain traits with Reagan including ignorance and the ability to con the American public. If the younger voters do not rise to the occasion, we are headed down the road taken by Hungary, Turkey and other failed democracies. My generation has been sadly complicit in the political devolution of the nation.
7
The one flaw in the constitution is it's based on the president putting the country first above all else, without it the system collapses. Bush, Reagan, Carter even Nixon at least believed they were doing what's best for the country. I see none of that in Trump, just self serving narcissist action.
11
As far as fitting in goes, I, myself, have been curious about what Trump's animatron will say in Disney's Hall of Presidents. I'm guessing it will go something like this:
Fake news. No collusion! Believe me. I'm sure I'll find some excuse. Who knows what will happen? We'll see. Sad!
3
Trump's place with historians? We just watched his hissy fit on trade wipe out 1 trillion from global stock-market values.
Other presidents could manage the border, but not him.
Russia engaged in cyber-warfare during his election. He thinks it's fake news.
His tax bill enriched himself and his family.
Over 700 former federal prosecutors signed on that if the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel didn't prohibit a sitting president from being indicted, Trump would be charged with obstruction of justice.
And he DOES look guilty on Russia. As does that aberrant behavior with Putin time and time again.
8
I'll take the "existential fear" hypothesis for 1000, Alex.
Alternatively, Trump fills a fifth category that we'll call the "harbinger of doom." Akin to Franklin Pierce and Warren Harding. A weakling toady regime leader, beholden to white supremacists and/or corporate titans, whose presidency predates civil war (Pierce), economic catastrophe (Harding), or whatever is about to befall us (he who is not to be further named). Therefore entails aspects of the "disjunctive" presidency, but worse.
I'll enjoy waving at Marine One flying off into the ether toward Mar-a-Lago from my perch amidst the inaugural throngs in January 2021. But I wonder how long the joy will last.
4
This is little more than political astrology. Anyone for statistics ?
We can agree on one thing ; 45 is a terrible president by any measure.
4
Regardless of any spin or over-interpretation of Trump, the unavoidable take is that America made an utter fool of itself by putting Trump into the Oval Office. Analyse any cause or contributing factor you want, the bottom line is the decline of the American Republic. Trump distracts us from this unavoidable conclusion with his antics and buffoneries. It is to be hoped that we do not hurt other people and other nations during our decline. Sadly that too may be unavoidable.
6
I think there is merit in the argument that the GOP as it came to be under Reagan is now a spent force with Trump. Any party that has to resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and an antiquated electoral college to stay in national power clearly has problems. But like a dead skunk in the middle of the road the stink won't go away until you clear it out of there. No matter if you have to hold your nose you have got to get to the ballot box in November 2020 and remove the dead carcass of the GOP.
7
More and more it appears that Trump is in fact Putin puppet constantly swinging between outrageous claims as a distraction while he is dismantling our government and dividing America like never before.
We have the most corrupt and unqualified cabinet ever in the history of our country, with many senior positions lacking even a nominee.
We know for a fact that Russia wanted Trump in the White House, a few test balloons (like allowing the Russian Ambassador into the Oval office with no witnesses to test his power or Trump performance at Helsinki confirmed Putin's control and then it was off to the races.
If Trump wins next year I fear the damage will be irreversible and we will never be able to "make America great again".
6
For all his faults, there is no question Donald J. Trump saw the possibility of a major realignment of electoral politics (white-nativism, economic populism, fading relevance for many), ushering a major realignment of the American political structure. For better or (much more likely) worse Trump is a truly transformative president -- dare I say "genius" -- and not to recognize this is folly at our peril.
3
What if Donald Trump never existed? Or for some reason he never entered the political arena in 2016. I think in all likelihood the winner of the 2016 election would have Jeb Bush. Would these fancy theories be different with a Jeb Bush presidency? Or what if James Comey had simply kept his mouth shut. Would that have been enough to elect Hillary and resurrect the Clinton dynasty? Once more, all of these analytical paradigms would be in doubt.
The exhaustion of the Reagan regime means the end of the dominance of the Reagan coalition. Why the end? Demographics it would seem. It looks like Trump has his Reagan coalition but demographically that political alignment has shrunk. Whereas the electorate was 88 percent white in 1980 it is now perhaps 68 percent non Hispanic white. Further, all of those liberal white college graduates have diluted that white majority even more since 1980. The educated secular young whites of our era including so many young femiminist women have also chipped away at that block that delivered a 59 percent vote for Reagan in 1984.
So Reaganism morphed into Trumpism may end with demographic and cultural changes in American society independent of political cycles. Trump is above all an opportunist and master salesman who knew how to take back some of the working class whites who had been mobilized by the Democrats in 2008. He had that as well as the perfect opponent in Hillary Clinton.
1
This article omits the most fundamental difference between this presidency and its predecessors. The takeover of our electoral system by unrestricted corporate capital has shifted the picture forever.
4
Mr. Edsall's piece quotes a number of respected political experts. But he scarcely mention the prevalence of the internet, social media and divisive news sources on television and elsewhere. Tens of millions of people get their news and analysis only from sources with which they agree. Some believe every word Mr. Trump says, while others (like me) wanted him criminally prosecuted within months of his inauguration. America is more divided with every passing day, and I have yet to hear of any Democrat or Republican challenger to Mr. Trump for 2020 who would be able to bind these social wounds and get our country back on a more positive track. One suspects that "It's going to get worse before it gets better" for quite a few years.
4
Mr. Edsall's piece quotes a number of respected political experts. But he scarcely mention the prevalence of the internet, social media and divisive news sources on television and elsewhere. Tens of millions of people get their news and analysis only from sources with which they agree. Some believe every word Mr. Trump says, while others (like me) wanted him criminally prosecuted within months of his inauguration. America is more divided with every passing day, and I have yet to hear of any Democrat or Republican challenger to Mr. Trump for 2020 who would be able to bind these social wounds and get our country back on a more positive track. One suspects that "It's going to get worse before it gets better" for quite a few years.
3
I wonder if the great country I was so fortunate to live in my 75 years is over. I used to tell friends the astronomical odds to be born, and then to be born in America was the most extreme lottery win. What are our grandchildren going to think? We lost it for them?
5
My professor of American Studies took an anthropological view of politics. To simplify, birth, maturity, decline and death. My view is that the GOP is slowly dying. The failure of 16 of the most prominent members of the GOP to stop Trump was a sign of its weakness. The GOP no longer functions as a political party; it is now more like a cult. The 2020 elections will demonstrate what the American people are looking for. I believe that Joe Biden is correct. It is a fight for the soul of the America, but also a struggle for the structure and promise of the GOP.
3
The Greatest Ever, if you ask Trump. Or ...
The first president to be impeached and convicted of the sheer incompetence of his attempts to obstruct justice and govern through edict and refusals to comply rather than through presidential powers and actual legal principles? (22 of the 34 available senate seats in 2020 are held by Republicans. Democrats need to win 20 for an outright 67 to convict, less any Republicans who save their seats by voting against Trump.)
4
"Finally, in Skowronek’s fourth cycle, there are the end-of-era “disjunctive” presidencies.., under whom the regime implodes, laying the groundwork for the election of an innovative “reconstructive” president to begin the process once again."
Based on this model, Trump can only be classified as disjunctive if his demise recycles around to another reconstructive phase. But if Trump acts to destroy the institutions supporting the cycle itself, Trump must either himself become the reconstructive force or the cycle must collapse. Trump's reconstructive impulse is to replace democracy with personal authoritarian rule.
Even if Trump is deposed after wreaking havoc on the institutional framework, his effect will be more than merely disjunctive. He necessarily contributes to a transition from one system to another. That is likely where we are now. Global environmental collapse threatens to change the fundamental nature of the governance process itself -- and the new emergent forms are not yet clearly visible. The trick is to figure out which elements of the existing institutional framework may be useful going forward and try to protect them from a blindly destructive populist rage.
The Skowronek model depends on the existence of a relatively stable status quo. But maintaining stability now appears less probable on a nearly daily basis. Thus replacing Trump with a Joe Biden at most would provide a temporary interlude in a larger, increasingly chaotic transition to a new paradigm.
5
@woofer I would argue Obama was the disjunctive president. Trump is re-writing the rule book, much to the dismay of the elite elector-ocracy and their trained talking heads.
Trump is bringing the world to heel. We are not going to play the big, dumb kid, that get it's pockets picked anymore. If you want to be in an alliance with us, you have to pay your way.
If you want to trade with us, you have to play fair. Otherwise, close your factories and send your $2 a day workers back to their village.
If you want to rattle your swords, go ahead. But when you look on the horizon and see a carrier battle group, be advised, you were not selected to be a liberty port.
Furthermore, the threats you can't see are there.
When was the last time we had a president that said "America first."? It sure wasn't Obama on his bowing campaign.
Did you ever hear people say,"We need a business man to run the country."? "We need to stop importing everything from China."?
1
It can be great fun to engage in this sort of intellectual debate, particularly as we are witnessing an "all bets are off" environment which no one alive has experienced. Yes, we are seeing an especially appalling, even dangerous, extreme in presidential behavior which may portend worse to come. However, his election can as much be ascribed to a desperate reaction to the alternative, rather than an embrace of such extremism, which argues his ascendancy as more of anomaly.
If we go back earlier in our history, we will indeed find the existential fears we now face: transition from agrarian to industrialized economy, nativist fears in face of a flood of Irish and other immigrants, the corruption of government during the Gilded Age, etc. Globalization just means all these issues are playing out on a larger, less insular playing field. What is truly new is climate change.
Mr. Trump may indeed be the paradox for reform in that he has ignited an energized, more organized, and singularly determined left which has finally given up its complacency for action. Moreover, all this debate ignores an emerging generation whose future has been compromised by the decay of these past decades and who soon enough will be adding its own voice to whatever direction this country takes.
It is still too early to draw the conclusions contained here. We will know better in November 2020.
2
Trump is not the end of Reaganism but it's culmination. The culmination of supply side economics over Keynesian economics, government as evil, ideology over practically, business over the individual, and personality over institutions.
Whether this is the new paradigm is anyone's guess. I only hope not.
5
I think there is a lot to learn by looking beyond those politicians elected to the presidency. Specifically at those who have lead political movements in our past.
When I look at our current leadership I am reminded to the master populist Huey Long, who but for an assassins bullet, might have been president.
While Huey came from the left he was a master of exploiting peoples fears about tomorrow.
1
I am humbled by the insights contained in many of these comments. But I would like to add one: the type of presidency Trump represents is not necessarily pre-ordained.
We can't rely on cycles. We must work to make Trump's a disjunctive presidency.
2
As we deal with events, I think we need some inspiration.
Big Head Todd and the Monster: "Soul for every cowboy."
This is where we are. This is where I am.
Trump not only dodged the draft, he refused to honor the dead of WW I because it was raining. Why? No leader at the event would use an umbrella. Trump can't do that because it would ruin his hair. That's all you need to know about this guy. Nothing else to see here folks.
12
In the last 3 years more has been written about Trump than about Clinton, Bush and Obama put together. Same with TV coverage.
Trump has already left a big footprint.
4
The emergence of the strong authoritarian, coupled with such thingy intellect and leadership skills is not only inherently fascistic, but coupled with the current media and communication tools offers fresh horror and sound reason for the klaxon.
No one May now seriously doubt the option for a radical and violent acting out. Cui Bono?
Still think you can control them?
1
Trump cannot be called a functioning president, as he does not honor and defend and obey the Constitution of the United States. He also frequenty says things indicating he does not believe in the concept of a democratic Republic.
4
To put it as kindly as possible, he is an "exceptional" President.
Great article. Ultimately a terrifying thought: what if Obama was the disjunctive president? Where the line is will be decided in 2020.
2
Interesting yes. Cyclical maybe. Pendulum swinging yes. But there is no comfortable dialectic, no invisible hand. There is power exerting a huge pull on primarily the wealthy and agenda driven. And there is no political marketplace with an invisible hand that equates over supply with declining demand, honesty with fraud.
What we have now is plug-ugly awful. And where did all of the ugliness animating the divisive confrontation come from? Perhaps we need to go back to archetypes?
Naming things and fitting them into patterns is useful or not. Perhaps we'll only know about this episode in a decade or two. But do we have that much time? Climate change says no. The deciline of illiberal democracy and resurgence of autocrats spells trouble. Trump is saber rattling at Iran --he may think he needs a good war to cement his campaign.
The difference is that we've never had an authoritarian, a socio-path, an oligarch who only knows to count money and self aggrandizing deals.
But again, has America been this disreputable, this dishonest, this ugly all these years?
The people who still pray --I'm not sure we even want them praying for us...
1
Yes, It is possible to overthink and over-categorize some things.
A better title for the article would be "The Fight Over How Trump Fits **UNDER** the Other 44 Presidents."
He is the worst president, by far; believe me. The only question is how many leagues beneath the others does he "lie".
1
Great article, and great comments (as usual). I would just remind people that one of Trump's original advisors, Bannon, openly stated that his goal was to destroy the State/system. It sure looks to me like Trump and his team, along with McConnell, are succeeding.
As terrible as it is to see the long-term advantages the GOP has cemented into SCOTUS, other Federal judges, voter suppression, Gerrymandering (Dems have done it too, but not as widely IMO), etc. there is still one thing that gets Washington's attention: people in the streets. This is bad enough that anyone not drinking the Fox/GOP Kool-Aid should be out protesting as often and as loudly as they can afford to. If the GOP sees millions of angry people demonstrating that "they're mad as hell and not going to take it any more!", well, maybe democracy still has a chance in America. Maybe...
5
The authors premises remind me of Barrington Moore's colossal work, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. It's full of brilliant analysis, but the sweep of history highlights the perils of drawing conclusions from any given historical stretch.
Conceptual frameworks that neatly array history are suspect (but I haven't read the authors' book--perhaps it is more nuanced or messy). But as Danish physicist Neils Bohr once noted, "It is very difficult to predict. Especially the future."
Best case scenario, to paraphrase the bumper sticker: Some day we'll look back on all this and laugh nervously.
1
I’m with the critics of the dysfunction theory. Trump is the evil twin of a reconstructive presidency. He represents a turning of the page away from what was considered failed, with his “drain the swamp” rhetoric.
However, he represents a turn away from the past in governing style as well. He represents a charismatic populist authority that delegitimizes the institutions he supposedly commands. His word is his guide, not the law. His cabinet exists to thwart benign, accountable, rational government. Under Trump, Americans are learning what it is like to be governed by a potentially hostile and brutal force that has a base of support within the country.
Trump is also somewhat unique in American history in that he has cobbled together a political coalition, not so much because he subscribes to the wants of its constituents, but because it is passionate and rabid in its desires to get its way on issues on which the majority reject. He gets power to feed his megalomania and they get their destructive desires implemented. He could just as easily have implemented left wing policies if the opportunity presented itself.
1
It will, however, according to Balkin, soon be over. “We will get through it. And when we get through it — about five to ten years from now — the present will seem like a distant, unhappy nightmare, or an illness from which one has recovered."
mr. balkin, write down the exact day and time you said that.
the notion that hard-right conservatisim was breathing its last, enraged gasp was a favorite meme of the chattering class in the year or so following the obama inauguration. so, how did that turn out?
2
There are plenty of silver linings. For one, now we know that there is no God.
5
I like the idea of Donald Trump being the last vestiges of Regeanism. Clearly, it is not that simple. What Reagan actually did was unleash Boomerism on America. He was the first president to give them not just a voice but real power. Through this lens, it is obvious Trump is the end of the line.
However, Trump has resurrected a feeling of the late 1920s. This feeling may not be resolved without a tremendous amount of bloodshed and hardship. We will certainly get over this period, but it might be quite painful.
The path forward will be defined by the might of Millenials.
3
@Owen - IF they get off their phones and Social Media, and vote!
3
Donald Trump is the 21st century Andrew Johnson. They run neck and neck for most incompetent, malevolent, divisive and destructive Presidents in United States history.
6
Donald's in a class by himself. And I mean that in the most horrifying and negative way possible. I mean come on, not so long ago the great bulk of America (e.g. I grew up in rural Arkansas; etc.) absolutely despised rich east coast blowhards like this. I apparently totally didn't get this memo, man.
3
@Charley Hale On various websites, I have seen a lot of comments from Trump voters saying what they most like about him is that he disturbs liberals and Democrats and "coastal elites." They seem to see him as a crusader against rich east coast blowhards. It's as if they want to damage their "enemies" more than they want a capable president who can solve any practical problems for them.
1
There have only been 43 other presidents, unless the New York Times has decided that Grover Cleveland is two people.
2
@Rick Beyer grover was big enough to be 2 people. but taft could have been 3.
i am glad someone else caught the misleading headline.
Democrats have cried wolf so many times it is impossible to take their plaints seriously. Nixon was a racist and a fascist, no? Cambodia was the act of a mad autocrat and he even wanted the White House guards to wear Prussian hats! Never mind the EPA, Clean Air Act, Philadelphia Plan and the fact that he left office peacefully.
Reagan was a demented, simpleton, racist fascist (see an emerging theme here?), who wanted to starve poor people. Bush Senior nominated David Souter, under whose stewardship we were assured that tens of thousands of women would die through coat hanger abortions.
W was a fascist (again), the puppet of an arch-fascist (yet again) Cheney. Both allegedly turned the world into a gulag of hellhole prisons from which our reputation could never recover. Doom was ours. Both left office peacefully.
Lacking from the comments is any self-reflection by Democrats on how they contributed to the current situation. They are immersed, not unlike waterboarding, in their own deflection and desperate need to see themselves as pure. They are choking.on impotent defiance.
Consequently, there's a whole nuther.part of this country determined to defeat them. Wake up.
Please. Before it really is too late to avert a 2nd Trump term
2
@Wine Country Dude
In retrospect, there was not enough resistance to W's reckless economic policies and misguided war.
2
@Wine Country Dude Trump derangement syndrome that afflicts liberals like me is an unhelpful affliction. We need somehow to organize a pro-Constitution, pro-democracy response to Trump, with leadership that can fight effectively against a corrupt GOP without becoming too much like them.
1
He doesn’t. He’s illegitimate, and not only because of the way he was installed without even coming close to winning the people’s support. He’s illegitimate because of his lack of preparation, manifest unfitness, overt bigotry, dishonesty, stupidity and willful ignorance.
Every other president approached the job with respect and in good faith, even when falling short. Donald Trump never has and never will respect or even understand the role he’s taken on.
He may have assumed the office, but Donald Trump is not a real president. He’s fake. Illegitimate.
5
You have to be living in a bubble to somehow not see how incredibly successful Republicans have been at the game they are playing, which is called "politics".
Democrats, both commenters and sources of this article, spend far too much time moralizing about the Republicans and far too little time keeping track of the score, by which count they are winning 4 out of 5 critical contests with the Democrats (Senate, Presidency, Judicial and State Governments).
As an opposition party -- they are opposed to nearly everything Democrats favor -- they are playing defense. By slowing the ever-leftward push of Democrats in our government (whether real or perceived), they are succeeding in their only goal.
If Trump was damaging their brand, they would be working on getting rid of him. Instead, he is succeeding in ways that previous GOP presidents never could have imagined.
What is particularly silly is all the talk of autocracy. The Dems under FDR were at least as autocratic, but liberals don't see it that way because they love everything FDR accomplished.
The GOP doesn't have to violate the Constitution to keep winning. They have figured out how to best use the confines of the document to their advantage, and it is driving Democrats completely insane.
2
Given the unconditional support of Republican voters, most of who believe not much of what he says but think he will serve their interests, he may be the last President. He matches the profile of charismatic leaders who have come to power in democracies and then replaced them with dictatorships justified by national emergencies. Trump might just try that and it would mean the end of our republic even if he fails. It would be based upon a schism within our country that would prevent any subsequent liberal democracy from working.
6
@Casual Observer
That is entirely possible, and a fear the Pelosi apparently has. The problem is that Pelosi attributes this state of affairs to Trump alone.
Trump is best looked at as an opportunistic political disease. He didn’t make the patient weak, he just came alone and invaded it after it was weakened by previous corrupt and lazy leadership.
Trump was elected on the margins by disaffected voters, many of whom knew he was unpredictable and destructive, with the hope that he would take a club to what they blame for their decline in living standards.
He has exploited that antipathy toward “elites” as populists have done throughout history. I half expect he will announce that the wives of senators will become his prostitutes by force unless he gets money for his wall.
2
It was nice to read of the academics taking a world view. Seeing developments such as Brexit, ring wing dictator-types leading some European nations, the Yellow Vests reaction in France - as having a connection to Donald Trump winning the presidency here is helpful. At least one theory has it that the globalist, neoliberal order, having failed to raise the boats of so many (and sinking more than a few), with its concomitant increase in income inequality, has caused a backlash - and the settling back down of this backlash - and what will replace it - are yet to be known.
2
Trump is number one in two categories. The Worst President Ever and the Worst Human Being to Ever Hold the Presidency. Kudos on your achievements.
5
You cut me off. I am not insulted by your thinking. But the idea that anyone without experience in government can be a president,is not rational.
2
@joe667
If a person has led a vast enterprise by relying upon good organization and sound managment, that person could learn to be President, but it takes someone unafraid of appearances and determined to do the best job possible.
Interesting analysis...I think we will find that, when it is all said and done, it won't matter which of the four Chump represents because Mother Nature will override everything and hit the "reset" button, thereby eliminating the United States and humans from this earth. The party of climate change deniers (GOP) will effectively drag their feet long enough while in power to ensure humans complete and final demise as a species.
4
I think there has been a fundamental change in social structure wrought by new social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Russia, etc. This has allowed anyone with a big mouth to leapfrog the career politicians who have been vetted by their peers and by the community. It makes dictatorship more plausible. This, in turn, may lead to the need in 40 or 60 years for a New American Constitution. I won't be alive to see it, but its grist for young law and government professors.
4
It is apparent that the Republican party recognizes it is fighting for its' life by using every possible trick in the book (voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, conservative judicial packing, etc.). As it sees the coming of an electoral demographic that will be larger than its' predominantly white base it will need to continue to "fire up" its base. This will be done by using its' power to focus exclusively on those goals of its base (abortion, faux patriotism, gun rights, culture wars, immigration) no matter how much it is opposed by those that are not a part of its base. This is Trump's secret sauce and the reason that Republican that find his behavior abhorrent will support him. They may not get the majority of the citizens to vote for them, but they will get 100% of their base to the polls. That is why it is so important that all voters understand that they can no longer be complacent and skip even one election.
1
this is the plan of action put into place in the early 1960s by a group of wealthy people, mainly Californians and many John Birch Society supporters from Orange County, led by people like auto magnate Holmes Tuttle, who drafted the former 20 Mule Team Borax and GE pitchman Ronald Reagan, heavily pushed by his wife and her extreme right family, to enter politics as the right's friendly face and soothing voice. yes, Trump,has his ego and his personal issues, but he serves the same function today as mouthpiece for the interests of money v the interests of America.
The man is a con-man, nothing more. All the studied comparisons and theories depend on a president being a person with past government experience, with statesman-like qualities, however meager, and with some trace of a moral code.
The occupant of the White House possesses none of those qualities. Thus, all the studied analyses are less than helpful and portend a more worrisome future than is likely. Sure, he is the booster rocket for the Republican toadies, but when the booster rocket flames out, the toadies will scatter.
He's con-man, no more, no less. A momentary flash-in-the-pan. The true problem is the likes of Mitch McConnell and his associated toadies. Democracy works from the ground up - deny Mitch and toadies their re-election(s), educate the kids, educate the voters, pay attention to and vote in local elections, and the seeds of ground-up democracy will have a chance to re-root more strongly and continue. Democracy takes work. And everyone has to be involved.
2
He fits very nicely with his Republican predecessors, Bush and Reagan, providing tax cuts for the 1%, while masquerading as a populist.
1
The times they are indeed a changin.' With so many fronts of attack open these days across the USA, I tell my teenage son it feels like the late 1960's, even some of the themes resonate, like sexual freedom (or not), but others are more settled. We do not have Vietnam as a rallying point, but we have climate change to march for. We might not have civil rights to pursue with such energy, but we will probably really struggle over income inequality and resetting capitalism. We don't know who will take to the streets, whether there will be violence, whether there will be love-ins. If this theory has something to it, regardless of the politics, I counsel him to look out for great music.
1
Here's where he fits in: He's alarmed this civil libertarian progressive enough that if he were replaced by a leftist dictator, I'd probably be OK with it, because we can't pretend any more that Republicans are fit to govern. He's damaged my belief in democracy so much that I'm afraid the 40% of my countrymen who still stand with him are unfit to vote.
14
Trump fits with no other President because he does not care to be President but the big boss with a free hand to do as he wants and no responsibility for any outcomes which do not show him to be the greatest leader of all time. Trump has no core of self confidence nor ability to accept the up's and down's of those who wish to be the best that they can be. He cares about how he looks not how he is. Not even the worst previous President has shown such lack of capacity for the job, not one.
5
Trump is a warning for history, no matter how poorly a leader performs, there may always be somebody a lot worse. Never think that just because a country as well functioning and stable as has been America cannot screw it all up from just listening to a fool.
5
Trump has achieved the impossible as President: making Dubya look good.
6
@Andrew, he even makes Jimmy Carter look good and Nixon half-good.
2
Metamorphosis or metastasis. It is up to the American people to decide now.
5
I am constantly amused by talking heads on cable "news" shows reminding us that Trump's behavior is beyond the pale, and articles like this pretending that Trump's presidency can be contextualized by comparing it to that of other presidents. He is a black swan and his tenure is a black mark on our history. He does not merit contextualization, only execration. Fifty years from now either America won't exist in its current form and his memory will be worshipped, or his name will be used only by other campers at the bonfire to give our children nightmares.
6
Tony the Tiger's awful, but for sheer damage to America across the spectrum of possibilities - military, financial, rights infringement, weakening domestic emergency response - he is not even close to Cheney/Bush.
3
Readers of this essay by Mr. Edsall can amplify its information by accessing his earlier column in the Sept. 6, 2018 edition of the N.Y. Times: "Trump and the Koch Brothers Are Working in Concert" (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/opinion/trump-koch-brothers-alliance.html).
Credit for noting this earlier column belongs to "fotoave / Boston", who posted today's comment that called my attention to the 2018 article.
1
Stepping away from the question of Trump specifically -- oh how I *long* for the day when once again not *everything* is about Trump! -- and to the general theory of the four types of Presidency, it seems like none of these categories are useful to classigy some previous presidencies.
For example, what was Theodore Roosevelt? He was "transformative" IMO in the common sense of the word, but as that term is defined here, he was not -- he did not define a new era like Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, FD, Reagan. Not only is he conspicuously absent from the list given here, but I think we can also say he fails the test of defining a new era that later presidencies extend. Nor is he one of those Presidents himself IMO, despite falling securely right in the middle of what might be the longest single stretch in US history where one party held the presidency.
I felt something important shift early in the 80s. It seemed like 'the church of Reagan'. My flag went up, but my mouth stayed shut. It was powerful. Among the themes, we were all to serve the success of businesses above all else. $ was god; god in govt. Infrastructure maintenance suffered to tax cuts, deficit soared, inequality broadened.
Another huge shift happened with Gingrich. The perpetual contested partisan campaign replaced statemanship and collaboration between elections. GlassSteagall destabilized the wall between savings and investment. Money flowed, right up to the crash.
McConnell will go down in history as the third. Obstruction, extreme partisanship, damage to the courts, and now preventing the removal of an unfit executive.
When this cycle passes, these will be the men we analyze. It won't be a flattering picture.
16
Enough about Trump.
How can he be defeated in the next election?
8
I side with the commenters who say this administration is distinctively different than previous administrations. The Trump people, not just the president, are different in that they are not merely trying to advance an agenda that is counter to what the majority would prefer. They are unscrupulous in the way they are trying to achieve it. This is less like previous presidencies, unless you want to include the presidencies in the decade prior to the civil war. It is more like the situation of the Weimar Republic prior to the Nazi takeover in 1933. A great read is "The Death of Democracy", which shows how individual players who had personal ambitions assisted in the demise of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis. I think our situation is a lot more scary than some of the other writers here admit. A good example of one of our modern players with personal ambition, John Bolton. Of course Trump himself is the prime example- he probably would not want to be reelected except for the fact that it could 1. keep him out of jail 2. keep him in the spotlight which he so cherishes.
9
43 other presidents...how he fits in with the other 43 men who were president. Grover Cleveland is oddly counted twice because he had two non-consecutive terms. Hence, there were 44 other presidencies, but only 43 other presidents. Most people are unaware of this, but the editors at the New York Times should probably have caught this.
Now to the question: hopefully this illegitimate presidency will be thought of as a dark period in our history, an aberration that because of how traumatic its lessons were, will never be repeated again.
5
Trump is a disjunctive president? Like Hoover and Carter?
Well, I disagree.
A pretty good measure of how well a president carried out his duties, is how large the constructions are, after he leaves office.
It is pretty easy to get an existing street or city park name change. I have no idea how many Barack Obama avenues, city parks or elementary schools there are, certainly some.
On the other hand, one way to get instant international attention, is have a US Navy carrier named for an ex-president. CVN 81 could use a name.
Aahh, to be on the pier when the skipper is gonged aboard. BONG, BONG....BONG, BONG, "Donald Trump, arriving".
@Mike
A US Navy Carrier named after Mr. Heel Spurs? Really?
How does USS Heel Spurs sound to you?
He is unfit for the office he holds. Let’s not name any thing after him. In fact, his name is presently being removed from many of the “Trump” named buildings.
5
Trump is a cold sore on the face of the presidency. He is painful and unsightly, and indicates a deeper infection.
7
The Republican Party has been a false front for at least 50 years. What they laughingly called policies they ignored at their convenience. That has all been swept away and all that is now left is the Village Idiot, an egomaniacal little boy. The only thing keeping the party alive is an existential fear of the future. A future which cannot be stopped. We may need to wait for a couple of generations to die off, including myself, or an equally existential crisis, economic depression, war, or environmental collapse, to break the present pattern. But the pattern will break. What comes out the other side is anyone’s guess.
6
Trump doesn't fit anyplace , guy is practically and eye sore and mental sore.
3
For the continuation of the country as a democratic republic, this Fake President a/k/a Billion Dollar (plus) Loser must be removed from office, either through impeachment or decisive electoral defeat. Then he justly belongs in a jail cell where he can spend the rest of his days penning his delusional, comic book “memoir”. Wake up America, our homegrown fascist dictator is clawing at the gate in full, unvarnished sight!
5
Trump’s campaign staff, including Junior and Jarred, met with Russians attempting to aid their campaign ...one hundred and forty times!
Russia gave the NRA fifty million dollars, why? Where did that money go?
Trump’s chumminess with Putin, is despicable considering that Putin attacked our democracy!
All these facts, are treason in my book. Trump will go down in history as a chronic liar, crook, cheat, tax evader, serial adulterer, misogynist and ......traitor!
6
now what are we supposed to think about his election as President, sketchy as it was? people voted for him and still support him. Trump lost the popular vote by about 3 million but claimed illogically that he would have been 3 million ahead if illegal aliens had not voted for Hillary (!) and/or it was the fault of California by the same margin. how do we approach the notion that he is the President of old, white, evangelical,uneducated rubes in flyover states of the Old South and the Rust Belt?
1
Trump is a monster created by Bill Clinton when he sold out the American Union Worker, the backbone of the Democratic party. In the D-primary debates before the 1992 election, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said (in the NH debate on WMUR) in essence, 'I will not sell out American workers and destroy our manufacturing base by allowing unfettered manufacturing in China with no human rights or environmental standards, reinventing slavery.' But Clinton was lying. He signed trade legislation that no other Democratic president would have signed. There was nothing wrong with NAFTA. Keeping jobs in our hemisphere and on our continent is a good idea and if US manufacturing had simply gone south of the border the money from wages and profits would have stayed in 'America' and would have eased our current immigration problems drastically. But the 'giant sucking sound' Perot warned of came from China, GATT and the WTO.
Now the fascist fake-populist Trump is using an issue that should belong to the Democrats to gain power. But Trump has no interest in helping the US worker or to address the tragedy of Chinese manufacturing with no human rights standards or environmental standards. His solution is simply to try to get a piece of the action from the profits of slave labor. He will use the money, not to bolster US manufacturing, but to fight religious wars in the Middle East.
5
Trump taps into tribalism, he feeds the "our team is better than your team" high-school" mentality doing a good job of dividing us. On top of that he has no shame; he flagrantly lies, he is foul-mouthed, his rhetoric is inflammatory - people are enthralled. He sucks the oxygen out of the news and it mutates into some wierd reality/entertainment/car accident. No other president in our history had Twitter, Facebook, Fox and the Russian hackers. Our democracy is threatened and history only offers vague sketches for us to figure out how stave off the dangerous trajectory we are in.
2
Luddite narrative babble...
We’re heading in the same direction as the Brits...
A nation that ascended to global power on the basis of agriculture, trade, production, and technology...
Whose solicitors and barristers and parliamentarians would have us believe it was actually done on the basis of our moral righteousness, ensconced in – both secular and spiritual, and written and oral – codes...
The only useful advice from back then, when being over-run by someone even more aggressive and focused – chin up and head down...
Dark – and dawn’ll be here right after they fix the signal system in the NYC subways...
Our narrators overvalue our – uniquified – narrative...
Both those who actually believe it, and those who don’t...
The converse of: “Talk softly and carry a big stick”
When you’ve misplaced the darn thing, and don’t have the right pair of glasses to look for it:
“Yell loudly about your big stick”
It isn’t that AI’s making itself smarter than humans...
It’s that we’re making ourselves dumber than computers – though overt policy...
Education, immigration, trade, health care, pharma and airplane regulatory approval...
You name it – we’re dumbing it down...
Money fixes everything – and we can print all we want...
So simply figure out how many $T the Chinese have filched – and print that amount and be done with things...
Perhaps twice that amount – just to be safe...
We could even outsource the job to Kim...
What – us worry???
2
As with disputed records in professional sports: 45__Donald J. Trump*
1
He belongs in Moscow.
2
After the headline this should be a two word article..The Worst
3
Trump is a CROOK. And a LIAR. And devoid of intellectual curiosity. No academic meanderings needed, my friends. WORST PRESIDENT EVER.
4
Normalizing 45 by comparing him to past presidents is useful if only to show how abnormal he is.
Trump's small "island of genius" is his utter and complete shamelessness, McConnell's is in recognizing this.
5
In order to get paid as a Harvard professor, it is necessary to come up with theories of politics which are about as useful as counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Trump won because:
- Hillary was an awful candidate
- many in fly-over country were tired of the overreaching political correctness of the Obama/Hilary crowd.
Not everyone believes that climate change is the #1 priority of the universe, even if they believe climate change is real and deserves attention.
Not everyone believes that trans-gender bathroom issues deserve the prominence bestowed on it by Obama, even if they think transgender issues are important.
And many Democrats are starting to articulate this position, as they get used to the idea that Joe Biden may be the best shot as beating Trump, even if he is not the progressive dreamboat that Kamala or Pete or Beto might be.
(see Michelle Goldberg's column yesterday)
2
It's been clear to me for at least a decade that the US constitutional system works fine when the two parties are tussling between the 45 and 55 yard lines of the playing field. At this centerpoint, they largely agree on the problems but disagree how to solve them. But the country can move forward no matter who is in office.
Now, the Democrats are at about the 43 yard line and the GOP at the 10 yard line. The constitutional system cannot paper over that gap, as we are seeing now. There is no hope until the GOP is spent and comes back to the 45 yard line. It could be several decades before that happens.
2
I understood the side to side swings of the values of our elected presidents and accepted the presidencies of those with whom I had disagreements because, despite our differences, I could see that they cared about their country, their role, and the office that they held even when their performance didn't live up to the expectations of the office. Opposition was never cast as "trying to undo an election". It was a matter of difference and fighting for change.
But Donald J. Trump is entirely different from all the presidents I have seen from JFK to Obama, including Richard Nixon. He is the first president who has purposefully set out to defeat the United States of America from within and without, cynically wrapping his efforts in the flag to demonstrate to others the how patriotic it is stand against our constitution and the rule of law.
382
@Marie
He's the first President that was elected by a Foreign regime, Russia. How Pompeo can stand with Putin and talk about building better relationships, when DeSantis just told Florida that Russia hacked two of Florida's voter data bases???? Why is Pompeo trying to normalize a relationship with an enemy?
54
@Marie
I am in TOTAL AGREEMENT with you (!!!) It's comforting to know that this American is not alone in having this sentiment - as well as concern for the future of the country.
23
@Marie
It is not just trump. It is the entire republican party fueled by wealthy donors whose main goal is to protect their wealth and ensure no government oversight or interference with business.
52
The comments on this apparently biased text powerfully reveal how out of touch, arrogant, and hateful, yes hateful, are the Trump's opponents on the pages of the prime media-fighter of the battle to overthrow the legally voted president, NYT; yes, the shameful NYT.
Blissfully ignoring the fact that half of this country voted for Trump, voted for the wall, voted for 'fairer trade', voted for all the things Trump is trying to achieve (one way or the other), the esteemed commentators pile insult after insult, totally ignorant of the fact that there may be people among them not thinking like them and who see no big problem, or no problem at all, with Trump.
I did not vote for him but I will (if he does not do anything unbearably stupid) since I cannot stand the liberal and intellectual hypocrisy, condescension and utter lack of any, even remotely, balanced attitude on Trump's presidency. It is not the upper crust of the society that decides our presidents but the common people so I hope they will not be swayed by this unheard-of wave of hatred and unfairness.
5
@ss - Half of the country did NOT vote for Trump and his hateful ‘policies.’ 73 million votes were cast for Clinton and the two main ‘independents.’ 62 million were cast for Trump - although we also now know the legitimacy of the vote count may have been tainted by Russian interference - and we know on whose behalf Russia interceded. I don’t call losing by 11 million votes a mandate. A reasonable President would govern to the center on those facts; Trump could care less about the 73 million folks who would have elected a pastrami sandwich rather than the repugnant Trump.
There have been three Presidents elected with a minority of the popular vote since the nation was founded. Two of them have been Republican candidates elected since the year 2000.
Hint: we need to reform the system, because it seems to be broken.
2
Please count again. There have been 44 Presidents, and 45 presidencies!
3
I just hope Trump isn't the initiator of a new type - 'coherent angry & aggressive nativism'. My hope in the face of this possibility is that because Trump is so inchoate and disgusting nothing will really survive him - but there does need to be someone transformative to succeed him.
Biden is right - this is an existential inflection point.
Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of our country.
2
Grading Trump currently is an unfinished business. All the facts are not in. He is in danger of impeachment. Let us wait and see.
2
The moment of truth will come next year if Trump loses the electoral vote. Will he try to nullify the election and try to stay on in power? If he does and succeeds, he will no longer be president, but dictator.
1
Less lethal than a nuclear bomb, the Russians - Putin - struck us with a Trump Bomb. And they will continue to try to sow chaos here and abroad.
3
Behind all the Trump dust storm (...and Twitter storm...) it hasn't escaped my notice that the religious right faction of American politics has gained a foothold: we have the impending war with Iran, with its overtones of The Crusades; our ambassador to Israel announcing that God is on Israel's side; we have the impending overturn of Roe v. Wade; and various regulatory miscellany favorable to religious preference through the Department of Education.
And I think to myself: Trump - from what I know of his very public past - couldn't possibly care less about this kind of stuff. He has only concerned himself with himself.
So we have a leadership vacuum, and what has filled in its place is a "transformative" vice president...
3
As far as American presidents are concerned, Trump is unique, but not in a positive way. He fits into no neat category of American presidents. He is historically unique. He is the first president to openly praise authoritarian rule and rulers. He subtly prods his supporters to buy into the concept of a lifetime presidency. In this respect, Trump is like so many run-of-the-mill autocrats currently occupying seats of power in the world today. The kindest assessment of Trump's leadership style would be to compare him to Italy's Berlusconi. You will never hear the words 'common good' or 'democratic institutions'. His is the language of power and winners and losers. The Republican Party is complicit in Trump's authoritarian style because they dream of the Holy Grail...one party rule with someone like Trump orchestrating the whole show. It would be like P.T. Barnum's "The Greatest Show on Earth" in their minds....... except that it wouldn't be all that Great. It would be more like the era of the blind leading the blind.
3
We need to make the house of representatives representative. Standardize the house to Wyoming (1 rep per 600k citizens), bump the current house out to 550 people. Better yet, go back to the constitution, 1 rep per 30k citizens, bump the house out to 11000 reps. They could still meet in DC at the basketball/hockey arena. The house reflects one person one vote (instead of one cow one vote), and Electoral College problems solved.
1
My hope is that sometime in the future people will say, "How did someone like that become president?" Then they'd work to ensure it never happens again. That time is now and those people are us.
5
@Mike B "How did someone like that become president?"
If all vestiges of Obama are erased, it might be hard to explain why.
Mr. Balkin hopes the country will survive in 5 to 10 years, righting itself as the Reagan era dies off. I worry instead that the country will slip into an abyssal period of muddled leadership without any vision or direction in a long post-Trump era. Given the scrambling occurring within the Democratic Party today, it is likely that we will wallow under a leadership that comes from that cat fight but it will not be visionary and it will not lead more than a bare majority of citizens. Certainly Mr. Trump will be defeated but it will be due to dislike and abhorrence of his person and politics not due to a mass movement toward a positive, strong progressive candidate become leader. In the wake of that disintegration of true leadership, we will find ourselves rummaging about among the many conflicting progressive ideas without any luck of finding such a leader. It's a dark view of the near future and I really hope we can avoid it.
2
There is a wildcard here, and that is global warming coupled with increasing population worldwide, increasing degradation of the environment, and species depletion . If we do not do something soon, we will experience a catastrophe that will make a mockery of the Republicans and all their plans. The Democrats are definitely on the right side with regard to this issue, but if we, the America people, do not choose to act and soon, and we continue along our merry way, politics will be irrelevant.
4
@Data researcher
The wildcard is global warming copled with increasing population worldwide? What would happen if we only had the increasing population? Wouldn't we be in exactly the same boat? Isn't out of control population growth by itself enough to bring us to our doom? If so, why is all the chatter about global warming?
1
I was born in the mid-50s and even as a child (in Canada) knew that the cold war was between good guys and bad guys. Later I learned about the 'moral high-ground'.
Now, I see little difference between Russia and the US and, even sadder, between Iran and Israel. Nations seem to be fundamentally self-interested and none can claim the high-ground, or the mantle of the 'city on the hill'.
We have become a world of fiefdoms and castles, with serfs toiling, and dieing, for masters.
3
Stripped down to the core, the real function of good government is to best enable the "pursuit of happiness" for its citizens. As the head of the government, it is the presidents job is to insure the highest hunter success rates for those pursuers. The increasing trend of wealth polarization in our society has created a growing base of hopeless people struggling to survive in a land with no path toward a happier life. On that and that alone should we judge our presidents.
2
The popular notion amongst Republicans that Trump has a winning strategy, one that they feel necessary to follow, is difficult to reconcile considering voter suppression, gerrymandering and recently Russian election interference. the idea that his policies and process are electable just don't make much sense when considering how he got "elected". I wonder how these factors help determine which category this presidency fits into?
2
I'm guessing that Trump is obsessively drawn to the Washington Monument and not because it was dedicated to the memory of a president far greater than him.
2
Where does Trump fit in with the other 44?
He doesn't. He's illegitimate. The Russians attacked our election system in a sweeping and systemic way to place Trump in power to weaken the Unites States, cause confusion and chaos; split the country in two.
They succeeded and he's illegitimate.
And that goes for the supreme court. Two members need asterisks near their names.
1345
Quite so. The Mueller Report makes explicit that Trump was afraid his presidency would be considered illegitimate if the public knew that Russian interference and manipulation of the electorate tilted the election in his favor. His efforts to impede the Mueller investigation, and now block Congressional oversight, derive from this fear. Evidence that his campaign was complicit in the Russian interference compounds his fear. It is not difficult to conclude from the Report that his presidency is indeed illegitimate and that he is guilty of obstruction in attempting to conceal and misrepresent its findings. Congress must have the Report to respond to the current crisis, but also to preclude future electoral abuses.
255
@Clayton Marlow
Truly does not fit!
Just like Pluto was demoted from being a planet, some similar downgrading should take effect in Trumps's case.
Complete removal from the history books and no Secret Service protection once in disgrace.
This is more than just revenge. It is to clarify to the world that elections in this country cannot be influenced by foreign countries. It is also to clarify to this country that the Constitution needs to be amended in such a way that roguish behavior shall be aborted from the start.
68
@Clayton Marlow It's true. The Russians placed a mole in the DNC polling apparatus, and the mole produced fake that told Hillary Clinton not to waste her time campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (west of Philadelphia), while at the same time, telling her she had a chance in Texas and Georgia.
23
These comparisons to other Presidents, in academic terms, surely miss the essence of Trump. When he mocked that disabled journalist it was clear that Trump was a sociopath. No other sort of individual beyond elementary school age is capable of such an act. We have never before had a transparent sociopath in the White House. Trump’s other remarkable “attributes”: refractory liar, bigot, sex offender, can be seen as effects of his fundamental illness. More to the point his authoritarianism and total disregard for the law and for our system of government are completely compatible as well.
This is an untreatable condition, and one which represents a daily threat to every American, both in terms of our democracy and our very existence, so long as he controls the nuclear codes.
4
Last by a long shot, except in establishing precedent that a President can break the law with impunity, lie with abandon, pervert government with relish and reduce our country to a laughing stock of corruption among nations and bring the US as close to a dictatorial banana republic as ever seen.
Other than that he's OK I guess.
1
What?
There have been 44 presidents, and now only one Emperor.
“We can’t be an EMPIRE”
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
2
I'm always taken aback when academics attempt to parse Trump and the Trump presidency. There is no there there. The man stands for nothing besides unfettered greed. He has no principles, no morals, no thoughtful political beliefs, and no ambitions for our country. He tweets nonsense, cannot articulate a single policy, and wouldn't know the Constitution if he bumped into it on Fifth Avenue. Why is anything resembling a sentient thought attributed to him? He reminds me of Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. Didn't this frightening apparition crumble and disappear once a young woman called him out? Freddy, you are nothing. I feel the same about Trump. We maintain his power by believing he is anything but what he truly is: a national nightmare. Enough.
3
Who knew how thin was the ice before we found ourselves lured out over an abyss?
This article and its contentions needs to be wrestled with by all Americans. Too much time has been spent on the Trump Phenomenon and his ascendance to POTUS while precious little time has been devoted to making stark and concrete the damage Trump has done and plans for our democracy. There is no need to treat him as a quirky, norm-breaking president. He is not. It is far worse. He is a despot's apprentice. He is an insurgent elected with help from a mentor despot. He is enabled by the likes of Mitch and Lindsey. He represents the interests of a plutocratic minority, inflicting daily harm on the majority, including his sycophantic supporters. And yet his MAGA-head fanatically hurl themselves on to the pire of our democracy. Who could wake them from their zombified state? Mueller? Bernie? Shep and Mr. Wallace?
1
McConnell, Graham, Jordan, Miller, Grassley and Barr have made it possible for the Trump presidency and the destruction of our democracy. He wasn't smart enough to do it alone.
5
The problem with labeling him based on his out of the ordinary actions is the assumption that he is simply being different in an iconoclastic way.
He's being different because he has no idea how to do things, and he's listening to people based on mutual egos, not effectiveness. He's dismissing people based on personal choice, not competency.
When the history books write the facts of his presidency - a stilted collection of half-formed efforts, punctuated by porn models, indicted associates, a foreign-compromised election, a record number of indictments, personnel departures, congressional investigations and lawsuits, it will be bereft of actual accomplishments aside from bluster and compromised health, safety, and welfare of the citizenry.
He is our Nero.
1
Setting the stage for an dictator-wanna-be like Trump, Paul Ryan (tax-cuts for the rich), Ted Cruz (anti-science agenda), Koch brothers ($$), etc. etc. have been working hard to undermine democracy by gerrymandering, voter restriction, blocking judges, etc.... We are now reaping decades of their efforts.
3
Trump is a symptom, not a cause.
Radical inequality, xenophobia, and racism are widespread in the USA!.
We are reaping the harvest, after 3 decades of abandonment of civics and attacks on liberal values and democratic institutions - including the press and the courts - coupled by the betrayals, and failures of the liberal establishment (see Chris Hedges' book The Death of Liberalism.)
2
Social scientists can be so wedded to their theoretical constructs that they ignore what is happening right in front of them. Trump is sui genesis, at least in recent times, and our times are different than the earlier periods these political scientists are evoking. We've never before been on the brink of demographic change that spells the end of the white majority. We've never before been in the backlash against a black presidency. We've never had as dishonest, grasping, willfully ignorant and bigoted authoritarian president as we have now. I could go on. Trump is different from all of his predecessors. He's worse. And so are the craven Republican pols and phony religious leaders who enable him. Instead of trying to fit this monster into a comforting hypothesis, political scientists might better put their energy into explaining how we can get rid of him and put the country back on track.
1
He doesn't fit in. He shouldn't even be there. He'll go down as, to use one of his favorite descriptions, a fake president.
The death rattle of rule by old, white men. They won't go without a fight, but go they will. they won't go without a fight – witness what we see now. The only question is how much destruction they will wreak on the way out. Better get out the vote in 2020.
1
I see the logic of this argument, but with George W.'s foolish wars and the financial collapse that came with them, he could well be the disjunctive president that marks the end of things, and Trump is instead the precursor of a new, autocratic presidency. I don't like it, but there it is...
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This is a fascinating read. Thank you. I sure hope Trump's presidency turns out to be "disjunctive." I already know that it's junk.
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I thought the headline was a bad joke because Trump is a misfit among the other 44 presidents - plain and simple.
If anything, his actions, demeanor and decisions continues to illustrate his inabilities and incompetence as a president. He is the kind of person and world leader NO country should have in charge.
1
Is there a position lower than worst?
1
The key words here are "illness" and "minority," as well as "authoritarian." Ultimately, Trump is someone with ample features of a mental disorder but nevertheless identified as the ideal side-show barker for an authoritarian power base. Fueling this development is the non-voting pattern within the population of eligible voters. For too long, "winners" of elections have been essentially by default, of which Republicans have taken almost diabolical advantage. (It is further exposed by aggravating it through voter suppression.) And these voters are the diametrical opposite of the majority of eligible voters--a minority but almost fanatic about going to the polls. The Republicans know they have nearly a guaranteed voting base diverted by "cultural" issues--hence the dedication to that base. Trump is the ultimate winner-by-default through a fanatic minority of voters manipulated by a power base formed from the ever-increasing gap in wealth distribution. If this Twilight Zone episode of our history mirrors anything, it is a kind of plutocratic type of Nazis or Bolsheviks who ruthlessly grab power when they see it within their grasp. More evidence of this "hidden" default winner phenomenon has come from it's recent opposite and perhaps a hopeful turnaround--the record turn-out of voters in 2018, resulting in a refreshing shift in the House. Here is a true cycle of history, in what a patriotic majority of citizens in this country can still do to save and preserve it.
If you don’t think we could lose our constitutional republic, you are not paying attention.
2
You do not have to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure out the fate of America if Trump and his 'regime' are left unchecked by the Congress and the Senate. Democracy will be but a distant measure if Trump and the Republicans get their way. Hello to oligarchical rule. Emperor-for-lfe Trump will ask that all bow-down to him and his family. Just like Putin.
2
That Republicans represent the past is supported by the difficulty they have letting facts determine their views and actions e.g the facts of evolution, climate change, the President is a liar, Fox “News” isn’t News, the past is past. This along with opposing values that are the foundation of a democracy e.g. equality for all, truth overrules power, voting is a right, reality is real!
How does Trump fit in with the other 44 Presidents? He doesn't. I have yet to find one remdeeming quality.
He "fits in" as the very worst. A disgrace to our country and to the politicians and electorate that support him. Sad times.
Trump is the mouthpiece and Mitch McConnell is the distortion of our Senate for power. Together they are our Joseph McCarthy moment.
We will either gut our beliefs in actual democracy or remove them from our particular American democracy. There is not only a cancer on the presidency, it has metastasized to our Congress.
3
Best description in the article, a "fool" president. The article is much to intellectual. He will be reviled in history.
Hmmm. Trump ranks at the bottom, down there with Harding and Franklin.
Donald Trump is easily one of the worst things that's ever happened to this country, full stop. The pathological lying, the self-dealing, the ineptitude... And so it's likely he's the worst, most unfit person to ever occupy the office of President of the United States. Americans have to rise up and vote in numbers not previously seen and make him an aberration.
He does not belong and the thought of his portrait hanging in the White House alongside past presidents is ridiculous.
1
There's a lot of blah blah blah going on right now - while the country is taken over by people who put power over country, wishing to retain power at all costs to our republic. See: Mitch McConnell.
Trump is a cancer on our country, not any kind of positive destructive force. It takes no skill or leadership at all to destroy. It's fun to destroy some things (like a house being rehabbed), but it sure is a whole different story about re-building. One needs skill for that.
The fact that Republicans are still supporting this unfit, mentally ill man makes me nauseous. On a daily basis I feel sick. I fear for my country and that fear sits at the pit of my stomach and in the middle of my heart.
Trump is one man. The Republicans are the very, very big problem.
3
A lot of things don't get fixed until they break very badly... especially when the vandals sabotage the tools.
1
The worst ever by a wide margin. Once again Trump is number one. On the all time Worst President List.
1
Don't get me wrong. I know that Trump represents a threat to democracy, but we've been on a path to destruction for decades.
I know that deep down Trump cares about the country. I don't think he cares much about democracy, so it is up to us to demand that democracy prevails. It will. But this is a battle, not against Trump but against our darker side. All of us. Our darker side is showing to the world.
When CNN's Anderson Cooper decide's it is 'news' to pose the question, "If Trump loses, will he concede or mount a challenge" Anderson has gone off the edge of sanity. This is not a reasonable thing for a reasonable news person to ask on TV.
Right after the election of Trump people were starting to pose the question of whether he was going to be the next Hitler, or the new fascist leader.
I've got some news for these people: fascism has been mounting for decades, and fascism doesn't need a leader. It only requires our dark side to prevail.
So stop! Everyone stop with the constant vilification of your enemy. The enemy is within us all. We all have to fight it and get this country back to a creation of our brighter side.
2
Just as I knew, almost alone among my liberal Democratic friends and colleagues, that Trump would be elected, I am certain he will be reelected next year with essentially the same Electoral College majority he received in 2016. (That happened with the reelections of Clinton and Obama and somewhat with G.W. Bush.) The Democrats may or may not hang on to control of the House, but the malapportioned Senate is out of their reach for the foreseeable future, and thus federal judges and especially the Supreme Court will continue to be far-right Federalist Society types who will overturn Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, voting rights, women's other rights, LGBT rights (including overturning Obergefell), etc.
It's possible that the next financial crisis/recession or another misbegotten war (Iran?) will make Trump's second term as big a disaster as the second terms of Nixon or Bush and that Democrats can come back in 2022 and manage a blue wave that will recapture the Senate, but who knows?
Until the baby boomers and older Gen Xers die off, the U.S. is likely not to be the country we knew before and more like Gilead in "The Handmaid's Tale." Eventually, there'll be a bloody civil war, a revolution, a coup -- and even when those who oppose Trumpism take over, democracy will be dead.
Some of us are glad to have, like those who escaped Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Mao's China, to have gotten out when the getting was good.
2
@Richard Grayson I hope you are not correct. I fear you are. I have to stay and fight the good fight, but if you are proven right, I'll be joining you in 2020.
How does a certifiable loser who sits around watching his state-run television network and proclaiming his opinion and lies on Twitter all day get to be called president, let along compared with hardworking, thoughtful, prepared, sane human beings who occupied the Oval Office and did some good for the country?
Jovial Reagan got to be called president as his wife hid the man’s Alzheimer disease and consulted her astrologist for her next moves. Bush 2, a heck of a nice guy, got to be president on the basis of being the son of Bush I, who would surely surround the younger with wise counselors and iron out the kinks. Not really.
Republicans put puppets in office and jerk us around. Six out of seven elections, they stiffed the majority of Americans. This Trump puppet lets himself get jerked far right. But he has a nasty streak. And he can go off at any moment on his own. For the reasons mentioned in this piece – stacked Senate, Electoral College, rigging and mad hatters sticking it to liberals, they have nothing to worry about. Republicans may be on their way out but they’ll drag all of us with them.
206
One of two things is coming to an end. Either Trumpism will be roundly defeated at the polls and Trumps political and ultimately his physical life will end and with it
trumpism will collapse. The Trump coalition is fragile and with him out of power and ultimately dead it will be gone. It is mostly old and his supporters will die. Neither Pence, Nunes, Jordan, or McConnell can be Trump. Or Trump will win reelection and the illegitimacy of the minoritarian government he has installed will cause the government of the United States to collapse. If he wins, it will be slow descent to another revolution as the illegitimate S Ct, Senate and President attempt to rule a majority who won't take their oppression any longer. Trumpism's victory in 2020 will result in chaos that will make 1968 look like a PTA meeting.
5
Disclosure: This is about as black and white of a comment in which I could write despite my better instincts, however I believe it is true.
There are only two types of Republicans left. The small group of cynical, powerful, types that fear their fortunes are at risk due to impending social change or just pure greed, and therefore exploit the ignorance of the second group, the larger, ignorant (mostly willfully) base. Any Republican that either had a shred of critical thinking ability or a conscience, has left the party a long time ago. The Tea Party takeover of 2010 made that crystal clear.
Trump was the perfect leader for a party that left such a vacuum to fill. Anyone that thinks the GOP will return to some "normal" state once Trump is gone has not been paying attention. It cannot.
I am not as cynical as Edsall is in this op-ed however. I do think that it just took someone like Trump (the epitome of all that is ignorant) to break the GOP. While larger right-wing populist movements exist, none of them are well ran, including our own. These fact-less, anti-intellectual movements simply don't have the leadership abilities to amount to anything. The GOP will crumble under its own mindless weight. The 2018 midterms were a sample of that to come.
1
The American democracy is less than two and one half centuries old. It is not a given that it will prevail against an authoritarian president and his enablers who have been busy suppressing votes, stacking the courts and undermining the foundations of our democracy. Taking a longer view of history can be sobering: the Roman Res Publica was weakened by an increasingly corrupt Senate and finally replaced by the rule of despots (emperors) until finally the imperium was overrun by outside armies and destroyed. If history has any lessons, Americans should be vigilant and stop Trump and his enablers before they destroy our democracy.
3
The Fight Over How Trump Fits in With the Other 44 Presidents:
He doesn't.
He has more in common with King George III.
Rather than representing the end of the Reaganite view of government, Trump's presidency may represent its triumphant ascent to the summit. Reagan, in utter derogation of the ideal expressed in the Declaration Of Independence that governments are instituted among men to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, told us that Government IS the problem.
Sadly, Edsall and fellow liberals and the left-wing media get their knickers in a twist about whether Trump is autocratic. Even Nancy Pelosi engages in idle and idiotic speculation that Trump may not leave office voluntarily if he loses. Well, who's going to support him if he takes that approach?
Missing in all this is the recognition that the Democrats and liberal press have missed the bigger story. Trump has caused enormous policy shifts in laws and regulations that affect the fabric of life, whether on clean air, clean water, energy production, climate response, financial and consumer regulation, product safety, and general government oversight of corporate chicanery.
Add to that the wholesale shift in the judiciary and the way in which our laws are interpreted and enforced tilts the nation toward the Reaganite view and creates a corporate free-for-all.
If Trump is reelected, we will see a right-wing government exerting power over the lives of 50% or more of a deeply disaffected population.
What is frightening to me -- truly frightening, really -- is that the regime that is losing its legitimacy with the people is taking actions both in the short and long term to enshrine its ultra-conservative hold over us. The installation of many hyper-conservative YOUNG judges will poison the well for generations. And if Trump is able to stack the court with one or two more conservative YOUNG justices, the job will be done. The legacy will be cemented regardless of the mood or direction of the country.
1
We are in big, big trouble as anation and as a society. One need look no further than Alabama this week to see the widening divide in its starkest terms.
Trump is a nefarious and extremely dangerous symptom of the still much more dangerous disease that is the Republican Party.
When the rule of law has broken down and our leaders refuse to take whatever steps are necessary to maintain it, what is our recourse as a people?
The Democrats in Congress ering their hands and whine about what Trump is getting away with with the complicity of his party, but nothing more.
Linsey Graham has taken lawlessness and disrespect for norms to a whole new level. Imagine: coaching a Senate witness to defy a lawful subpoeana and then, if he appears, to “Take the Fifth.” And Graham is Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee!
We are in the greatest peril since at least the 1930’s, and perhaps since the 1850’s.
A break-up of America is happening before our eyes, and where are the leaders we need to stop it?
Civil War in one form or another is moving towards us. We can see the storm clouds on the horizon but no one seems to know what to do. So we keep looking away and pretending that a simple solution is out there ready to ward off the danger if we just click our heels sharply enough.
As with the conflict of 1860-65, this is all of our own doing. America lost its way then and paid a terrible price for it. We have lost our way again and will also pay dearly for our failure.
3
So Trump is a disjunctive president and after a fundamental regime change, life will be rosy again. That is a most hopeful outlook, but my worry is that the result of this disjunctive presidency is a disastrous war of the sort the US has tried to avoid since Harry Truman's presidency. It's one in which the rosy glow is the light of the setting sun shining through fallout.
1
"Conservatives" -- political actors who want to conserve traditions and institutions -- deserve an extra dose of scorn for their standing by the most destructively radical office-holder in US history.
The GOP is no longer a "conservative" party.
I write as an ex-GOP grassroots activist. Voted straight ticket Democrat in 16 and 18. On track to do so again in 20 because my conservative disposition demands it.
#Resist.
3
Anyone thinking that the Trump administration is some great, portentous departure from a living historical memory is dead wrong. The destructive forces in the Johnson/Nixon era & the overwhelmingly successful reaction in stifling the knee jerk foreign policy accompanied by domestic chaos of that time make the present look like a cake walk.
Unfortunately there will be no great transformative governmental policy come out of the next election cycle. As much as I'd like to see Elizabeth Warren's well thought out prescription for our capitalistic system, only Joe Biden's calming & conciliatory approach stands a chance of dislodging Trump. He will coast to victory.
1
Donald Trump remains in power not because he is powerful but because a number of so-called Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, have sold their souls to maintain an allegiance with this autocrat in chief, essentially because Trump has Fox News in his pocket. That means that the conservative media has the power to tear these Senators apart like a loaf of bread if they dare speak out against Donald Trump.
The problem is clearly not only Donald Trump himself but the machinery that has held many of these Republican lawmakers hostage. And because of this we have without a doubt witnessed the end of the Republican Party and as we have known it .
If further evidence is found to support Donald Trump’s criminality, in the end these same Republicans will have to make a very hard decision .
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He doesn’t fit in. He’s the least qualified of any of the Presidents to hold the office. In all fairness, can we wait until his first term is over before we make a judgement?
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It would be nice to view Donald Trump and his presidency as the final act of Republican dominance that began in 1980. In the period from 1980 til now, Democrats controlled congress and the White House for a total of four years--two with Clinton, two with Obama--and accomplished some good work for the country. Republicans controlled the rest and produced nothing other than three large tax cuts for the rich and a trillion dollar structural deficit. I am a psychologist, not a political scientist, so see things from a behavioral perspective. What I see is a Republican base constructed over decades from the low end of American voters--anti Communists, racists, religious extremists, misogynists, etc.--who will vote Republican til they die. Trump is the first Republican leader as sorry as the base he represents. Earlier Republicans simply used the votes of their base to represent the interests of the rich, but ignored the craziness.
4
@rawebb1 Somehow I submitted my comment before I was done. The NYTs needs to provide an edit function. What I wanted to add was that whether Trump is the end of an era or the start of a new one depends on how large the base is and how long they live. Republicans are still feeding the base; that's what all the current anti abortion stuff is about.
2
Trump campaigned on "burning Washington down" to his supporters that were unhappy with the current workings of politics and our system of government, those that felt left out.
The problem is that neither Trump or his supporters had anything to replace our current Constitutional based Republic or institution of Democracy, except Authoritarianism.
Just wrapping your self in the flag and waving a Bible around makes you neither a patriot or a Christian without a basic core of principles. Trump is nothing more than a career con man and fraud with no principles or integrity. The man has never read a history book or the Constitution in his life and has no intention to start when he can just wing his way through.
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The "the last gasp of the vanishing Reagan era that began in 1980" can't come soon enough.
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Trump doesn’t fit in at all, because is not a legitimately elected president.
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The litmus test, yea/nay, of a presidency is the office holder's "vision, vow, and capacity to plan and provide for the lawful well being of the nation and its people".
Trump has brought to the presidency, and offers in 2020, no such vision or vow. Instead he openly runs an administration of ruthless venality, under a personality first inducing and then cheering political vomit from his followers.
It insults the office of President to pretend there are useful-to-analyze commonalities in character or degree between this evil and weak-minded man and the least of his predecessors. The useful dichotomy for study is rather the mindsets of his enablers versus his detractors. Those will are and will outcome determinative for the ages.
Donald Trump cannot be compared to any other president. He wants to rule the United States of America like a king. He wants to be answerable to no one. This is how he runs the Trump Organization. This is how he intends to run America. In particular, I see no similarities between him and Jimmy Carter. How anyone can put them in a same boat I cannot understand.
1
The editors seem to be omitting some very legitimate points of view that could be getting posted here. I don't know why. But Trump is proposing to engage in war with Iran that could draw in Russia and China for a jolly WW3, and the rosy glow after Trump's dysfunctional presidency is likely to be the setting sun shining through nuclear fallout.
2
Alabama wants to ban all abortions. Capitalism is now a function of global forces - manufacturing jobs are never returning to the U.S. Facebook and other tech giants can’t be controlled. Privacy is an anachronism. Climate change and population growth is forcing people out of their countries into other ones. Our president has almost unlimited power; our checks and balances no longer work. The Democrats have ceded power to the Republicans. Our Constitution, written for an agrarian society of less than 4 million people, is out of date. Foreign powers openly influence our elections. Technology has put social change into hyper-drive and is the tail that wags society’s dog. We are all products to be sold.
This ain’t your grandfather’s America. Trump as “transformative”? Hardly. He is a harbinger of things to come, an ugly symptom of a deeply divided world. The notion of a “United” States is obsolete – we are now a patchwork of disparate individuals and tribes fighting over territory.
The two major camps are those who want to turn back the cultural clock to the days of white, Christian dominance, who think the Constitution (like the Bible) is divinely ordained and eternal. Their solution to everything is prayer. This camp runs on emotion, magic, and myth.
The other camp sees the solution to our challenges in rational, collective action propelled by cooperation and the recognition that our survival is contingent upon sharing resources and solutions.
Emotion Trumps reason.
2
Where were these political fortune-tellers when Trump came on the scene? They never saw what hit them, but now they expect us to swallow their academic view of it all, LOL. Trump exploded the establishment political machine and we are all the better for it, no matter what the future brings.
this is a fantastical essay on the following topic:
"Given four arbitrary labels -- which you may apply without any criteria for their discrimination or any reference to specific historical, economic, financial, structural or technological factors in society -- how would you label american presidents?"
the voting for "Trump the Disjunctive" omits three of those factors: (1) growth capitalism requires continued population increase; (2) increasing population requires corporate exploitation, surveillance and control paid for by ballooning government debt; (3) politics must sell increased exploitation and debt using populist, xenophobic and fear based rhetoric.
in other words, "Trump the Reconstructive" is ushering in the era of the technological feed lot, the surveillance labor assembly line, human as a veal pen cash cow, elites as owners of the farm.
funny, isn't it? if you exploit the fact that there are no real rules for how you apply arbitrary labels, arbitrarily applying labels can actually reveal facts you still refuse to acknowledge.
Thomas Edsall's column should be the clarion call for any thinking patriotic American not caught up in the personality cult of Individual 1 to unite and become engaged in the fight to preserve your democracy and country.
Trump is the shape of our failures to proactively protect our institutions and democracy. And the shape of business domination of our lawmakers. And the relentless "think tanks" working to undermine the actual will of the American people.
He is basically an "Anti-President" figure and hopefully an aberration.
The population at the top of leadership chain spans a spectrum bookended by Horrific and Terrific. It is safe to say that Trump does not belong in this spectrum unless one were to open up something on the lower side of Horrific ?
There were honorable people that made great presidents, honorable people that made mediocre ones and less than honorable people that made the administrative cut. However, it is a stretch to come up with one, until now, who was a lousy human being who was also chaotic, indisciplined, meddlesome and lazy in the management sector.
1
If there was a 'Dangerous, Vain and Vile' category... I'd put Donald in that.
But because of him, I hope it will be a long while until the People elect another GOP candidate again. But even that will not be worth the harm already done to our country and Earth by Donald and his henchmen.
1
Remember how George Bush Sr. described Daniel Ortega's presence at some regional summit: "Like a stray-dog at a garden-party."
What surprises me is the credit Trump gets for the dismantling of the constitutional norms and regulatory structure of federal agencies for the past 50 years. I doubt Donald knows or understands much of anything.
But give him a toady loyalist who stroked his ego, and he bends over.
Anyone so easily manipulated can't be much of a leader. And yet, he appeals to those who feel misled, too.
I fear voters who believe tearing down the government is a good way to get back at the elitists who cater to corporations and the donor class.
In fact, the government is our only line of defense against the fascists and totalitarian capitalism.
1
Trump has benefitted from the outrageous growth of inequality in the US. First by playing the populist who was going to tear down the elitist edifice that has propagated the tremendous anxiety in the middle class. The Democrats couldn't protect them and the GOP wanted to exacerbate their condition for the plutocrats at the top. Trump played the white resentment card( white nationalism and bigotry) with his Bannon led "turn up the hate" campaign. 2nd with Trump tax cuts and deregulation another more massive explosion of more wealth flying away from the middle class into a Hubble constant type of moving farther and faster. So the real Trump is a lone wolf plutocrat with the GOP trying to package him as one of their own. Trump's at outlier who has become the leader of the GOP. Trump never ingratiated himself to the GOP he ridiculed them during the election. With Trump the concentration of wealth and political power in the wealthiest is a run away train which will crash and the middle class and the poor will suffer the worst.
1
Authoritarianism is rising on a global scale. It is, however, authority without a voice. Unfortunately, Democracy has no voice either. The strangeness of these times is our universally mute political leadership.
No one who steps on the global stage can be heard. Whether it is the noise of the information age or the lack of something to say worth hearing is unknown.
The subject of this article suffers from Fake News simply because he is a Fake President - a better description perhaps, than the four suggested here.
1
By the time we have had 52 presidents it will be pretty clear where Trump fits in with the rest of the deck.
The bottom line is that he doesn't fit in at all. He's a racist, a bigot, and a phony. The only difference between Trump and Andy Griffith's character in "A face in the crowd" is that even if the truth about Trump were known to his followers, they'd still follow him. He's the Master Deceiver that I describe in my book, "Mind Insurgent Handbook: Official Field Manual for the Revolution of Reason."
See RevolutionOfReason.com
2
It is fair to say that Donald J. Trump will not go down as the worst president in USA history nor will he be judged the worst. After he completes his second term, Trump will be ranked in the upper half. Cheers!
1
Isn't the key the degree to which the uneducated, bigoted and those which a chip on their shoulder Trump voters continue to terrorize Republican officeholders? They are a minority in America. Trump and Bush lost the popular vote. Republicans lose the popular vote for the Congress. If Republicans continue to rule America they are likely to be overthrown.
He belongs at the very bottom of the list. That's my opinion.
1
Thank god I decided not t major in political science.
2
The cult of his followers and the obsequiousness of his party’s sycophants is the real disease.
The use of existential fear batting is the infection.
How to cure it is the challenge.
Can there be any disagreement? Number 45 for certain.
Millard Filmore smiles from his grave.
How come we got to elect such a fraud is worth a study. It is history of the place and times.
As for the man, what sets him apart from any other president is that never in his life did he do anything but for himself.
And he did it using cheap, corner of the street gangster means. He does not even have the vision great gangsters had even if they too did it only for themselves.
No president was a saint but they had some kind of vision, whether you agree with it or not it does not matter, for the good of the country.
This guy has and never had anything to offer.
His latest gig? Go to war to Iran, maybe that will give him a second term? Next? Remove the Twenty-Second Amendment? Bring any of his children to power? Whatever it takes.
Presidency is just one more toy for this guy.
I’m not sure about four types of Presidents and their leadership style. However I do believe it will be difficult to get Trump out of the White House even if he looses re-election in 2020. He will concoct a reason stay in power for himself and his family.
I agree that we are undergoing a slow-moving relentless overthrow of our government in every sense. It is leaving only meaningless hollow shells of our institutions standing.
"Putsch" is a better term for this than "coup". A coup suggests a general marching in and taking over. A "putsch" is metastasized political corruption that comes from the political side, not the military.
2
The Trump phenomenon reflects the failure of the Democratic Party to develop a governing electoral base grounded on a coherent policy agenda that can win state and local as well as congressional elections. The Reagan paradigm has faded but a new Democratic alternative has yet to materialize. Two Obama terms did not accomplish the task, and lost congress and statehouses in the process.It's as if after Hoover that FDR and the New Deal did not emerge, and the Republican Party was stripped to its anti immigrant, rural core. So, today we are stuck with a Republican Party devoid of any serious policy ideas from health care to climate change and that depends on white identify and a rural base to squeeze out an electoral college win. As can be seen from the Democratic presidential field the party is struggling to develop a winning and governing idea and identity.
1
Not all Republicans and not all Supreme Court Justices see value to the nation in the methods of Trump. It takes moral courage and true patriotism to stand up against Trumpism and face certain blistering responses from the right-wing news media and unrepentant Trump voters. So far none have emerged from the shadows.
Republicans are our only hope.
But the Republican Hero who breaks EARLY from the party has yet to appear - and, as we come to the “start” of another presidential campaign cycle (though Trump began his campaign within a month of his inauguration), it seems too late for one to appear.
It’s a pair of interesting theories - the concept in the opinion piece:
Putting Kennedy in line with followers of Ike, making Johnson the breakthrough President who brought us deep onto Viet Nam - a Kennedy project and continuing Kennedy civil rights projects; not seeing Obama and Clinton as accidents between the continued dysfunctional presidencies of Reagan-era Republicanism; and the reply that the GOP holds the answer.
No, members pf the party are overly late to rebel - while Trump reenforces his Stone Wall, and Bolton announces we’re going to war in Iran, an announcement telegraphed by moving a Navy fleet into The Gulf.
Meanwhile - the Administration is announcing no more subpoenas from the House will be accepted, because they are not “legislative” or legitimate - dismissing entirely the House role as anything except legislate.
Our Repressive Regime is declaring Congress has no responsibility to watch the Administration and investigate potential violations of the law requiring actions to stop a mad president, up to, and including impeachment - of Cabinet members and judges.
It would be nice to believe that we are still in a cycle and that everything will nicely resolve to staying in the cycle that has previously defined our political history under the Constitution.
Unfortunately, That entire analysis is based on a set of norms and institutions that stand in the face of the country undergoing metamorphosis, growth and decay.
Mr. trump has shown positive glee in attacking those norms and institutions. He is aided and abetted by political and media allies who in some cases have already spent decades laying the groundwork for undermining norms and institutions. they have done so by mendacious narrative framing and intense emotional manipulation using alarmingly successful methods.
Decay does not always lead to metamorphosis. Sometimes it just leads to death. We should not be ruled completely by fear of this, but we forget this at our peril.
1
I won't claim to have conceptually mastered the "four types of political leadership" upon which this analysis is based. I will satisfy myself with agreeing with the writer's observation that the concept falls short as a rule of history. The more important comparisons lie in the history of failed democracies and the totalitarian regimes or civil wars that follow.
2
This article contains interesting points, but I am baffled by all the rejoinders that this is unprecedented. If we're operating under that assumption, we are not in touch with reality.
Has anyone heard of the Civil War era? This is the easiest illustration of every problem American has had, all at one time. But it's only one of many comparisons. Of course, we do *not* want a repeat of that horror---it is certainly frightening if we are showing such tendencies. But frightening and unprecedented are *completely* different. To avoid the danger, we have to understand that. All these things were brilliantly discussed at the time. We should use that knowledge.
The paragraph about reconstructive presidents forming "personal parties" and "tenacious" regimes that are unsettling is key. I think we're closer to that process, for better or worse.
Lincoln's presidency/era was incredible. He was amazing, and his reputation is justly deserved. But claiming that *this* era is unprecedented in its polarization of parties (especially due to immigration and race) and the erosion of norms/autocratic impulses is insanity. I have no qualms about making a Lincoln comparison--it is relevant.
That is not to say things are not dangerous--Trump's character and current circumstances matter. Global/tech developments are probably the real anomaly to worry about. But in reference to "unprecedented," go to newspapers.com and read papers from the 1860s, or even the 1980s, please!
5
"We may be witnessing the long-awaited arrival of the president as a party unto himself, with all the independence in action that that implies."
What that means is that a rogue leader is trying to overthrow a constitutional republic.
Cyclical theories are in vogue. Trump and Bannon subscribe to the anti-rationalist Fourth Turning theory. But history does not repeat itself so symmetrically, and this theory of four presidential regime stages is intricate, but not likely to be true.
What drives perception in politics is narrative and narrative is invented, not proven. The GOP has dominated narrative to the victimization of more rational modes of thought. The GOP narrative is driven by marketing, myth, and emotion, and that type of thinking is driving us over a cliff. It is necessary to destroy confidence in rational thought in order to prevail with belief-based narratives.
3
What is so absolutely fascinating about this article is what it demonstrates about the American intellectual community and its complete inability to address a new political landscape that doesn't even reject intellectual pronouncements, it just ignores them.
These flailing attempts of American intellectual pundits to understand the phenomenon that us occurring in the nation and the world today are a testament to bankruptcy of their institutions, and they don't seem to understand their very irrelevancy. No one is listening.
The answer is simple, with no need to employ the high-blown arsenal of Harvard's political science department to explain it--Americans of all political persuasions finally understood how they had been exploited by the political/financial complex of both parties, and how they had been left behind while a chosen few profited at their expense. They rebelled from both sides of the spectrum, and Donald Trump happened to be there to take advantage of their rebellion.
It's all pretty easy to understand, but when you stick your head in the sand in the Ivy League all your career, you can't see it.
4
@Chuck French
Got it. Bliss ninnies for Trump like to give out lectures to educated people about how Trump won the people . . .
. . . except he didn't. He lost the popular vote.
But how could I dare mention that in the presence of a Trump groupie.
Oh, pardon me.
Even if you accept the regime theory, which is fascinating, you cannot assert that Trump represents the natural end of a regime cycle without mentioning the massive influence of hostile foreign actors. None of the academics quoted discussed this as a factor. Yet it cannot be ignored. I think that factor undermines this analysis, pro and con. We truly are in uncharted and incredibly dangerous waters.
3
If history is important to understand the present, the cyclical theory that explains Trump lacks three important factors: 1) globalization and the rise of China and Russia; 2) the shrinking of the optimism horizon because of planetary destruction; 3) the emergence of a charismatic leader who is psychologically flawed. The right-wing populist movement is not unique to the US, it is also rife in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Our present looks much like the 1930's when the anxieties generated by the crisis of capitalism gave rise to racist/ethnic identity nationalisms. The social groundwork for the exploitation of mass anxieties has been set for megalomaniac leaders to emerge as saviors of the nation. Trump under psychoanalysis is delusional in terms of established norms of society and politics, but he can instinctively feed the psychological and emotional needs of large alienated populations in the US who consider the "deep state" to be real and distrust legitimate institutions.
1
Pause for a moment and consider the fact that you have no prior experience, educational or otherwise, with a confidence man as a president. Trump is in a category all by himself. Biden is correct when he says that the end of Trump's presidency will be an insightful moment for his supporters in the Republican Party.
4
Trump was groomed and planted by Putin to disrupt America & the West A system to prevent such intrusions doesn't exist. To dismantle the Trump/Putin takeover of our government will require the cooperation of the GOP. There needs to be a coalition of Republicans, Independents and Democrats to end this nightmare. The Justice Department rule that presidents cannot be indicted should end. Trump will not leave the protection of the presidential office willingly. Do we establish a new autocratic government or recovery of our democracy.
This is a quintessential academic question. The debate over how Trump is categorized as a president under various political science theories has absolutely no bearing on his actual impact on the country or the presidency. Sports commentators who analyze a game have zero impact on the game's result. Political commentators who analyze Trump have zero effect on the impact of his presidency. The "intense argument over where he belongs" actually tells us nothing about where we're headed--other than to demonstrate that none of the people who get paid to predict the future actually know.
3
It’s not where he belongs, it is whether he belongs. And he does not.
8
Great article. The challenge of journalism is to create the first draft of history, it has been said. This essay is obviously in that style or aspires to go in that direction. Unclear if the article succeeds, b/c I find all the quotes from different emailed sources rather choppy and less than clear. But still makes for an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.
1
Unfortunately, although other democracies have patterned their governments based on ours, we were so ego-centric never to look at their form of government to improve ours. Take “Special Election” or loss of confidence. That would come in handy just about now.
1
Professors Balkin and Levinson are right. I have long traced the dysfunction we're in directly back to Reagan. The mistrust of expertise culminating in a rejection of science. The starry-eyed conviction that privatization always beats public effort, where even our wars and prisons are managed by private companies and exist largely for their profit. And, worst of all, the undying reliance on supply side economics whereby the wealthy become oligarchs while the 99% are faced with crumbling infrastructure, class stagnation, and vanishing hopes for a better life. I'm approaching sixty, but my hopes are with the cadre of young leaders -- freshmen Representatives, the Parkland students, and others -- who have decided to take a stand against the leaders of dysfunction and not retreat.
7
Reagan and his ilk waved the flag of patriotism constantly, wearing it like an accolade, while they divided the rich from the poor and middle class, trampling the idea of what the flag stands for.
Reagan understood that the flag actually stands for the wealthy and privileged, and Americans who don’t fit that category should try harder or go elsewhere.
1
The Trump presidency may well be part of a cycle, but it is proving to be far more dangerous than most of us expected. Trump's only previous experience in running anything was directly related to his own business which, by the way, he continues to oversee (through his family) while being president.
In spite of these overt conflicts of interest, the most powerful governmental body that is supposed to keep the president in check, the leadership in the US Senate, has inexplicably decided to let this president do whatever he wishes!
Essentially, what we are all witnessing, is an inexperienced president who surrounds himself with people who try to please him. To make matters even worse, the economic and foreign policy advisors he listens to the most represent ideological positions that promote global instability.
This is the reality check: Trump appears to feel most at ease and comfortable meeting with "strong leaders" who control the press, their respective governments, and who represent authoritarian regimes.
Is this what the citizens of the United States want?
3
The trump phenomenon as many commenters have noted is the result of the gops long term strategy to be the dominant political party. Fueled by wealthy and corporate donors and a fleet of conservative think tanks state legislatures have been reshaped by ALEC and others to limit the power of local elections. What is not receiving much press is the legislation at the state levels to limit the power of urban areas. Trump us just a symptom of the conservative power grab. The hard right conservative policies are not politically popular, such as shredding the safety net (and many others) but by appealing to a core of rural white voters fear can be stroked to generate a core of suppirt.
Trump is the epitome of the conservative movement. The republicans do not believe in democracy and do not believe that government should do anything for citizens. The only purpose of government is to maintain public order. Otherwise the free market should reign. And the purpose of the court is not to ensure justice but to ensure the free-market reigns and corporate malfeasance is not challenged by regulations.
3
Where trump "fits" depends ultimately upon who writes the history. History, as always, will be written by the victors.
There is not, and never has been, any cosmic guarantee that our experiment in self-government will survive challenges from any and all enemies, foreign or domestic. It always has, and always will, take committed men and women of good will and oaken hearts to make it so.
5
Narrative views of history are dangerous and amount to intellectual history more than working models. What we do have in hindsight are playbooks for political scenarios. To group Trump with virtually any other US president is to forget that he offers no constructive principals, however misguided others' might have been. He is looking to Iran now in the same manner Bush 43 did: no wartime president has ever lost re-election
4
Looking back at the last ten years of judicial nominations, it's become clear that under no circumstances will any President of one party ever be allowed to make a Supreme Court Appointment while the other party is in control of the Senate. The nail in that coffin came in the form of the Garland-Gorsuch siwtcheroo of 2016.
I don't see how any real democracy can survive given that set of circumstances. Right now, one of the two parties is in a position to impose a set of rules which amount to nothing more than a "heads I win, tails you lose" regime, and they aren't showing any reluctance to do exactly that.
6
Perhaps Trump is not the worst president, but he is certainly is the worst person ever to be president.
The academic model cited in the article focuses primarily on policy..not character....which is the factor that differentiates Trump most from any predecessor. List off the Seven Deadly Sins and you describe Trump. He possesses and daily displays all the personal characteristics that I would hope my children never have. To analyze Trump's presidency based on policy misses the lasting....and perhaps permanent.....damage he has done.
461
@Jeff. Well put and succinctly meaningful. Also, I am shocked that 500+ people read, seemingly in its entirety, this published academic discourse.
11
@Jeff
On a scale of 1 - 45 (presidents),
1 being the best,
clearly Trump gets a 56.
His library should be titled the
"President Con Man's Library of Shame".
12
@Jeff, yes.
I think that Trump has one virtue, FOCUS.
---------------------------------------------------
Trump manages to keep the focus on himself, daily.
He is a comic book character, adventure story in action.
By contrast, his critics and Democrats are easily forgotten.
I suggest that Democrats wake up to their noise problem.
They might focus on their DREAMS, and hopes right now.
MLK, Jr. said that he has a dream, but Dems are clueless.
I suggest looking at "Democracy" by Leonard Cohen.
Cohen sang, "Democracy is coming to the USA" (1992)
Democrats can dream of a new democratic wave in response to the tyranny of Trump's insanity, now.
I hope that Democrats will soon stop the blah. blah, blah,
and start focusing on their hopes and dream...
"Democracy is coming to the USA" (Leonard Cohen)
(See, YouTube videos and lyrics, online, now)
5
Maybe this would be better framed as the second President
winning and loosing the popular vote in less than 20 years.
Economics are pulling the country apart. Large scale population
centers with diverse economies are mainly concentrated in blue states while rural and small town America declines in mostly
red states. What we end up is electoral politics over representing
decline and under representing opportunity.
Trump is not an aberration. He is exactly what can happen when
declining states, and there are many, have more voting power
than prosperous states.
Maybe the message is ignore those less fortunate than you
at your own peril.
9
While not a professor of history, I think that another class of presidents needs to be added; the transformative. These are presidents who greatly expand the power of the presidency for the furtherance of their personal agendas, be they good or bad.
In this category I would place Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Obama, and Trump. Each of them ventured into areas where past presidents feared to tread for what they saw as the preservation of the nation, either physical or spiritual. Each of them were widely criticized for it at the time, and all but the last two have been seen as being right when viewed in the light of history.
Time alone will tell what the verdict will be on the last two.
1
It is impossible to categorize the last decade or so of conservatism (6 years of being the obstructionist opposition, and then 2 years of majority oppression) because American history has never seen anything like it. (not even during the civil war)
For the last 6 years of the Obama Presidency, the only goal of the republican party was to stop (at any cost to country) ANYTHING that Democrats offered, AND to actually shut down the machinery of government. (obstructing any and all Senate confirmed positions - in particular judges)
Then for the last 2 years of this administration and Presidency (that came to be with the help from foreign powers) there has been theft in the TRILLIONS from tax (cuts) for the wealthy and corporations, while waging a so called republican trade war. (imposing crushing new taxes/tariffs onto the American people)
Within all of that has been the rapid appointment of radical conservative judges at all levels (including two Supreme Court appointments that were usurped) which along with republican state controlled legislatures have rolled back human rights of all kinds. (especially against women and minorities)
The rule of law has been bent consistently or broken altogether, and indeed the President has acted like an Emperor of old, that anyone that is not absolutely for him, is an ''enemy of the people''.
We are watching a slow moving coup.
478
@FunkyIrishman
Agree, and it is only a matter of time before we find ourselves in another war (without the support of allies), or an economic recession that further damages those already suffering. If the current trends concerning immigration and the Roe vs Wade decision continue unabated we may well find ourselves in a civil war again.
21
@FunkyIrishman
Actually, we saw something like it in the years leading up to the Civil War. During that time, the mere mention of slavery was banned for a long time in the House by a Southern passed "...gag rule..." and the South always had an equal number of senators to the North, ensuring that no anti-slavery legislation could pass.
Indeed, during this time, Charles Sumner was badly beaten with a cane on the floor of the Senate by a Southern Congressman.
Not the very most hopeful analogy, I realize.
My opinion is that we are headed for the long disjunctive phase where nothing gets done.
However, if the radical Right, which now includes most of the Republican voters and elected people, sees itself headed for minority status across the Board- with the WH, Senate and House all in Democratic hands, some of those Red-state-istan guys are going to want to secede again.
Frankly, break-up of the country into what are obviously competing ideological camps to avoid another Civil War. may be the only viable path forward.
It will not be pretty if it happens.
7
@Kelly
Even worse, we may retreat into underground cliques and subterranean coded protest, we may see gulags and executions, we may become talk-from-the-side-of-the-mouth rabble under the heels of oppressive and vicious dictatorships, one after another.
4
To me, Trump most resembles Andrew Johnson, the ultimate disjuncive president who followed Abraham Lincoln the ultimate transformative, civil rights president.
Johnson did not belong to Lincoln's party and in a similar way Trump's, and even Sanders's party affiliations have always been a little unclear.
After Lincoln's assassination, Johnson treated the defeated former Confederates as if there had been no war.
Fortunately, in the off-year election, Lincoln's party, which already controlled the House, also took the Senate and set Johnson's impeachment in motion.
Although we failed to convict Johnson in the Senate by a two-thirds majority, he was effectively neutralized and congress was able to proceed with its ambitious civil rights agenda.
However, it's considered unlikely in the near future that Trump's party will lose its majority in the Senate and so he's potentially very dangerous.
3
While I have similar pessimism about the future of our country, especially if Trump is re-elected, the experts cited here seem to ignore the strong possibility that Trump will, as we all must, die, perhaps even before the end of his current term. His uniqueness seems to me to make it highly unlikely that any successor will be able to garner as much devotion or hold nearly as much sway over the large minority of the electorate that he does.
3
One place where Trump differs from other Presidents - I would never, ever move to a school district in which my child would have to attend a school named for Trump. The only other case where that would apply would be a school named after Nixon. kind of a low bar to have to beat, no?
6
@Andy "kind of a low bar to beat" - but it has been done. A friend of mine lived in a town with a school named for a Confederate general, and a proposal was made to change that. Believe it or not, there was opposition from those who said they wanted to preserve the school's traditions. (This school was built in the 1950's.) She told me that a turning point in the controversy occurred when a local real estate agent spoke up at a meeting. The agent said that when prospective buyers heard where they'd be sending their kids, the bid price on the house would almost always drop. The school has since been renamed.
American History Ended the day Trump took office. It was replaced Hedonist Disruption. What he wants he gets. America is no longer about us. Its about him.
7
No need for scholarly taxonomies: Trump is a mountebank who is using his world historical con into the Oval Office as a way to fleece the US taxpayer out of trillions for his family. The Founders made a mistake which they probably could not have foreseen: dominance of US politics by rural millionaire hayseeds and racists in league with a New York charlatan. The Roman empire had nothing on this crowd.
8
Your voters, unfortunately voted in Trump to be President so the rest of he world are stuck with his lying bullying and sudden changes in direction, depending on who has been nice to him that particular day.
Sure hope the USA can sort something out as he and his advisors scare the heck out of us as he now appears to want a war with somebody. His ideas on Tariffs is screwing up many other countries including the USA. The system need a purge and as soon as able.
9
I'd go with the people who believe that Trump has taken the Presidency in a new - albeit awful - direction.
Trump is the Man Behind the Curtain. Not an all powerful Oz that he'd like to be, but totally tied up in the illusion. The trouble is, he's let a lot of wicked witches in around him to run things.
He has the most hawkish of hawks in war-mongering John BOlton and Mike Pompeo.
He has Mick Mulvaney, heartless Tea Partier who wants to eliminate government altogether.
He has Stephen Miller, channeling his Cyborg "Resistance is futile" fascist persona, planning to round up immigrant families, perfectly comfortable with caging the kids in camps away from their parents.
He has the raft of cabinet members dismembering their administrations, from Betsy DeVos who wants to fund private for profit schools like she has invested in, to EPA leaders who are interested in the growth of polluting industries, to Ben Carson, who feels that all poor people would be advantages if only they grew up with his amazing mother rather than things like a roof over their heads .
What Trump is, is a useful idiot - a category of President we may not have seen before. One who channels demagogue popularity where it is most effective, and allows any amount of chaos and destruction to accompany his own private ego trip.
The difference we see is that we have a totally complicit GOP - a group of people more interested in milking wealth out of the system before it collapses, than in democracy.
15
Compared with Bush Jr and Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon, at least he hasn't started a bloody adventure - yet.
2
Wait for it...
Trump is America's first fascist president. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned us about fascism coming to America, and warned about the wave of fascist dictatorships around the world. It's happening now.
We were warned.
12
This is a joke, right? We all know where he fits.
5
@Jordan
Your "we" means the Times commentariat, and I agree you all believe you know where he fits. Warning: there are other voting populations out there that never, ever, fit into the commentariat's calculus. You continue to ignore them at your peril, electorally speaking.
This would be enormously depressing if I didn’t have so much faith in Trump...
As a complete screw-up.
This is a man who bankrupted casinos.
I fully believe that by Nov. 2020, he will have crashed the economy through his charming combination of ignorance and arrogance. He is the ultimate embodiment of the Peter Principle—a man promoted to his level of utter incompetence.
What scares me witless is this: what if, as he flails around to distract voters from his failures, he decides to nuke Iran? Thereby triggering WWIII because he doesn’t know his buddy Putin lives next door.
10
The main missing ingredient in an otherwise insightful piece is the fact- that Donald J. Trump is merely the puppet of all the puppet masters pulling the hands, legs and mouth.
Donald Trump has no knowledge or interest in how government works or any political philosophy. Trump is the quintessential useful idiot for the retreads of other failed political adventures: Bolton, Haspel, Miller, Pompeo and so many other individuals whose only attributes are- Donald Trump likes them:
Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson- his children; the host of unqualified life-time Justices appointed (and cleared) by a GOP-led Congress whose only goal is a complete realignment of the Judicial branch.
No, Trump is far too ignorant to be analyzed in the fashion Thomas Edsall has presented. The only category Trump would fit in would be "Presidents who use the office for obscene self-enrichment; in that, he is in a solo category,
11
Thanks for this analysis. With the destructive nature of this administration truly coming into view in the past few weeks, I had begun to harbor similar thoughts and this gives a certain credence to what I had been thinking. My feeling is that the destruction wrought by this administration would be the last nail in the coffin of conservatism for some time to come. With the millennial generation coming to voting age with very liberal views, it is a matter of time before the conservative agenda is washed away. I think the (thinking) conservatives understand this pretty well and that is why they are quietly doing their job by passing very strict anti-abortion laws, packing the supreme court etc. They know their time will soon be up at least for a couple of decades to come before they can raise their head again. if Trump gets elected again (if the economy stays robust, that is a good possibility) , the irony will be that the destruction of conservatism will be even more severe and the backlash from the liberal side that much more severe!
3
I think it’s also helpful to consider 45 not just as a president but as a result and incarnation of the current social environment. Think the advent of professional wrestling, and then reality TV, then move to talk radio. Add gaming to that mix as well. The whole of our attention deficit disordered culture, voices coming from every direction, unmoored from reality, willing to accept entertainment as truth. Even to support that which harms the individual in the process. DT is not just a president, he is an opportunistic symptom.
6
I have never thought that systematic examination of history has much validity. The intellectual framework in the historian's head normally just find patterns where there are none, or they cram disparate political or social phenomena together uncomfortably to make the model work.
There certainly are patterns of social behavior that can be seen across many different historical phenomena. Famine leads to revolution is an example, but you usually only find good correlation between two historical phenomena at the extremes of human suffering. Like famine, disease, war, or extreme inequality of money and/or power.
History has too many factors to understand the impact of any one factor. There is no petri dish of history where you can add a charismatic leader and remove extreme poverty from a period in history and see how the outcome changed. So, you are left with looking at the records of the past and like a Rorschach splatter trying to determine patterns. Normally, you see something that isn't there.
I think we might want to see the threat that people like Trump have been to democracies in past and try to what we can to stop the worst from happening. Hopefully, the American people will still have a say in the direction that their country takes in the future.
4
I've been on this planet for quite some time and never have I had to live through such a stressful, tumultuous time as I have under the Trump maladministration.
He clearly lacks the intelligence, maturity, vision, and compassion that political leaders are required to possess during these difficult times. In fact, Trump has proven, time and time again, that he seems to prefer to create far more serious problems. He is a "problem maker" and not a problem solver. He chooses to use divisive tactics rather than try to bring people together. He is the King of Chaos and a serious threat to all that we hold near and dear to our hearts.
12
History, and Historians, will not be nearly as blind to the failings of our past presidents as our current day media seems to be. For what its worth, prior to Mr. Trump becoming our 45th President we actually elected the son of a one term President just 8 years after that one term President left Office. That is not how a healthy democracy should work. Family dynasties do not belong in healthy democracies but we almost did it again in 2016 didn't we. So you cannot 'compare' Mr. Trump to anyone else without admitting how skewered our democracy had become Before he was elected. If we had actually elevated a former First Lady to the Office of the President we would have joined countries like Pakistan and the Phillipines who led the way in spousal elevation.
4
One line quoted by Mr. Levitsky jumped out at me, of the factors distinguishing Trump from Carter and Hoover, which is -'the weakening of party elites' gatekeeping.' Absolutely correct. The emergence of Trump (and his Tribe) emanates directly from the Republican Party's abject failure to screen him out of the party structure. They did not vet him. Think of a political party as a high end Upper East cocktail party - you invite who you want to, people who will make the event a vibrant affair. You don't let in just anyone who just rings the bell wishing to get in.
8
He's a selfish, self absorbed business con who America galvanized as President from a declining Democracy chipped away at since JFK's death. His place among Presidents? -45
6
So much here sir from academe... the land of spin minds in
perpetuity... far cry folks who rarely if ever produce or correct.
1
a factor that doesn't show up in this excellent analysis is the extraordinary external pressures that this country and the entire world will face as climate change shuts down much of what we rely on for our basic existence -- food production, weather safety and damage, etc. Those pressures make it hard in a wide variety of ways for democracy to function . The basic context will be quite different, not quite as sanitary as the historians and political scientists posit.
6
Concur extreme partisan divide is likely to continue regardless of whether correction occurs to "independence of the president...from [other] authority". But this presidential focused argument ignores the feedback effect between office holders and the electorate. If that feedback continues to amplify differences and avoid compromise, the political challenge to the coming generation may become avoiding another civil war.
4
The Republican party is glued to Trump by the force of fear, meaning that disagreeing with Trump will bring a backlash from Trump voters who every Republican today sees as key to re-election. Immigration and race, though real issues facing the country, are exaggerated pretexts by Trump to modulate the fear.
When Trump is gone, either by defeat or at the end of his second term, this fear glue in the R Party will disappear and it will begin to disintegrate as there currently no other glue (principle) holding it together. There is no other personality who can replace Trump and keep the party together. Though the causes of the current division in the county will continue, but these will fade out after Trump, as Trump keeps the divisiveness alive by his daily invective comments.
Then a new era of democratic reconstruction might begin after a period of lag. The lag will depend on how the new President frames the old issues and enters into public imagination urgency of new issues like inequality, social harmony and the survival itself of democracy and capitalism - serious matters with no serious attention in the age of Trump.
3
I can't help but think that Trump is a disaster unto himself who does not bother to engage in any activity in any manner that would allow him to be legitimately compared to any previous president. He is more akin to one of the "Seldon crises" predicted by the creator of the statistically driven area of study known as "psychohistory" that was a product of the amazing mind of Isaac Azimov in his Foundation series. Unfortunately, we have no Hari Seldon and there is, as yet, no such research area as psychohistory, so we do not even know whether there is a path to our future that does not avoid irreversible disaster for all thoughtful and considerate humans.
3
A very interesting summary of the struggle to form a context around our severely abnormal situation. I was surprised to find no mention in the article (or comments) about the large role of partisan media in the wreck of our democracy. Fox News’ partisan, tabloid news model developed in societies with parliamentary governments which have a normal process of coalition-forming between competing partisan minorities. Importing that into a society with an inherently two-party government has been a disaster, creating a total disjunction between these two parties. Like some invasive species of fish that devours and displaces an entire ecosystem, Fox News has eaten the heart out of the American experiment - with, of course, the active cooperation of cynical, Ayn-Randian, solipsistic plutocrats. What’s fundamentally different this time is that we need to start thinking seriously about partition: predominantly rural, Fox News states versus urban, progressive states. They can crawl back into the 1950’s and we can look to the future. I say let Trumplandia regress as far as they like, but they have no right to drag the rest of us down with them.
4
Trump is a reminder that the Civil War never really ended. The fight has not been given up, the confederate flags are still flying and as we have recently found out there are statues of confederate soldiers all over the place and people who want them to remain in place. Those fighting for white supremacy in the US have never given up and united with the rest of the country. Trump is leading the fight and the strategy seems to be to destroy democracy and replace it with a totalitarian regime with Trump as the leader. While I suspect the majority of Republican politicians in private still support democracy, to retain what they power have they are going along afraid of being tweeted out of office by Trump. I don't think this the end of Reaganism. For many people government still is seen as the problem not the solution. Rather, I think it is the end of democracy in the US unless it can be halted through elections by the Democratic Party
8
I suppose the question is this: Does Trump represent the end of an old realignment [the neo-liberal Reagan realignment] or is he the beginning of a new nationalist realignment? I have a hard time seeing that it's the former given how much Trump has deviated from neo-liberal ideology [on trade and immigration - the only two issues he really cares about - everything else is negotiable]. Yet I have hard time seeing that it's the latter. Maybe as the end of the column suggests we're just in for a period of severely heightened partisanship and constantly contested leadership which likely means an extended period of political instability.
2
@J
Rochester, NY56m ago
PPPlease,, take a look at the "Democracy" song.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Cohen sang, "Democracy is coming to the USA." (1992) Please note all the words of this prophetic song and discuss them.
"Democracy" predicts a new democratic wave of reform. .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My sense is that Trump's insane rule is bringing on this wave. Trump is soo bad, that he is waking up the nation, daily. Trump is making us feel so uncomfortable with dictatorship.
Yes, I think Trump is the "unwitting agent of reform."
But Democrats must wake up and get involved right now.
Democracy requires constant involvement, by everyone.
We have become so passive, and detached about politics.
Trump wakes us up, daily and maybe it is a wake up call!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, please see and discuss the words of "Democracy"!
"Sail on, Sail on, O Mighty Ship of State...
Democracy is coming to the USA"
It’s very painful to refer to Trump as president. I can’t. I side with those who point out (the obvious) that Trump is not a “legitimate” president. He defrauded the electorate and used Russian succor to influence the outcome in 2016 in order to steal the election. Then, he tried to cover up the subterfuge and obstruct justice.
Using ideal types to associate Trump with the other presidents of the US is futile. He is unique in many ways and his actions (both taken and considered) and world view would be better compared to other autocrats/dictators of the recent past. Trump’s disrespect and flagrant disregard for the Constitution and his oath to protect and defend it elevates him to “king of the hill” of a very different class of American outcasts (even though he’d liked to be compared to the greatest presidents of all time).
5
I just keep wondering if this analysis is more"rearranging deck chairs" on a country that will face existential crises in about 20 years when climate change puts huge stress on everything we experience. When our life boat called earth is being swamped I don't think historians' theories will apply.
9
How is Pres. Trump not the reincarnation of Pres. Jackson and the run-up to 1860? (Unvarnished but true heirs to their predecessors, Pres. Reagan and Pres. Jefferson.)
Bone spurs are the main difference, I guess.
3
President Trump is a manifestation of the body politic immune system reaction to President Obama’s attempt to “ fundamentally change America.” Any system or organism will respond to attempts to fundamentally change it with a large side effects producing reaction.
Trump is just a symptom of that reaction.
The future political conventions will be shaped by the left not by Trump. Actual steps toward socialism, climate change fight restrictions on individuals, or further assaults on free speech that include punitive measures in workplace, not just in academia, will produce much larger reactions and earthquakes than Trump can ever engineer.
3
This is all interesting, but meaningless. In the moment, who cares how a bunch of liberal political scientists and writers categorize the President? It's just a foreshadowing of how he's going to be defined by their future fellow-traveling historians. The voters have to grasp with him as President right now. It's not necessarily even correct in its definitions, either. The New Deal coalition was destroyed in the 1972 presidential elections by the George McGovern candidacy. It was the future President Carter that was just picking up the pieces. Of course, he dropped them again with his weak Presidency. As for Speaker Pelosi's comment, that was just scare-mongering rather than any kind of rational impulse. It was highly ironic as well, considering that it came from a politician who is herself insistent on clinging to power through congressional deal-making despite her party's desire for generational change.
3
Cyclical models and theories of history generally ignore more than they consider for the sake of making connections and identifying patterns. Levitsky's critique of the "dysjunctive presidencies" model, as described in this article, strike me as cogent and accurate.
3
There is an even bigger picture here:
We are living in end times, we are playing end games.
The old structures are worn out.We are living at the end of democracy.
We are living at the end of capitalism.
We are living at the end of the arts-all we see here is appropriation and recycling.
There are no new horizons.
5
Balkin is quoted; “We will get through it. And when we get through it — about five to ten years from now — the present will seem like a distant, unhappy nightmare, or an illness from which one has recovered."
Indeed, this could be said to characterize Europe after the defeat of the Axis. Let's hope we can contain the damage in real time rather than just look forward hopefully to post-damage relief.
11
Why can’t real estate developers be true patriots, it’s always the farmers who pay the price.
2
@northlander Why do farmers keep voting for con men like Trump and then wonder why they pay the price?
1
What I find most disturbing about this juggle of political formalities is the dismissal of the rise of catastrophic absolutes as common in quality to the problems of previous administrations. There is nothing in previous history to compare to the horrifying intensity of the possibility of total planetary uninhabitability out of global warming and equally frightful nuclear conflict that will destroy, not only human civilization but major sectors of almost every variety of life on the planet. There is nothing in the total history of humanity to compare to these threats and their totally destructive potentials. There is no doubt that efforts are being made in various sectors to deal with this but there is absolutely no indication that these efforts are substantially powerful enough to face and radically, positively modify the possibilities.
9
Mr. Edsall. Thank you for a great analysis. You should draw up a couple of columns. While several of the past presidents will fall under most of the columns, Trump will be all by himself in one column.
1
Better that Trump should end up under a fallen column.
Has it occurred to anyone else that Trump is a hollow figurehead of a president, masking his intellectual and moral deficiencies with bluster and deceit? That the power behind Trump agenda, such as it is, lies with a deep state within the GOP elite? This would explain much of what we observe that seems illogical and inexplicable.
9
Oh he is absolutely providing the GOP agenda with perfect cover -- however, like the Golem or Frankenstein's monster it's threatening that the creature may ultimately overpower the 'masters.'
@Alan Brainerd No. you are all alone on that one.
Trump may be the transition "leader" for the decline of our empire. As in Roman.
Or perhaps just the transition "leader" for the decline of Neoliberalism which of course started with Thatcher and Reagan. A horrible world view where corporations rule, democracy declines, deregulation and loss of individual freedoms erode.
Or perhaps the transition leader for the general decline of America.
8
Maybe too clever by half. Carter was defeated by the Iranian fanatics and a terrible economy. Clinton won due to perceived economic shortcomings and a third party getting normally GOP voters. Trump can win reelection because of GOP greed and the authoritarian and xenophobic tendencies of a significant plurality of American voters meshing with the absurdities of the Electoral College. The various classifications of presidents in the last seventy years are the stuff of professional political scientists but not of the actual workings of a very short-sighted and ill-informed populace.
7
Where does Trump belong? In the 'big house', certainly not the White House.
9
The so-called cyclical theory of history is actually ahistorical in its assumption that one can detect patterns in past events which repeat themselves in a predictable way. Historians do not make good prophets.
Political scientists, by contrast, often seek to uncover a structure to events which will not only explain the past but enable us to glimpse the future. Professor Skowronek's theory of types of political leadership exemplifies this approach. As his critics point out, however, the environment in which Trump operates differs sharply from that which shaped the presidencies of John Quincy Adams and Jimmy Carter. More importantly, the man's character marks a dramatic break with the past. No other president, not even Nixon, displayed such utter contempt for the norms and rules that govern our system of government.
Whether Trump's presidency proves to be an aberration or the harbinger of a dark trend, we will not be able to discover our fate through reliance on theories such as that of Professor Skowronek.
4
Why even discuss where he stands relative to other Presidents when he's 1/2 way through his Presidency. It's a total waste of everyone's time. Only over time can one say how effective or ineffective a President was.
3
This is a lot of jumbo jumbo, if I ever heard it. Reminds me of the intellectuals who starred in The Best and the Brightest! Time to get out of their ivory towers and into the real world.
3
With whatever respect may be due, how President Trump is seen in the roster of Presidents will hardly be determined by authors or articles such as this bizarre piece.
2
Let's cut to the chase: the country, led by an autocrat and his compliant followers, is in serious systemic political, judicial, and social trouble. Social norms have been stripped from us followed by the erosion of political and judicial norms. Our democracy is fragile and dying and Mr. Trump and his allies, including those who vote for him, are happy to dismantle it. We are a very, very sick country.
10
Interesting. Most of us certainly hope that the Trump administration is an end and not a beginning.
In 1980, our debt was around $800 billion, less than 30% of our $2.8T GDP. Reagan more than tripled it and today our debt is an hard to fathom $22T. (105% of GDP of $20.66T) Donald Trump is borrowing money faster than any president before him...The deficit last month reached a new high of -$234B. If that continues, DJT will have borrowed $500B more in four years than Obama did in eight.
Median household income which had been rising with GDP until about 1965, had leveled off and was instead rising with inflation (CPI) which generally lags GDP growth by 2-2.5% per annum.
Over these 39 years, the percent of income earned by each quintile has dropped EXCEPT for the top quintile. The covenant of 'Work hard, play by the rules and grow with the country' has been broken for 80% of us, replaced by 'We get half, you split what's left'. Not a good thing for national unity.
Our tax system is the organ being used to fleece workers from their due. We need to take a look at the effect we have essentially legislated upon each other.
And try not to elect any more tax cheats to POTUS...
11
I do not speak with knowledge of the breadth of history of the experts quoted in the opinion: I have read “How Democracies Die”. It is very difficult to extrapolate when one is embedded in the changes taking place. Factors that seem to have been neglected: economic, catastrophic (climate, automation), world influences.
My takeaway from The Levitsky/Ziblatt work precipitated a “curious” feeling; which came first, the chicken or the egg. Did they study history and create a model, or did they exam the Trump presidency and create the model. Key elements of their model leading to dictatorship includes the following:
Four indications of authoritarian behavior: rejection of democratic rules; deny legitimacy of political opponents; tolerate/encourage violence; curtail civil liberties (e.g., media)
These seem to fit our present circumstances. Given the constitutional crises now emerging, one should be extremely frightened regarding the future. Whether he loses or wins seems to present dangers. If he loses, he might claim fraud and unloose an uprising. If he wins he might declare himself the “Uber” leader and perhaps suspend the constitution. Such dictatorial responses characterized the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and others.
8
Every few years (previously in 2014) scholars in the Presidents and Executive Politics section of the American Political Science Association are surveyed to rank the reputations of all the US presidents. Their latest result (2018) makes fascinating reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html
They count Grover Cleveland once, even though he had two nonconsecutive terms, so it’s 1 to 44, not 1 to 45.
Trump is dead last, of course. Among Democrats last, among Independents 2nd-to-last, among Republicans 40th of 44.
The largest mover since 2014 was Pres. Obama (18th to 8th). In general, recent presidents tend to move up a little over time (G.W. Bush 35th to 30th), but more is afoot, IMHO. The contrast between Obama and Trump is pulling Obama higher.
Another big mover was Grant, from #28 to #21, possibly influenced by Ron Chernow’s recent massive biography.
Source document and more information:
https://sps.boisestate.edu/politicalscience/files/2018/02/Greatness.pdf
2
One thing ignored is the opposition to Trump on the Left, most pundits wring their hands over his loyal Cultists and their ever shifting 'angers', and how to placate them. Yet, Progressives/Liberals/Independents are a much larger group of citizens, who have and will continue to react to the ongoing destruction of Our Democracy and Our Society. The Left can and will fight back, don't be foolish enough to count us out.
3
All insightful comments from political scientists, but I think Mr. Edsall does not reach the heart of the issue until the last paragraph, where he drops a bombshell that needs more explication and development. How about a followup article?
I have a suggestion. In order to forestall a second term for this malignant narcissist, called Trump, first Congress, then the whole country should rise up and recommend that his face be carved on Mt Rushmore, in So Dakota, along with the existing four, as soon as possible, ON CONDITION that Trump forgoes re-election plans in 2020.
That is the ultimate way to satisfy the gargantuan ego of this narcissist, the very incarnation of the Greek god, Narcissus..
2
The prescient model of humanity's future is larger than American political cycles, and must be understood in terms of global advancements in human communication accessibility. As a species, humanity has only just begun to see itself as inhabitants not just of nations, or race or class, but of the planet Earth. This new creative global ideation of human identity is driven not just by communication and travel innovations which have shrunk the planet, but also by global concerns of environmental degradation, extreme disparities of wealth, resource and educational inequalities, and by deep moral considerations of the value of human life individually and collectively.
The predictive model of humanity's future is more accurately seen in the example of the human body itself, an organizational matrix of complex and disparate material elements working seamlessly together, governed by a consciousness of attraction binding it all together.
If humanity is to not merely survive, if democracy is to remain the best of human organizational models, then a new and timely paradigm of human unity must be advanced to subsume the increasingly anachronistic and destructive adolescence of global politics. We must become of age.
3
Trump’s place in the historical context of prior presidents will not be determined by the “uniqueness” of his actions, but the horror of the the results. You cannot separate Trump as President from Trump as fraud, liar, ignoramus and sociopath. Like the hen he is, he is laying lots of eggs...sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost. Scholars may debate how Trump measures up ideologically and tactically with past presidents , but unlike his predecessors, he believes that he is above he law. Our Democracy cannot survive such an autocrat, and Trumpism will eventually be rejected.
9
It's not as complicated as that. Reagan ascended to power on the same leathery wings that elevated Trump--"welfare queens," "I believe in states' rights," and courting the far-right Evangelicals of the Moral Majority (of others he said they are "hostile to religion"). Reagan's dog whistles were better executed, and he was smarter, better-looking, more appealing personally, and a better politician than Trump, that's all. As Rosalyn Carter put it, "he makes us more comfortable with our prejudices." Reagan's power was derived from a fine and subtle exploitation of America's worst instincts. Trump is an embarrassing, incompetent, thuggish stumblebum, and these qualities have exposed the real motivations behind what passed for Reagan-era conservatism--the same old racism and religious parochialism, then, as now, only now with more than a whiff of sulfurous violence.
7
For sure, he is an outlier (pun intended). ;-)
1
Wake up, lefties! The righties are changing the country much for the worse, and their goal is to shift it far enough that the only recourse will be violence.
Political change now, or much blood later...
3
The comments here are, in major part, mind-numbingly repetitive. There is a different way of looking at things, albeit foreign to the Times commentariat.
One small example: McConnell's decision to deny Garland a vote, or even consideration in committee. I thought it wrong, and an audacious power grab, but not unprecedented.
In June 1992, the then Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, a man of no small power, announced that he would do exactly that for any nominee that Bush Senior proposed. He justified it on the ground that an election year is not the time to consider a post as critically important as an appointment to the high court.
The difference is that Mr. Biden, the former Senator, Judiciary Chair, Vice President and presumptive nominee of the Democrats, simply never got the chance to put his plan into play. In retrospect, it would have been a canny move, inasmuch as Bush's popularity was dropping quickly, a rascal named Perot had emerged, and an incoming Democratic presidency was becoming highly likely.
I don't trust Trump, but what I hear from the Democrats these days makes me trust them even less. If the Democrats focused more on wages, Social Security, Medicare and effective immigration enforcement, they would be swept back into office. Instead, they announce that parts of the wall *should* be torn down (the skateboarder) and that the future is female (Gillibrand). Try. Again.
4
@Wine Country Dude You seem to just not have been listening much to Democrats. They've been talking about all you want, and more, for quite a long time.
Also, I would bet strongly the future is going to be a lot more female; and I would listen to what a Texan has to say about the wall. You might not like their opinions, but they are throwing out some new perspectives.
@Treetop
The key word is "focus". I would have no trouble voting for FDR, HST, JFK or even LBJ. It's all the rest of the dreck that turns me away. And I don't support reparations for tenth degree descendants of slaves.
A future that is "a lot more female" is hardly equivalent to declaring that the future itself is female. And if a geographic connection to the wall is a key to political argument, I choose to believe those who live on the border, not a skateboarder who poses on the cover of Vanity Fair. Sorry.
Trump's leadership style of bullying and insult has been singularly effective in gaining control of the Republican Party, but I doubt that he commands any loyalty. If something goes wrong, that control could could evaporate instantly, and I bet the likes of Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton have plans for filling the vacuum.
Trump's ability to get away with violating norms of the presidency might be unique to himself, a feature of his role as a wealthy celebrity, almost like Wagner's Siegfried with the Tarnhelm, the magic gadget of illusion and persuasion.
The permanent Republican Party of the state legislatures, the Congress, and the state and federal judiciaries is entrenched, unified by training programs funded by the Koch brothers, provided with legislation by ALEC, and at the federal level, fed with groomed judicial nominees by the Federalist Society. It will persist and likely thrive long after Trump is gone, maybe after McConnell, too, in the unlikely event that he's not re-elected next year.
1
Thomas Jefferson has the solution:
"...Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security....".
The only problem is we lack politicians of Jefferson's quality and vision modern day.
3
Thanks for the long analysis. I've long wondered where we are in the Skowronek framework. I suspect the Reagan era bottomed out with George W. Bush. Barack Obama ushered in a new era: one marked by charismatic presidents promising change. It's not an era of a particular ideology or approach to governance. It's marked by vivid personalities who say they'll get us out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into.
The irony is that the promise of change is necessary precisely because what has existed is collapsing under ground-shaking change.
7
The election of Trump was a rejection of the status quo. A status quo where over a period of the last 40 years, under both political parties, operational government focused on the best interest of the corporate/financial sectors sidelining quality of life issues that effect all Americans. It was the Carter administration that marked the end of the traditional Democratic Party and with it the end of its FDR/New Deal legacy. As the Republicans moved more to the right, the Democrats abandoned their agenda of progressive domestic policy to restructure into a brand of Republican Lite. This detoured road America had been traveling on could no longer be sustained and hit critical mass in 2016. This Opinion piece categorizes Presidential types. It omits a category which is the exclusive provenance of Donald Trump and one that distinguishes no other President in this country's history. Aberration. For what the Trump Presidency identifies is an aberration in the American story.
1
@Rose Trump was elected because he lied to people. He promised better and cheaper healthcare. He promised to bring back jobs. He promised that he was a successful businessman. And on and on and on.
7
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. History is not science. Trying to divine repeating patterns in the very human and social field of politics is for small minds. I’ve been reminded that we’ve faced more perilous times as a country and that gives me little confidence that we will survive another. The analogies presented by the “theorist” that Trump is the signal that we are entering a New Democratic beginning is academic hogwash and bombast. The genie is out of the bottle, Pandora’s box has been opened and the political system itself is capsizing in on us as the media is weaponized and corporations don’t even try to hide their subversion of the system and institutions we once trusted. We had a good run, but the two party system, that did not include an opposition party, was our undoing.
4
This analysis misses the unprecedented role of the Internet and social media, where so many prefer to regress into their own echo chambers and end up even more antagonistic and tribal. Hard to know where this leads us.
@Brendan McCarthy Exactly. And especially because so many people, including Trump, shout lies from the rooftops (or tweets or FB, or whatever).
Donald Trump is uniquely dangerous to our democratic system. However, this has not happened in a vacuum. Presidential executive powers have grown stronger and more independent in the last 20+ years, which has allowed someone like Donald Trump to wreak long-lasting havoc upon our democratic institution. Our next president must be willing to give up these powers (while looking into the legitimacy of the federal judicial branch) in order to protect the balance of our branches.
1
I hope we make it to the next election ... this seems to be a freight train.
Thank you Mr. Edsall for providing an overview of Skowronek's work that described his overall project as a “study of presidents as agents of political change” that produced a framework of “four types of political leadership." It has been said that it is important to know your (OUR) enemy and ANY help to understanding Trump is of value. I enjoyed the applications of these 4 types in respect to Mr. Trump, but in comparing this POTUS to the the 44, it is essential to always keep in mind the attributes that Americans want and expect to see in a President. Trump fails this litmus test. While it is true that each POTUS is somewhat unique and even in "regime" theory that question, and others should be factored in. The "change regime" of a POTUS is also his relationships and leadership with other world leaders. Among the previous 44 Presidents, this meant our historic allies and even former foes (Japan, Germany) all who share our values and have similar goals. Unique for Trump is the disrespect and recognition of these allies and instead the embracing of "leaders" such as the likes of Putin, Jong-un, and this week Orban. This is not "leadership or a change regime", it is disloyalty, self-serving, and designed for a purpose that is not in the interests of America or it's People.
2
Where does Trump "fit in" to the list of presidents? I'm old enough to be able to remember the regimes of eleven presidents, and I there are none, in my estimation, who have ranked lower-- in every possible way. I never, ever thought I would see a president that would make me look back on Nixon and Reagan with something like *nostalgia*. Trump has the potential to make his mark on history, however-- if he, God forbid, wins re-election, he may very well be America's *final* president.
8
When Republicans nationalized House elections in 1994, they fundamentally changed the political landscape. By moving first, the defined who Republicans are, and Democrats were left to define themselves as "not that." If Republicans are the party of small government, then the Democrats must be the party of big government. If Republicans are the party of national security and law and order, then Democrats must be the party of illegality and disorder. If Republicans are the party for white Americans, then Democrats must be the party against white Americans.
Democrats lost the opportunity to frame the debate and are still scrambling to overcome that deficit.
Trump is the beneficiary of this identity politics because he has a strong base cemented by 2.5 decades of rhetoric.
2
I like the identifying label, "disjunctive presidencies" to describe the service of John Q. Adams, James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, and Jimmy Carter. I am not convinced it applies to 45. But there is something "disjunctive" about 45's supporters. At one of his rallies this past summer a reporter asked an elderly woman wearing a red MAGA hat does she still support the President considering what was happening to children at the Southern Border. She said what happened to those poor children is awful, "I feel for them. They should be with their parents. I support the President." There is this other disjunctive fact, while less than 45% approve of the President, 90% of Republicans support the president. Zeal informs 45's followers more than reason and compassion, head and heart. I fear the zealots will see the "independence of the president from established authority of any kind" as an act of courage, a dream come true and not a nightmare. They are like the citizens in Shirley Jackson's story, "The Lottery", who fail to see the tradition of annually stoning one of their neighbors as evil.
2
How Trump fits in with his predecessors is only part of the problem. More than half of the voters feel that he is incompetent and inherently dangerous for our democracy.
The reason we have Trump can be traced to what happened to our country in the past 60 years. Start with Ronald Reagan, who was the spokesman for America's first corporation, General Electric. GE turned Reagan from a union man to a devout plutocrat. Reagan touted, at GE's urging, that corporations and wealthy individuals needed to take a firmer hold on the economy by using their money to do so. He coined the phrase that "government was the problem, not the solution", thus reversing the democrats' ideas that government can help solve many of American's problems, such as the need for social security in old age and government's need to regulate big business for the benefit of the working class. Unfortunately, the oligarchs and corporatists won out, and the middle class was marginalized by wage stagnation and the loss of workers' benefits. Now we have a population where one percent of Americans have approximately the same wealth as the total wealth of the bottom 50%. Now we have an oligarchy replacing a democracy.
This can be reversed only if the majority of working Americans can once again attain a livable wage, and greedy corporations can be regulated to pay their fair share of the taxes for the common good. That's what will "make American great again."
3
Really? They pay salaries but they’re barely livable salaries. Health care costs and retirement are increasingly shouldered by the employee. Top brass earns unjustifiable multitudes of workers’ pay. These large corporations have also squeezed out small competition and with it, ingenuity.
2
It was versus. Ms. Clinton that Mr. Trump won the four years through which we are now going. Mr. Biden strikes me as equally likely to muck things up in a campaign against Mr. Trump as did Ms. Clinton. Ouch!
At least Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren are intelligent and articulate, which distinguishes them from both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.
Anyway, your faith that Mr. Biden would be more likely to beat Mr. Trump strikes me as wrong. Mr. Biden would be a gift to Mr. Trump. Why do you think the Trump camp is putting out signals that it fears Mr. Biden? Such signals only elevate Mr. Biden and make it more likely that he will be Mr. Trump's opponent. Mr. Biden would be a gift to Mr. Trump.
1
I know this is not academic, but it is as if Archie Bunker was elected, which is surprising because that was so long ago, generations have come along afterward that probably have never even heard of him or his attitudes, Archie did have character, and Edith was a saint.
1
Mr. Edsall's piece holds up how our eroding Democracy has gone from the "shining city on the hill" to a tower of bable. America is now under an incoherent, villainous regime, with no clear hero or hero of clarity in sight. We are buried, not in a rational diversity of letters, but in disparate and fragmented opinions -- in Federal and State Congresses, in the courts; among professors of government, political scientists, political opinion writers, opinion readers, and those of us commenting on commentators commenting(kind of like investigating the investigators).
A perfect example of this fragmented babbling, is the twenty-three-and-counting Democratic candidates running for President in 2020.
America is having a moral heart attack, and rather than a premier cardiology unit to the rescue, we're being offered a bone specialist, a pediatrician, a foot doctor, an ENT physician...Etc., Etc.
3
A most excellent column that describes the autocratic and dangerous precedent the Trump presidency has engendered from Reagan to now. The cyclical theory most interesting and particularly as it relates to the GOP and the enablers of ultra-partisanship in the Congress, courts and states and threatens, not strengthens, our democracy. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this are reflected in the ships ploughing thru the seas to Iran, the tariffs imposed on China by this no-nothing autocrat in the White House. Not to mention children in cages, tax cuts to the uber-wealthy, and the issue of tissue--not real government that would address real problems of the state.
8
Trump is a minority president. He is president because of the electoral college and a terrible opponent. Republicans control many state houses in states where neither party has a great majority because of gerrymandering.
I do nor believe suburban women are going to be solid Republican voters in the future given the self defeating Republican legislative votes in many states to overturn Roe.
Trump's base is going to stay for they were there all along waiting for someone like Trump but their influence will be waning for they are older than the population at large, less educated in a global economy, have a shortened life expectancy and more subject to family dissolution.
If, and it is a big if, the Courts rule against gerrymandering and voter suppression and Trump gets us into an unending trade war or an armed conflict with Iran his loss in 2020 might be a devastating to theRepublican party as Goldwater's was or the post Nixon election.
3
One can only hope you are right. Regardless of political scientists’ theories about his historical status Trump’ s defeat in 2020 is needed by the country and even by the “traditional “ Republican Party so both can rebuild and regenerate.
2
My undergraduate degree is in American Studies and I always wondered what the political climate looked like when a Party ended. I think that may be what I am witnessing here with the the Republican Party. I can’t imagine what the party will look like at the end of Trump’s SECOND term - if it will even be a viable political Party - meaning, can it win elections.
This may have happened not just due to Trump but the Democrats constantly fending off Progressive candidates. They need that energy to get to the next level. The progressives aren’t dying but how long do they wait for the Dems to accept them?
We may end up with a Libertarian Party and a Socialist Party rather than liberals and conservatives or Republicans and Democrats. Or something else, such as the American Workers Party.
3
Interesting concept, but it makes sense. With the fanatical push to amend Roe v Wade, the country is experiencing an attempted forced regression to 1970's. While the 70's were OK, I like the 2010's, I'm thinking most Trump supporters still want that America.
2
"So we have a president with authoritarian instincts in a context of extreme partisan polarization (such that Republicans line up behind Trump no matter what) and weakened norms. That strikes me as quite a bit different — and more threatening — than say, the Carter presidency."
Levitsky is spot on. I don't think you can compare Trump to any other president or era when the old was birthing the new. What Trump is doing, as Pelosi wisely notes, is so far more dangerous because of the way he's testing the limits of government itself.
As many posters and NYT writers have noted, Trump seems the culmination of forces scared witless of coming demographic changes. The problem is, in the process of appealing to those who long for the halcyon days when white males held all the power, Trump has held most of it for himself.
His price for assuaging white fear is shredding the Constitution and ruling by cult of personality, norms be damned..
If Trump gets reelected, I believe we're cooked as a democratic republic. He's managed to exploit loopholes the founders never dreamed of because of his forceful but also perverted sense of self--try stopping that in its tracks.
16
Trump should head to prison where he will fit in very well. Inmates are all innocent of wrongdoing as well.
8
Thank you sooo much for this, Thomas Edsall. I have so needed a nonpolitical calculation of the Trump regime.
2
Donald J. Trump comes in at 46th. With each new President, he will move further down by one.
4
Trump “fits” with our other presidents the same way that Gen. Benedict Arnold “fits” with Gen. Washington, Grant, Marshal, Puller, Mitchell, Meade, Butler, Vandergrift, Sheridan, Sedgwick, Smith, Maude, Dillard, Allen, Roosevelt, Kearny, Wadsworth, Hancock, Barlow, Birney, Rose, Ridgway, McPherson, Reynolds, Logan, Taylor, Sherman, Harrison, Jackson, Doolittle, Devers, Eisenhower, Pershing, Patton or MacArthur — to name just a few; a very, very few.
Trump occupies the same place in our long line of presidents that Benedict Arnold holds in our pantheon of military heroes.
3
- and really?
Comparing Trump to Carter?
How ''disjunctive'' do you have to be to come up with such a comparison?
4
I see hyperbole throughout this article. One wonders if Hillary would also be classified as "disjunctive." No clear winner in the dem lineup yet has the horsepower to defeat Trump. I look forward to reading the opinions of these commentators in 6 years.
1
I simply don't believe that past is prologue in these matters. This is a different era, with different types of forces at work, including a vast demonization and disinformation machine on the right (Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, InfoWars etc.) that has large penetration across society.
So assuming that things will work out like they have in the past in frivolous.
3
Levitsky says that Trump has shown himself "to be a more openly autocratic figure than any disjunctive president I am aware of". Without reducing any opprobrium due Donald Trump, Andrew Jackson exceeded him in autocracy both generally and in several specific examples. Also, though Trump gets a high mark for bigotry, Jackson's program was genocide for Native Americans and slavery for blacks.
5
Yes Professor, it is true that no “rational” individual can contest the incestuous dogma of political and environmental “scientists “. Please stifle that yawn.
2
He's the last - I thought y'all knew that.
3
I'm not a historian, but I'm literate enough to question the legitimacy of comparing Trump's presidency to any other given the pernicious influence of his psychological maladies combined with his profound level of ignorance, or as Bob Dylan once sang in "Idiot Wind," and I paraphrase, it's a wonder that he still knows how to breathe.
3
Debate?
Seriously?
That's like debating whether the aroma of manure is worse than sewage.
The Stable Genius will never rate higher than whale dung.
4
First of all he was not legitimately elected, so he doesn’t “fit in” at all.
5
Let's just focus on basic character. However else we compare him to other presidents, Trump does appear to be the biggest loud mouth jerk of all time.
5
It's more like 1938.
3
It sounds crazy, even to me, but the future of our Republic rests on one simple thing: How women vote in the 2020 election.
2
You summarize, "In this country, independence of the president from established authority of any kind is supposed to be impossible. Its emergence represents, at the very least, an erosion of democracy — a nightmare, not a legacy." This is a similar concern with the election of the European Commision President.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/12/the-eus-next-big-election-is-heading-for-disaster/
Trump and his crime family, corrupt cronies, are destroying our democracy. He will be remembered as an embarassment. Can we get through this without another war? Vote blue no matter who!
3
@Granny
Uh, yeah, it's pretty clear we'll be in a war in a week or 2. It needs to do this so it can prove to other dictators that it is the top dog. And to distract from, and help shut down, investigations of its crimes.
1
Where is my Teddy Roosevelt?
1
Alec Baldwin said Trump’s presidential library will consist of tweets and recipes for chocolate cake.
5
Mitch McConnell has a lot to answer for.
6
How does he fit in? The answer is simple. At the bottom. The worst president in our history.
6
Unfortunately, after he's finally out of office, they'll have to hang a presidential portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. I wonder if there's space in the basement.
1
I fear a big turning point will be when moderate Republicans finally find the behavior of the far right to be too revolting to be affiliated with. But when will that be? In Charlottesville, members of the far right stood around a Confederate Army statue with swastikas on their arms chanting "Blood and Soil" and "Jews Will Not Replace Us" and the next day one of them drove a car into a crowd and killed somebody. Still, the moderates did not distance themselves. How bad will it have to get before the moderates conclude their claims to decency and religiosity are tarnished by such an affiliation?
3
The other--43 Presidents--there are only 44 Presidents ever
Thomas, I seldom disagree with you — and I’m not doing so now — but I was immediately suspect of Skowronek’s assumptions in the “Nation” article, when he describes presidential cycles with this obvious error:
“They are followed by hand-picked successors (Harry S. Truman and George H. W. Bush)”
While the ex-CIA Director Bush fills that role for the obvious purpose of keeping Reagan’s secrets, Harry S. unTruman, was not picked by FDR, but torpedoed by the Democratic Party’s antithesis of FDR’s social democracy project and as a naive haberdasher was installed with FDR’s predictably coming death, instead of socialist Henry Wallace, to insure that a “National Security (state) and Double Government” [Michael Glennon] could install the CIA, NSA, NSC in order to lean strongly back to the path of Imperialism, after FDR’s one brief correction toward social democracy, during America’s decline toward Empire over the century plus era/error from the 1890s “Age of Imperialism” to this 21st century Disguised Global (crony) Capitalist EMPIRE.
2
Donald Trump does not fit in- period. An interloper who rode the waves of bigotry, racism and in the words of MLK:
" ...Sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
Trump actually never fit in where he longed to be, that is, at the center of power, finance and society; he has failed at all three. Crude and ignorant and narcissistically proud. Making up facts & figures; refusing to bother to pronounce or spell correctly- because he doesn't feel the need:
He loves to own without doing any of the hard work; referring to the mechanisms of Federal Government as belonging to him: "My People" and "My Budget."
The only room for him among the others will be a sad sorry footnote saying "Once upon a time- America went crazy"
2
Trump's suit in the picture looks like it fits. Incredible.
He belongs in the column that reads “one term president”.
1
Easy--Trump is like Andrew Jackson (a military hero), except that Trump is also a coward. Trump is more like Andrew Johnson. Trump is good at fooling people. I sppose that is why anyone earning less than $500k per year voted for Trump.
Damnatio memoriae should be his fate, given where he is taking us—name, image, legacy erased. Yet I also agree with an earlier comment that we are in the early stages of a climate/resource collapse. Soon this parasitic man will be only one of our worries.
Two things set Trump apart from all other presidents.
1. Insanity
We've never had a delusional president before, who lives completely in a fantasy world constructed to explain away his deficits: the claim his personal loss of a billion dollars was "sport" & 4 bankruptcies are evidence of "business acumen." He's a pathological liar & huckster protected his whole life by inheriting Fred Trump's fortune & his willingness to smear, sue, belittle & assault his perceived "enemies". Richard Nixon was also paranoid & self-destructive but Nixon was also intelligent & educated - a WWII Navy veteran, he believed in the international order & the rule of law.
When Nixon was caught breaking the law, he resigned.
Trump is the first recognized traitor president, w/a campaign assisted by a foreign enemy state by his own blatant request ("Russia if you're listening...). People find this hard to believe, even in the face of Trump's repeated 'official' meetings w/Putin absent associates, recordings or transcripts. This all transpires in secret - in our faces. There's only 1 possible explanation: Trump's Putin's flunky. Because he's stupid or committed a crime or wants assurances of business in Moscow eventually. But there's a reason Trump has "official" but secretive meetings w/ Putin & secret calls on an unsecured phone that isn't connect to security & W.H. logs.
Both these things make DJT an illegitimate president - & a blatantly dangerous one.
May we never see his like again.
5
I wish we were headed back to 1865, when Lincoln was deciding on a Civil War, and I wish he had decided to just shrug and let the South go its way.
Imagine an America without the five worst slaver states, we would be much, much more decent and united as a country.
Trump, of course, is a creature of the future, that "Blade Runner" time (look it up) when the air and water barely sustain life, when a few oligarchic families run our lives and our nominal "democracy". He is our Boss Hogg, and he is in power, our insane Pope Leo X.
Free speech and the right to assemble and petition our government will be taken from our Constitution, as our right to even know of Obamacare is being erased even as I write this.
I have no confidence in our future, for I have seen our past.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
How does a feral cat stand up to a group of college professors?
Sorry Mr. Edsall, I did not read your article because that person you mentioned is a terrestrial horror show already. So I feel the only place for a fit would be an extra large trash can.
There were only 43 other presidents. Cleveland is counted twice.
A surprising mistake!
As with people in professional sports with dubious careers, after being inducted to Halls of Fame, a very large asterisk needs to go next to hims name.
1
Trump doesn't fit. No one else in this country's history has run for President as a publicity stunt to raise "brand awareness" and sell more stuff.
Trump has never held public office. Not for one minute. He lacks any understanding of the concept of public service. And it's clear he doesn't care, and views himself as a dictator instead of an elected official with duties towards all Americans, not just his white-supremacist base.
Trump is in a class of one: narcissistic, ignorant, incurious, contemptuous of the rule of law, uneducated, impulsive, ungovernable....Oh yes, and 1 other distinguishing characteristic: he's no patriot. He takes money from the Kremlin, lies about it and refuses to turn over his taxes. Our President refuses to make his financial dealings a matter of public record!!
This so-called President has his trip to the trash heap of history already bought and paid for. The only question is whether he will drag the United States of America with him. I wouldn't bet against it.
4
Short Answer: He doesn't.
The only place this president will fit is in the corruption book. We can try to spin this into scholastic analysis to rationalize it but it won’t help because it is not the end of anything, it is the beginning of what the United States looks like under a mafia cartel.
The Trump name should be scrubbed from all history, digital, print, and stone... like the Egyptians did to a couple pharaohs.
That would require erasing a substantial portion of the American electorate.
1
Where he “belongs” is likely behind bars.
2
The absolute worst. He denies constitutional norms and stretches executive power without concern for the roles of the co-equal branches. Only his advisors and cabinet have kept him from going even further. Much of his cabinet does not believe in the executive function for which they are responsible. State has significant ambassadorships open. Housing does not protect those entrusted to it. Forget consumer protection. Treasury permits meddling in the federal banking governors. These are congressionally mandated functions of government funded by Congress and the funding is not spent or mid-spent. He blatantly targets supportive constituencies like funding farmers after Presidential tariffs and adds even more costs to the tax paying public. Of which he is not a member because he claims paying taxes, the backbone of government funding is for idiots. He has kept his businesses in clear Constitutional violation, earning money from foreign governments (emoluments) and creating enormous conflicts of interests including spending taxpayers money at his own properties while outright selling access through dues. And now he completely avoids investigation by the House who has the clear responsibility to do so for the People. This is a partial list of illegal actions that don’t even touch the constant buzz of unethical and immoral behavioral regarding the kidnapping of children, lying to the public, and fanning the flames against citizens of color, religions, and women.
1
That's show biz.
Where does Trump fit in?
Most corrupt.
Most selectively ignorant.
Most embarrassing.
Most hated on the world stage.
Trump is the bottom of the barrel.
3
More distractions. More chaff.
Focus on Iraq. That's the big story today. Of course that would require putting actual work into writing these columns, but do it anyway.
1
"A nightmare" says it all.
1
The question is not rhetorical. Trump belongs as far from Mt. Rushmore as possible.
His visage should hang in the Kremlin near where his interests lie.
2
His library can be a movie theater on Newtown Creek next to the oil terminals.
Following Mr. Skowronek's research, it should be clear The Donald is in no way the end of the Regan cycle. That belongs to W.
No, The Donald is The Donald and the party is now Trump Party. Will it be an anomaly, or has a new cycle taken hold? When he glided down the escalators in 2015, he purposely unleashed the ugly underbelly of America. The Russians exploited it--and him--for their own disruptive gains. 30%+ of American seems more than fine being part of Trump Party.
It also follows that Biden represents the moderate end of the Roosevelt cycle, more than the extension of an Obama cycle. The left side of the Democratic party is too left for independents and what's left of the moderates of the Republican party.
The 2020 election has historical backdrops--and never before faced forces--which will define a new cycle for our fragile republic.
2
I agree with all the statements critical of the ponderous abstractions involved in this analysis. I share the Christianity of some of my Trump-loving relatives, but I finished a bitter conversation with one of them on these lines: "Even if everything you say about an evil, secular America is right, how can you believe that Trump is the man to restore your dreams?"
He replied: "Maybe you're right. Maybe so."
Trump is unique, and uniquely destructive. As somebody else has said in these comments there is nothing absolute about history itself. As a President named Lincoln said, we need to dis-enthrall ourselves, and so do the Conservatives. They are deluded about this man. That is the message that matters.
Individual 1 is illegitimate. This election was hacked, both 2000 and 2004 were stolen, as was a Supreme Court seat.
D.C. is too cocktail-party cozy to enforce the law on billionaires or one another. After the fall of Arthur Anderson, those powers were cowed by the backlash. Oversight is in decline.
I agree with commenters who say the US cannot be viewed in isolation. Technology has made the globe small. The authoritarian movement, coupled with the erosion of all other forms of authority—science, medicine, education, law—is worldwide. This is a global Wild West serving only to distract from the real danger of climate change.
Looks like the autocrats are forming an even bigger club than even The Carlyle Group, or Davos.
Perhaps it is time to recognize the reality of the current state of America. It has become, by both default and design, two separate nations. We have a rural nation that is being left behind at a faster pace than could have ever been contemplated even a decade ago. It has fallen behind economically and educationally while concurrently losing population. Yet, it continues to hold unequal power when it comes to political influence, especially in the Electoral College.
Common sense alone will tell you that a well-educated and economically powerful constituency in this country will not easily rest on the sidelines while lower educated and willfully uninformed individuals play such a dominant role in determining theirs and the country's future. What might have been seen as a necessary compromise to form a government 250 years ago no longer works.
If there is not a Constitutional Convention called soon to at least re-evaluate if not re-calibrate the Constitution, divisions in this country will deepen and we will all be the worse for it. It is not unreasonable to assume that a Trump presidency is merely a warm-up act for other political wannabes waiting on the sidelines.
1
Jackson and Reagan as "great political leaders," the equal of Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR? You gotta be kidding.
Certainly a thought provoking article. And the same goes for the replies as well. Has the thin veneer of civility that sets boundaries for our civic interactions been wiped away by anger and vitriol? You betcha’.
"He is the unwitting agent of reform."
PPPlease, Tom Edsall, take a look at the "Democracy" song.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Cohen sang, "Democracy is coming to the USA." (1992)
Please note all the words of this prophetic song and discuss them.
"Democracy" predicts a new democratic wave of reform, coming.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My sense is that Trump's insane rule is bringing on this wave.
Trump is soo bad, that he is waking up the nation, daily.
Trump is making us feel so uncomfortable with dictatorship.
Yes, I think Trump is the "unwitting agent of reform."
But Democrats must wake up and get involved right now.
Democracy requires constant involvement, by everyone.
We have become so passive, and detached about politics.
But Trump wakes us up, daily and maybe it is a wake up call!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, please see and discuss the words of "Democracy"!
"Sail on, Sail on, O Mighty Ship of State...
Democracy is coming to the USA"
Whatever your politics, let’s hope that Trump is the last baby boomer president. Time for America to catch up to the rest of the world.
2
Nobody really wants to accept the fact that we’re a failed state, albeit one that may be able to keep running on fumes for a while. I don’t want to accept it either, but the fact that a pure con man like Trump could get elected suggests that there is something very very wrong with our country.
We are not a true democracy. We are an oligarchy ruled behind the scenes by a cabal of wealthy families like the DeVoses. The minute they believe that they are no longer able to manipulate democracy to serve their ends, they will end the charade, and impose a theocratic dictatorship. The new anti-abortion laws in Alabama and Georgia are just the beginning.
It is now too late to address climate change, and as the effects get worse, fear and anger will lead to increasing irrationality and the need to find a scapegoat.
As a gay person, I fully expect that at some point, an evangelical President will declare that climate change is God’s punishment on our society for tolerating homosexuality, and will start rounding us up and putting us in concentration camps.
I give it about 10-15 years before we reach that point. I’m planning to get out while I can if I can find someplace that will take me that isn’t likely to go in the same direction.
But maybe I worry too much. Trump is surely going to “pivot” any day now, right?
1
The world is fundamentally changing. The Soviet Union collapsed, China is credibly challenging U.S. world hegemony, technology is reshaping the world economy pushing traditional economic activities and employment structures into decline. Meanwhile, what preoccupies Democrats? Domestic issues: Freebees for minorities, accommodation of unwanted immigrants, transgender rights, calls for constitutional realignment. It's like the outside world, where the real threat is gaining force, doesn't exist for them. It's like stories of the Athenian population attending performances of anti-war plays in the theater while the Spartans besieged the city.
In a very dark way this article reminds me of a Sesame Street ditty from long ago: One of these things is not like the others; one of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell which one is not like the others by the time I finish my song? (0r in the country’s case... before the tentative hold on democratic principles is completely fractured.)
3
When he is out of office, be sure he will have the most magnificent library extolling his achievements while ridiculing the other 44. And I am sure he will want to be buried in a tomb much bigger than Grant's. Maybe will pay millions to buy politicians to build him the grandest statue overlooking the Capitol and a 24x7 military detail.
I know the perfect spot for all of this. It's even got its own airstrip with an 8,000-foot runway, its own McDonald's and plenty of room for world class - WORLD CLASS! - golf. Right on the Caribbean, too. Any guesses?
We don't have any idea what historians will think about Trump. Mr. Edsall’s comment about haters will hate, fits this situation. For two years all we have hear from the Trump haters was that Mueller would nail him for collusion with the Russian. The investigation was absurd and should have been over in weeks or a few months. It lasted 22 months and now we don't hear anything about collusion. Obama said the reason Hillary lost was she ran a soulless campaign. During that time the economy has continued to climb. Unemployment fell to the lowest level in half a century. For African Americans and the Hispanics, the lowest ever. Even the handicapped who were losing jobs, are now increasing jobs by 7-11%. Trump tried to get the nukes out of the Korean peninsula. It may not have worked but he at least tried. Even one of the NYT writers gave him credit for defeating the ISIS Islamic State. His approval may just be 43% but that’s higher than Obama's at the same point in his presidency. But haters must hate so we are now hearing about obstruction but what did he obstruct? Mueller finished his work, Rosenstein’s offer to resign was refused. Comey was fired for not releasing information he knew and not or what he was going to release. When the time that historians take the haters out of the equation, we may see a completely different picture of Trump than now They won’t use a paint of hate to judge him.
No need for endless explanations. The country decided a buffoon, more suited for SNL, had the smarts to become president. This is all you want or need to know about the citizenry.
2
We could be looking at the "Americaners" or white minority rule for some time if Trump wins again or even if he loses. Its a lot easier to believe in Democracy when you are in the majority. What will the "Americaners" do when they lose? Pack the courts? Move south and west, reconstitute Jim Crow, even a new Pseudo-Confederacy with militias? There may be more backlash from them when they lose than when they win. Just saying.
- and when will all these (absurd and hilarious) efforts stop - to philosophical compare ''Something'' (Trump) which is about ''the least philosophical subject'' -(or ''object'') any serious Philosopher could think about?
Sigh. These theories about Trump's presidency make a strong argument for how hopelessly out of touch the academic ivory tower is from reality. There are two overriding reasons for America electing the incompetent, lying braggart who is demolishing America on a daily basis.
1. The "southern strategy" first employed by Republicans some fifty years ago has matured into what is now called the Trump base. For decades Republican politicians and strategists targeted voters on the left side of the Bell Curve with hateful, racist, fear mongering messaging for electoral advantage, then governed by rewarding wealthy and corporate America to the detriment of these voters. Over time the tactics led to increasing numbers of extremist politicians, people who actually believed the extreme messaging, winning elections. The Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Creationism in schools, massive restriction of abortions...Trump just stepped in, eliminated the gauze of coded language and spoke openly to voters primed for decades by deceitful Republican messaging.
2. The internet and the expanded cable news environment. When unsophisticated voters can silo themselves into a Fox News cocoon and never hear anything that challenges their biases, drastic polarization results. Social media algorithms feed these biases, as do malicious foreign entities.
Trump is merely a symptom of deep rot that has infested America's foundation.
2
Slight correction: There have been 43 other people who have been President...44 other Presidencies. To the historians I say relax, and admit that there has never been another President like Trump....Jackson and TR come close. The Country is in good hands.
To avoid another "nightmare," people must go to the polls and vote! This upcoming election will be the most important one in the history of our Republic if we want to remain free!!
How does trump fit in with the Presidents? Oh, that’s easy.
He’s the last one.
1
A know-nothing who will blindly sign tax cuts for billionaires and nominate religious extremists to the federal courts. Exactly what Republican millionaires and evangelical zealots thought they were getting with the likes of GW Bush and Sarah Palin.
What they overlooked in their zealous & greedy march to Trumpism is that he's also a veteran crime boss with psychological impairments.
2
Given the preponderance of evidence, how could anyone not rate Trump as a dangerous, traitorous, authoritarian whose goals have little to do with our republic and a lot to do with enriching himself and stroking his perverted ego. If this isn't the worst U.S. president, then who is?
The republican party has become a hive and Donald Trump is its Queen. Note how republicans act as those slave bees do who's only aim in life is to protect the Quenn when she is laboring to produce. Trump has replaced Reagan's conservative ideology. We have a new hive now and it is a wretched one indeed.
1
I fail to see the relevance of placing Trump along side or in relation to any of the previous Presidents (especially so early). He is a product of our electorate, the voters. Frankly, I believe the smart voters and the voters that actually care about our future as a nation woke up two years ago. If anything, Trump has already proven to be the greatest stimulant to our Democracy of all our Presidents. I doubt many can disagree with that.
I think we also need to take into consideration generational shifts, not just ethnic and racial demographics. Millennials/Gen-Z now outnumber both Boomers and Gen-X. They are also more politically active than either group at the same age. The fact of the matter is their views and preferences are going to dominate the political landscape eventually. Those views and preferences certainly don't reflect Reaganism on the left or the right.
Trumpism doesn't rank high on the list either. His support is in the 20s among young voters. Most of which I attribute to racial animus, adolescent contrarianism, and parental or religious pre-programming. Whatever Trump represents, he's not going to be around for long without a complete democratic collapse. Not an unrealistic possibility given the rapidly increasing decay in the Senate.
The question of course is what comes next. Republicans will probably live to regret their authoritarian expansion of executive power under Trump. Imagine Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez operating with the same disregard for established authority. Senate or no, that's the way things are headed.
Republicans might not have the Senate either. We can already imagine a future where California corrects the Senate's power imbalance by dividing into multiple states. That's a messy solution but the possibility is very realistic.
And here is my own little theory... Presidents oscillate between wonk and ideologue. Trump is a relatively extreme version of ideologue, following in the footsteps of 8 years of wonkishness, preceded by 8 years of a moderately ideological administration, and it goes on. Looking forward, this begs the question "Have we had enough ideological leadership (if so them Biden?) or do we want more (is so the Sanders, more Trump?).
Jimmy Carter has always been a good man who loves his country and people and shouldn't be on any list with trump who is the polar opposite.
11
@Philip W
Thank you. Carter is all about decency and integrity. We could sure use some of that these days.
4
The idea that we are actually discussing Donald Trump, a fraud and cheat, in context with other presidents is extremely depressing. That Trump and the GOP may actually destroy our democratic processes goes beyond depressing. When Nixon came along and attempted to distort our democracy we forced him out of office. But now a man far worse than Nixon is given the reigns of power and in articles like this actually celebrated, perhaps negatively but celebrated none the less.
I am feeling very old at this point and in the end it will be the younger generation that will decide whether we have a working democracy or whether Trumpism is a permanent fixture. Will there come a time when voting or actually caring about others is just an antique memory?
It is interesting to see analysis from *pundits* about how the country will get through this and come out the other side with some type of improvements. Sorry, but there is no guarantee that will happen. Societies can collapse. Trump has unwittingly accelerated problems that may hit tipping points within a few decades. Debt and anthropogenic climate change are not going to be magically fixed after Trump is gone. They will be closer to being insoluble.
(Trump is an outlier as he is the first president of either party to praise Russia and praise Putin. The GOP really doesn't care what Trump's agenda is in doing so. Very strange.)
The author quotes Balkin, and seems to agree, that "the complacent oligarchy that strangles our democracy" will go gently into this good night.
I'm not holding my breath. The oligarchy is anything but "complacent". They will move heaven and earth to continuing strangling our democracy, and they have the power and the motive to kill it off completely.
The theory that politics is like a pendulum that swings from the left to the right every eight years doesn’t align with reality. The reality includes changes in the Supreme Court and the lower courts, changes in Senate rules and traditions, the politicization of vast numbers of religionists, and the weaponization of social media. A wiser president could have moderated these trends. Trump is not wise. He is an utterly amoral and divisive opportunist. And for that reason, in any forced ranking of presidential leadership, historians will have no choice but to rank Donald Trump as
THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
2
Not clear that all this deep analysis is warranted to understand what is happening today.
The GOP has long ago become the party of opportunity, that is seizing any opportunity to serve its plutocratic masters. Trump for all his offensiveness offers yet one more bite of the apple. He is perfectly acceptable as long as Republicans can funnel their agenda through him.
Trump on the other hand is a low rent gangster whose long term interests are best served if he can amass power and remain in office at least until he has destroyed our mechanisms for accountability. Regardless it is hard to see his actions are driven by coherent thought.
There is nothing surprising in the GOP acceptance of an obviously unfit president. Nor is there anything surprising in Trump's erratic and offensive behavior.
These things have been writ large for a long time. Nothing transformative to any of it. Nor is there much behind it other than the selfishness common to our worst politicians and some of our citizenry.
This is an excellent assemblage of reasoned opinions, but I hope Trump is a one off president but who is dragging the Republican party down a rutted road with him straight to the swamp. Unfortunately I see Trump as a transformative president. Has any president been as untutored, as brazenly mean, power mad and a self-serving narcissist? I fear it is the Democrats who are bickering and may blow themselves up with the likes of Ms Ocasia-Cortez acting like the left-wing version of Ted Cruz in his first year. I am in my 70's, a year old than Trump, and I have doubts I will live to see the reversal. I am also pessimistic because I live in a state no longer purple but all in for red, NC. I now longer live in the land of Elizabeth Warren but Mark Meadows. Scary.
Why so many people are dismissive of academics:
"Balkin and Skowronek contend Trump falls into the same disjunctive category as Hoover and Carter, leading Balkin to argue that
Trump’s greatest gift to the country is the gift of destruction — not of the country, but of the coalition he leads and the complacent oligarchy that strangles our democracy. The greatest irony of a fool like Trump is that by betraying his working-class base and wrecking his party, *he may well help make American democracy great again*. He is the unwitting agent of reform."
1
Trump is less likely the end of something than the beginning of something. Also, amid all the factors discussed in this article, gerrymandering isn't mentioned. A belligerent minority is reinforcing its power by rendering Democratic votes useless.
Whether disjunctive or not, Trump represents the corruption that has overtaken our government and our political system.
His is the culmination of corrupt politics - not only federal, but state and municipal elected and appointed officials.
There simply is no integrity or ethical conduct remaining.
The author is complicating something that is actually pretty simple. Trump is an unfiltered guy who lets us all hear what his inner voice is saying. Traditional politicians, in this PC climate full of media outlets parsing every word, are very different—they speak in generalities so as not to be cornered, try very hard to avoid offending anyone, and so effectively say nothing. (Watch video of the GOP debates and this is clearly reflected.) Trump was different and was clear—even in his often inarticulate language, about his goal—To make America great again by fixing the immigration crisis, by putting America first economically, and by appointing conservative judges. Trump also looks far more like America than many other politicians. Many conventional politicians talk as if they are living in the days of Leave it to Beaver—even as they spend their evenings watching the sex, violence and darkness of Game of Thrones. Trump is the perfect President for an America as deeply dysfunctional as it i. He is in many ways the very kind of man that the rebellious baby boomers tried to create—if it feels good, do it. Finally, the notion that he is an autocrat who is changing the GOP for the long term is false. Remember that Obama aggressively used Executive Orders to bypass Congress to accomplish his goals. He is now gone just as Trump will be gone in 1 year or 5. In any case, the issue is not Trump. What will determine the future of this country is the character of the American people.
1
For a few years it has been apparent the American experiment is probably nearing its end. Aiding in the country's demise, two political parties, one committed to ending democracy, the other too stupid to defend it.
We had a good run.
1
These erudite theories are fine in attempting to explain the historical place different presidents and their administrations fit into and the last sentence is most concerning - "a nightmare, not a legacy." To be sure, at this point in time, the words are prophetic. Trump is the dupe and flunky for a GOP party that McConnell, Ryan and other stellar ultra conservative post Regan era holdovers have continued to support. The problem is that the miscreant Trump is out of the cage and empowered by blind adherents, dark money, and his insatiable need for power, unconditional loyalty and adulation will only go in the most unpredictable and dangerous directions as witnessed by his abysmal accomplishments and his unrelenting obsessive quest to destroy anything related to the Obama years. His legacy: a failed destructive tenure, a place in history as one of our worst presidents, and unprecedented damage which will take quite some time to bounce back from.
If Trump loses the electoral college by a few points in a few regions, he will likely demand a recount. Should the initial results stand, he will likely contest them in court. If he loses in court, he will likely claim judicial bias and push it to the Supreme Court. After that...well, therein lies the rub.
I find it hard to believe that even Trump would risk challenging a Supreme Court ruling, especially since 2 of the justices have been confirmed during his presidency. But with this guy, it's hard to tell.
On the other hand, if the election is a shutdown for him, that's that. He made a serious tactical error by instigating a trade war with China. If it hits his supporters in the pocketbooks hard enough, they may start to change their tunes, no matter how badly they want to stick it to China.
First, I am tired of articles that have multiple quotes and excepts. They are annoying to read. Secondly, it's too early to discuss a regime change. What we have in the White House is a former reality TV star and failed real estate mogul acting as president. To have a regime change, the leader needs to have a clear political vision and strategic thinking, neither of which Trump has. He is not a political animal as much as an egoist who sees the world as winners and losers. He is running for 2020 to prove some kind of legitimacy, which has never been there in the first place. I think Mr. Edsall is confusing regime change with blatant corruption of the GOP and their enablers. You don't need political theory to understand that.
1
Any discussion of the Reality Show Con Artist as if he is a real person and a real President underscores that few people understand the depths of the fraud we have elected.
He was never running for President; he was running for ATTENTION which is the most valuable currency of the 21st century.
As his lawyer said, this was an "infomercial" and he never wanted it to sell as many products as it did. He would be much happier bilking the rubes with his own TV Network.
His election, to a job he never wanted, says more about our celebrity culture and the rise of Social Media than it does about where he fits with other Presidents.
Even the Vichy GOP, who are propping up this charade, know he is unfit for the job.
Speaker Pelosi, who also has stated even he knows he is unfit for the job, gives him too much credit when she says he won't step down.
Of course he will leave. He is a fake tough guy (who is so fragile he hides behind a phone and won't even fire someone face to face) who will complain but will be greatly relieved to be leaving the Oval Office for more lucrative speaking opportunities.
1
Trump’s enablers like McConnell, Graham and the knuckleheads in Congress plus his unthinking and unwavering base are laser-focused on Trump’s malevolent domestic policies which includes packing the courts at any cost, maintaining Trump’s cruel immigration policies and giving rich people tax breaks. But, as the Trump regime tries to navigate the world outside our borders, particularly now as the sabers are being rattled about Iran, voters must think seriously about what it will mean for our country and democracy if the United States has no allies.
Trump and his allies have been able to accomplish what the Communists of the old Soviet Union were unable to do in this country-radical division of our people, to the point of contempt for each others' views and indeed for other people with whom we disagree, fracturing the norms of civilized society. How can our people not recognize a protofascist, a person with clear, anti-democratic tendencies? Trumpism represents a new low in the American experiment, divisive and dangerous both to our democracy and to our relations with other nations.
Though this Administrations actions, I perceive Trump to be a domestic terrorist. Although a war has not been declared by Congress, we are at war nevertheless. Trump has declared war on our environment, our economy, and our morality. He has given aid and comfort to our enemies while shunning and attacking, verbally,economically, and politically, our friends and allies. At home, while he has given away the store to his wealthy friends and family, he is literally stealing rights, safety nets, increased the pillage of federal lands. Taken from the poor and given to the rich. Tax laws to enrich himself , family and friends. For personal and financial gain, he calls the murderers, “bone saws” and former kgb agent Putin friends, hides their evil deeds. Gang GOP has become his co-conspirators in these in democratic times. Vote blue everyone in 2020.
Our democracy has been in trouble for decades and Trump's election has only made it worse, although Clinton was not a great alternative.
Ask the man-in-the-street, which I have a disposition to do, and the general consensus is that most politicians have very interest in anything but themselves, their reelection and their legacy.
Obama is a case in point. He totally bailed on two wonderful initiatives: 1) His bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility & Reform, and 2) His bipartisan Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. His first trip out of the country upon leaving the White House was on Necker Island with Richard Branson. While there he never spoke about or probably even knew that the islanders want their independence from Great Britain. You figure!
Compromise in Congress at the very best is in their Omnibus bills. They compromise by balancing extremist liberal and extremist right-wing legislation.
Election winners with only slight majorities want to totally crush their opposition. These are extremely sick notions of very sick people. There is little if any respect for substantial minority thinking. Even the media gets caught up in this trap of wanting total domination of every thought that our citizens might have. At the very best, they tell only the truths: but rarely the 'whole truth'. That's the most grave sin in some Christian religions.
In any event, we probably have the best system in the world . . . but it still is decadent.
Skowronek said a mouthful with "a personality disorder," in reference to Trump.
For over two years, I have I firmly believed Trump is crazy! This takes Trump out of the historical norm.
How it is all going to end up I don't know. Dealing with Trump irrational mind is impossible.
PS I grew up in the 1930s and 40s in a Republican family, but when the Republicans dumped Rockefeller, I became an Independent and have remained one since.
The problem with this kind of analysis is that it puts too much emphasis on and attributes too much power to exclusively to Trump. The party infrastructures and underlying agendas are arguably more critical factors shaping the Trump presidency than the empty vessel they facilitate. McConnell's almost maniacal focus on reshaping the judiciary, the donor class' battle with regulation, and evangelicals single-issue abortion obsession are what enables Trump to strut like a dictator. The rise of white supremacy and the degradation of our international leadership/diplomacy is the real price of those profoundly undemocratic, internal-facing obsessions.
1
Honestly, I think if he doesn't belong in jail, he certainly should be condemned to dead last in the series of 45. He is best at being worst.
Incompetence is well represented in that 45, but he adds to it a level of malignant self-interest and toxic ego, which when coupled with the instantaneous broadcasts of his sophomoric ideas via the internet, is socially damaging to a degree never previously seen.
Eisenhower was my first president. In my lifetime, arguably even Nixon was superior to Trump, who also makes the younger Bush seem a towering advocate of responsible public service and a comparative genius.
I expect him to lose in 2020. I do not expect him to shut up. It may be necessary to throw him in confinement to throttle his destructive behavior once he is out. The model of the quiet ex president is not one he will likely embrace. Fortunately, he's got a pretty good pile of what appear to be criminal offenses to choose from post-election. If the republic survives his accidental and horrible tenure, the remnants of the FBI and DOJ will be busy, and I hope, successful.
No one imaginable is less qualified to hold this job. No one is less interested in his country or his fellow citizens. No one is less able to comprehend the world around him, and no one could be more useful to those who want to turn away from the America of the founders. He is an unmitigated disaster.
" Trump’s greatest gift to the country is the gift of destruction — not of the country, but of the coalition he leads and the complacent oligarchy that strangles our democracy. The greatest irony of a fool like Trump is that by betraying his working-class base and wrecking his party, he may well help make American democracy great again. He is the unwitting agent of reform."
Basically, well put. However, I feel it's safe to say without a doubt, Trump is in a 5th category, one self-defined and designed to throw out all other rules, except his own. Yet, a very necessary President, based on your research or presumed theory. In turn, with all his bluster, under the surface something entirely different is going on and in time may prove our deliverance to a whole new era, of Peace and Prosperity. It's just a hunch or a gut feeling on my part and I didn't vote for him. The people know this and he is the Blue collar billionaire, but they don't fault him for his wealth. He doesn't play shell games like the democrats, he plays to win and there's a lot more to him than we, you and I give him credit for. As learned men, you should start taking the media to task for their inability to be fair with the real truth and present the facts and let the chips fall where they may. We cannot allow ourselves to be held in bondage of the truth, it is destroying America and he may be the only salvation. Thank you,
This is an incredibly scary article. I shouldn't have read it before breakfast. Trump and his sycophants might make a good title for a horror movie. I, however, am not enjoying this show in D.C. I frankly do not think we could survive another term with this group. I believe the Democrats had better begin working very hard on a plan to defeat this gang in the next election.
1
It is literally impossible to rate Trump at this time, as he elicits such strong emotions, EVERYONE is biased.
Time will tell. I know, I will get trolled demanding examples of anything positive that can be attributed to the man. But over the course of time, many past beloved presidents have become tainted (FDR, Kennedy), and many despised presidents become newly respected (Reagan).
No, I'm not comparing Trump to Reagan. Trump is a bully, a liar, annoying and boorish. Trump's economic and Foreign policies may be disasters, or they may be G-d sends. We just wont know for about 10-20 years. Time always has a way of sorting everything out.
1
In summary, Trump realizes that, by definition, 50% of the population has below average intelligence.
So, he uses only one-syllable words, and repeats an equally simple message over and over again. He knows that "repetition is the mother of memory" so he drills the words into his base.
Then he bullies and name-calls the elite top 50%.
Then 50 spineless senators, mostly from the rural states, realize he speaks to their constituents (just as they did) and therefore bow to him to retain their seats. So, we now have the dumb and dumber.
1
@Samm . I call it condescending simple-speak, which puts him at right about 5th grade on the playground with repeated offenses year after year after year, wearing out classmates, teachers, and administrators alike. Suspend, then expel. It's the only way...
3
Trump belongs in jail. Seriously. He has usurped the position of POTUS to use it as a trap door to escape from the innumerable crimes he has committed throughout his life, before and after being elected to the ultimate trap door through demonstrated chicanery and criminality.
He belongs with the likes of Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, rather than in any comparison with a legitimate President.
1
Trump's unique distinction as a U.S. president is the apparent relationship between his attempts to expand the power of the office and his (and/or his relatives') apparent need to avoid felony tax evasion charges. (There is no statute of limitations on civil tax fraud.)
Apart from that problem, if he belongs in a class with any other president, it probably would be Warren Harding (with reference, e.g., to the 10/28/2018 NYT Leonhard & Philbrook opinion, "Trump's Corruption: The Definitive List -- The many ways that the president, his family and his aides are lining their own pockets").
Trump is not the worst president.
We were the worst electorate.
He told us what he was going to do and still he got 60 million votes.
I know Hillary wasn't the best candidate and many things happened that even further doomed her campaign. Russian interference, Wikileaks and Comey's unprecedented coming out right before the election were other factors that contributed to Hillary's loss.
Yet I still believe Americans were conned by the greatest huckster ever and he won. Now who is worse the conman or the people who believed in the conman's lies and divisive rhetoric?!
I fear this is not a lesson people will have learned but instead this will be a template for future candidates to follow to win the highest office in the land.
Trump has laid the groundwork for a winning strategy and unless Americans forcefully and in great numbers turn against his reelection then all bets are off to a reset of some normalcy in American politics.
1
Donald Trump's elevation to the presidency does not fit in to any cycle of American political history. The Republican party lost its moral compass in the 2016 election. It nominated and elected a man uniquely unfit for office and after two years of deceit, bullying, incompetence, scandal, self aggrandizement and treason still supports him unconditionally.
Comparing the Trump administration to those of Herbert Hoover or Jimmy Carter is absurd. Normalizing the Trump administration in any way is foolish and dangerous.
Too soon?
Yes..too soon.
What you will discover when you look upon this presidency with a clear mind and non-vengeful purpose are a few things.
1) The "Establishment" really doesn't like to have their cheese moved.
2) The energy portion of our economy has enormous potential to drive GDP by another 1% if allowed to work without a boot on its throat.
3) Taxpayers like having more of their own money vs. giving it to the government where the people in government think it's a sin if they allow said taxpayers to keep more of their own money.
4) Other countries will push us around if we don't have the intestinal fortitude to stand strong for American values, even if we're wrong on occasion.
5) Russia, Iran and China are all playing the long game vs. our 2-4 year cycle of insanity where the other guy is not simply a fellow citizen who may be wrong on some of the issues; they are our mortal enemy...worse than the Chinese, Iranians or Russians.
Truthfully...a question for Progressive NYT readers.
Do you hate people who voted for Trump more or less than Russians, Iranians and Chinese...all of whom are happy as a clam that we're aiming our guns at each other instead of them?
@Erica Smythe
Well said.
Just bc Trump is despicable doesn't mean everything he does is wrong. Trump has that kind of personality that makes everyone think with their emotions, making true evaluation of his efficacy unreliable.
Why would anyone even think to compare a hardened life long criminal like Trump with any of the other presidents, particularly the contemporary ones? There is no comparison.
When will the media awaken to the fact that every single word they devote to that criminal that does not specifically refer to him as a criminal is doing a disservice to our nation?
Would you refer to Al Capone as President Capone? No you would refer to him as the criminal who occupies the office of president. Most people would never dignify the office by referring to a criminal as president!
Since late 19th century Progressivism, all Presidents have been collectivist, more or less, of one kind or another. The ideological individualism of the Founders is done and gone. And wont return except with an intellectual revolution. See _Atlas Shrugged_ for more.
“It would therefore be silly to assume that the context in which we are operating in 2019 is easily comparable to those of 1924-28 or 1976-80.”
What about 1856-1860!?! Am I the only one who, reading this fine piece, noted the inclusion of Buchanan. The end of his regime ushered in the Civil War.
The reassuring thought that five to 10 years from now all will be well sort of skips over what might come in between. Sure, by 1870 everyone was done with the large scale killing (KKK terrorism was of course on the rise), but I don’t think they just looked back happily and said, “What was that all about? Anyway, good times are here now, and that’s all that matters.”
A walk in the silent sadness at Gettysburg, or Antietam, or Shiloh should remind us that what happens next, and how, in fact matters a great deal.
1
As I read these comments there are many of which voice concerns of mine. That being said we are all just preaching to the choir. The majority of Trump supporters get their news through their friends interpretation of what they read on social media. Few of them will read a newspaper and even fewer the NYT. Trump needs to be defeated by the ballot box, otherwise we will never hear the end of his whining. The 20+ democrats need to sit down, compare notes and come up with a platform that will unite this divided nation. They need to decide who is best to remove trump from office and have that person run with a partner that is capable of continuing the reuniting of The United States after the initial eight years has run its course. The Republican party needs to get back to helping the people that they represent.
Excellent article. You presented a lot of information in an well organized manner. Thanks.
It is almost impossible to compare this false and dishonorable avatar to the real men who held the role of president as servants of our country and our future. Trump is not a real man, but a flat static emoji. A superficial icon of the confused identities wrought on the internet.
Too much high level and silly analysis. Doesn't the decade-plus failure of congress to deal with many critical issues, and the gerrymandering of districts by the Republicans make a POTUS like Trump inevitable? D.C. has been in a state of near gridlock for how many years now? Even during other times of political upheaval, the sixties come to mind, congress still compromised and produced a legislative work product. Doesn't the long-time frustration of many on the left, in the center and on the right lead directly to a POTUS like Trump?
I know...he doesn't fit in because he's the first individual "elected" who didn't actually want the job. He ran on a lark as a brand building exercise and whoops (!) was installed by the electoral college. We as a nation will suffer this for many years.
Reading this piece, I thought of what Winston Churchill once said: "I did not become Prime Minister to preside over the end of the British Empire." But the Empire essentially ended with the end of World War II and the Churchill Era, and Britain entered into a new political paradigm. If that is to be the fate of the Reagan Era under President Trump, the new paradigm might be the one that Prof. Levitsky warns against, namely a tyranny that virtually destroys democracy in America. Or it might be the paradigm that Donald Trump warns against, namely a socialism that virtually destroys the economic engine that made America the world's preeminent power. Or it might be something else --- something I cannot now conceive.
There were 43 presidents before Trump, not 44, since Grover Cleveland was only one president, even though he served two non-consecutive terms.
2
And Reagan is misspelled in this paragraph:
In “Democracy and Dysfunction,” a book published last month that Balkin wrote with the constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson, Balkin describes the Trump administration as a “disjunctive” presidency, the last gasp of the vanishing Regan era that began in 1980.
The literary critic Harold Bloom. once predicted that Harry Potter would be forgotten in 10 years. He said that in 1997. Ten years later, in 2007, Harry Potter was more popular than ever, thanks to the movie series.
Disguising one's personal opinions as a prediction of what the "future will say" is a cheap rhetorical trick. It sounds impressive and cannot be refuted until the future rolls around.
The savants here want to think that Republicans' current power is "the last gasp of a decadent regime". I'd like to think so, too, but I'm not going to pretend that I can see the future. For all I know, the current corruption of our government may BE the future.
6
the theory may have some truth in it, but it omits a different dynamic. Trump is not only a problem, but also a symptom of how the structure of our system of electing presidents has become badly disfunctional. The democratization of primaries has brought disaster, as each party gravitates to its center rather than to the nation's center. The evils of the electoral college, and its cousin gerrymandering, are well known. The combination of these structural defects with the context of globalization and its cousin ever-greater inequality in income is dynamite. I think it's clear that this picture of the problem is far more relevant than any theory of long-term alternation.
How we fix the structure while its democracy-killing results are ruling all three branches of government is quite a question.
3
This is a great compilation of Political Science thought about the current political situation. There is also a lot of food for thought that historians need to absorb.
2
Excuse me, point of order. There were only 43 previous presidents. Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and the 24th president.
I will never understand why Reagan is considered a great leader. He led the beginning of the downfall of caring about citizens, the beginning of “greed is good”, the beginning of the end of unions, and respect for the working people of the US.
10
Worst thing Reagan was ever quoted as saying: "I hope you're all Republicans," to his surgeons. And please note the word *quoted.* I don't blame Reagan for saying it, but why didn't that remark stay in pre-op?
The people who disseminated that quote far and wide should be held to account for suggesting that Democrats are untrustworthy at best, traitors at worst.
@Tricia and ...for dismantling the Fairness Doctrine.
The Reagan administration also counted ketchup as a vegetable when they were discussing cuts for the school lunch budget.
It's a bit like discussing the wrecking ball's contribution to architecture. You can rationalize and say the wrecking ball leads to rejuvenation, economic stimulus due to new construction, and innovative new materials. But in the end it's just a wrecking ball.
15
We are facing an unfortunate confluence of three forces that weaken our democracy:
First, our Constitution is not as a strong a document as we thought, and the system of government it creates is inherently unstable. Power is too fragmented between state and federal governments and, within the federal government, between House, Senate, President, and Courts. This creates a power void that is most easily filled by the President. Ambiguity about the powers and role of each group creates more problems, as does a system of representation that can allow a minority party to dominate the government as long as its voters are distributed advantageously.
Second, the main factors that prevented the flaws of the Constitution from revealing themselves in the past—the respect for norms as well as the regional divisions that kept politics more local than national—have disappeared. This is a direct result of our politics becoming a national marketing effort, where policy is replaced by slogans and where parties have a national brand to which all members must stay true.
Finally, the global economic system is coming under tremendous stress, with rising wealth inequities, growing financial insecurity, mass migration, unstable communities, and a looming environmental catastrophe. This creates large dissatisfied populations looking to tear everything down.
Trump isn't "disjunctive"—he's something new: call it "exploitive." He instinctively recognizes weakness and knows how to exploit it.
15
It is easy to agree that Trump is destroying our democracy, but it is difficult to accept this writer's concomitant notion that out of the funeral pyre where democracy is consumed there will arise a strengthened democracy like a phoenix out of the ashes. Might this not be more like the fall of the Eternal Empire where the Fall of Rome led to the Dark Ages?
5
As far as Trump is concerned there is only one solution to his tenure. Lock Him Up!
And then Lock Up every Republican in the Congress who helped him Obstruct Justice. Start with Mitch McConnell
All this Academic talk will not put us back on track or repair our Democracy.
The only thing left is Impeachment proceedings. I hope they are going to happen right after the House hold in Contempt and jails all of those who ignored the subpoenas. as instructed by Trump and the White House.
Forget the next election right now and straighten out this extreme threat to our Democracy. If the Senate decides not to back up the House, then we will know that the Republicans and the GOP is not acting to protect us from the enemy within, which will be them.
2
@Jean I agree!
1
@Lock Him Up
Thank you.
It seemed we threw out the baby with the bath water beginning in the 60s. Wrong.
Today Trump is even throwing out the baby bath water too! Now there is little left of past America. The bathtub is empty.
What will fill that void? Something most definitely will. It always does. Right now that seems both a daunting task with fearful
uncertainties.
We have been there before in our nation and survived. We must shore up to this task as never before or we lose our great country.
1
An excellent article. But when Trump leaves office and he will leave office, the repair from his disastrous policies can begin. Trump and his minions can then become the historical flotsam they deserve.
2
What makes you so sure he will leave office? He’s already signaled that he won’t and threatened to use violence to maintain his grip on power.
1
Balkin believes, "the present will seem like a distant, unhappy nightmare, or an illness from which one has recovered" after Trump goes away.
If only.
That, like many of the arguments in this thought-provoking piece, seem to treat Trump and the now radical right GOP as the disease when, I believe, they are symptoms of the disease.
When Trump, Barr, McConnell and Jim Jordan finally slink away into that political good night, their base will be offered updated, potentially more dangerous, human threats to the framers' republican form of government.
There are in this century, institutions that did not exist in previous disjunctive eras. We have Fox News, social media and internet hate sites dedicated to praying upon the proudly uneducated and intellectually lazy.
That base will continue to be cultivated by both domestic and foreign threats to democracy and the rule of law until a cultural renaissance occurs among American voters.
3
Does anyone really care how we decide to categorize past presidents, or whether or not we should make a new category for Trump?
2
It is too soon to characterize the presidency of Donald Trump and what it might lead to. However, we can remind ourselves of several facts. He is a minority president, having been elected with three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Therefore, he doesn't represent the will of the majority of U.S. citizens. Since his election, instead of reaching out to voters who rejected him, he has done the opposite.
As president, he has sought to acquire more power by appointing cronies and relatives to staff the White House and Cabinet and by ignoring legitimate requests from Congress as well as laws passed by previous Congresses and signed by previous presidents.
In sum, after two years in office, he has become a tyrant unlike other American presidents but like some foreign leaders, such as el Sisi, Asad, Orban, and Netanyahu. He doesn't fit any of the theoretical schemes discussed by Mr. Edsall, because he is sui generis. He can't be compared with Carter, Hoover, or any other president.
We therefore shouldn't wait for the Trump presidency to play out and see what comes next. To quote historian, H.R. Trevor Roper, "After all, as some sage philosopher once observed, the irresistible is very often merely that which has not been resisted." If so, we should begin impeachment hearings.
4
The lede, Mr. Edsall will forgive me, strikes me as a non sequitur. It assumes that Trump somehow falls in a range of chief executives in a democracy. It's slowly becoming clear that we no longer have a democracy in the United States. We have an oligarchy, and one that's becoming increasingly autocratic under the most mendacious demagogue this country has ever seen come to power. It would be more appropriate to compare Trump with his fellow plutocrats such as Putin.
If the House does not impeach Trump very shortly, we will have no democratic institutions left in this country, and, I fear, we'll also be at war.
17
@Wiltontraveler Even if trump is impeached, he will not be convicted by the currently constituted senate. The majority consist of immoral, indecent cohorts of trump who are unable to see the dangerous degrading of our country. Maybe they will see it if trump is reelected and then declares himself an emperor. After all he has already declared that he can pardon himself. Have you forgotten?
The sad part is that the courts as presently constituted may agree with him.
2
@Solon Conviction is beside the point: impeachment affords certain kinds of investigation that more usual procedures lack. It also covers Trump's candidacy under a pall that will be difficulty to wish away.
1
I'd put him in the top half. You might be surprised at this.
I don't like his character. I don't like him at all, but he's not that bad as a president.
I think he's given us a very strong place on foreign affairs, and he's taken a hard line on trade with China. He put the leader of NK in his place.
All in all, top half, in my estimation.
2
@DudeNumber42 He is bad. Bad to the core of his being. Great leaders symbolize our greatest aspirations. They inspire our children. They bring diverse populations together. They demonstrate moral fortitude. When ethical norms are violated the underpinnings which hold up our collective whole begin to collapse. That is what Trump represents...
1
I beg to differ. In matters of foreign affairs we have most often found success by cultivating coalitions across a wide spectrum of allies. Trump has thumbed his nose at the notion we even have allies. And as Bolton leads him into yet another quagmire in the Middle East, Trump will be hard pressed to find anyone who is willing to go along with this farce (even the brits are shaking their heads on this one).
You must be kidding! He is a chaos president who has no idea what he is doing. He wants to move the US & the world back to the 50’s. That may look like it’s good for the US worker but the rest of the world is not going back! We need to go forward!
And BTW, he did not put the NK leader in his place, he gave him legitimacy by meeting with him twice. The trade war with China is not going to be ‘easy to win’. The Chinese are nationalistic too & they certainly remember the bad ways they were treated by the West in the past.
1
Most chilling about this article is that the Skowronek/Balkin thesis is shown to be inadequate to explain Trump, and that we as a country have veered off course and are headed directly into the rocks. The final paragraphs lay bare the disaster we are entering. And Clintonistas: Russia has nothing to do with it.
Biden v. Trump? 50/50 at best.
4
This piece focuses on the wrong side of the problem.
The problem is not that Trump is not a supporter of Democracy, it is that he is the product of the very core of our Democracy: voted into office by the Electoral College doing the exact job it was designed for, that is, empowering the smaller states and their voters.
The problem is the Democrats. Before the election they were all worrying "when he loses, will be 'accept' defeat?"
The actual problem is, when Hillary in fact DID lose, whe and the Democrats actyally didn't "accept" defeat. Instead they
are trying to generate a genuine coup.
THAT is what we should be worried about!
@Doug McDonald I guess you are not concerned that a foreign power has attempted to interfere with our political system. Would it suit you if Putin was declared winner of the election?
@Doug McDonald Doug - No you are mistaken! You don't understand what we Democrats are fighting against. We deplore Trump's dishonesty and disdain for common decency. His ten thousand plus lies, autocratic instincts, contempt for our Constitutional principles, embrace of authoritarian strong men like Putin, Kim Jong-Un, and Erdoğan betray American values. He is a bully and a racist who supports white supremacists. He uses the machinery of the state against vulnerable men, women, and children seeking a better life. His cabinet consists of kleptocrats and sycophants with no interest in serving the departments they lead. THAT IS WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST!
What if Hillary Clinton was the disjunctive candidate of the neoliberal preemptive strategy? The opposition can experience a cyclical collapse regardless of what happens to the existing regime. Republicans do appear to be drifting into an anti-democratic and authoritarian abyss.
However, if the end of the Reagan era is imminent, Democrats failed to produce, even actively thwarted, a reconstructive candidate last election. Hillary Clinton is many things but reconstructive is not one of them. Democrats appear on track to make the same mistake again with Joe Biden. The opposition to the Reagan regime seemingly doesn't want the Reagan regime to end either.
Given this situation, we might reasonably argue Clinton was the disjunctive candidate for the entire political order. Trump wouldn't be President if Democrats had produced a reconstructive nominee in 2016. As result, the Reagan era is already over. We're just not sure what comes next.
Trump doesn't even know. He wasn't expecting to get elected either. Anything "reconstructive" taking place under his administration is largely accidental. Challenging boundaries and breaking norms is mostly a symptom of his criminal vulnerability as a private citizen. He is most definitely willing to break the rules for his own self-interest.
Republicans have apparently conceded that cheating is the best way to maintain relevance. It's that or the dustbin with neoliberals right along side them.
3
It should be noted that Bush 2 and trump were put in office by the electoral college not by popular vote. Also republicans for many years now have controlled state and local governments as well as congress. This power has done much to shape national policies and keep Clinton and Obama in check. For all the criticism of the current administration,Trump still has senatorial support and a 45 percent approval rating. One wonders what it will take to change the minds of so many voters. Trump has not taken power,the electorate has given it to him. He will continue as long his base will let him.
5
@Vincent For this you can thank the efforts of ALEC.
1
the "cyclical theory" begs the question of how the country will maintain its form of government under the current president. As Keynes said, "in the long run, we're all dead". That is cold comfort indeed for those living this current national nightmare
3
None of these theories address the figure most responsible for the Trump presidency and all that it has entailed: The deeply anti-democratic senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell.
From declaring, in the midst of an economic crash with two wars underway, that the GOP's only job was keeping Obama to one term, to denying Obama his choice for Supreme Court, to ignoring Trump's every attack on government and Constitutional norms, to refusing to bring duly-approved House bills to the Senate floor, McConnell has behaved like a man determined to destroy the United States from within. In doing so, he has acted with horrifying impunity.
What remedy is there for a monster like McConnell, who seems likely to be re-elected as often as he wishes? We know how to unseat a president who commits crimes and misdemeanors--how do we rid ourselves of the cancer called Mitch?
31
@Bystander Educate his constituents to the evil that he is.
1
This piece is value-added, thoughtful, balanced discussion. Whether we agree or disagree with one point or another, we surely need more thoughtful and thought provoking pieces like these.
4
I found this both fascinating and troubling. On the one hand, there is a glimmer of hope that the nightmare will soon be over if Skowwronek's thesis holds. On the other, if we are in entirely uncharted territory, then we are sunk. What I don't quite grasp is why our people seem so passive about all this. I remember the 60s and people passionately were marching in the streets. Yes, we all suffer from Trump fatigue...but we need to march in the streets again to put those Trumplicans on notice.
14
Almost every progressive I know has immersed themselves in an endless sea of podcasts, blogs, events, and literature that collectively paint the darkest imaginable picture of politics. There is an element of addiction to all of this - a certain type of "high" from having all the answers and blame laid in succinct "perfect" clarify.
While I know very few Trump supporters, I can assume it's the same thing happening on that side of the fence, but in reverse.
Trump plays *perfectly* into both of these groups. Progressives benefit from a common enemy - a foil - through feelings of validation and righteousness. Conservatives need a "hero" who is willing to say and do the previously unthinkable. America, as a whole, simply cannot ignore the orange reality star.
4
I agree wholeheartedly with the conclusion. Trump’s is nothing short of a nightmare Presidency.
It’s also worth noting that integrating Trump historically into the Presidencies does a tremendous disservice to the ethics and morals of prior presidents. Trump compared to Carter??? Carter was and is a eminently beautiful and decent man.
Similarly ascribing any kind of greatness to Reagan is disingenuous intellectually. Reagan is indeed one of the starts of the vast income disparities combined with right wing religiosity (all lies of course) that led to the disaster called Trump. Period.
29
It appears to me that reality has leapfrogged history and comparisons with past regime systems does not address new global trends. Oligarchies worldwide now seem to support each other while maintaining "tensions" suggesting possible violence, all in the service of transnational wealth management. The historical model of real estate acquisition through invasion and war has been replaced with multinational patterns of resource channeling where borders mean much less. That traditional Republican mores of free trade, patriotism, balanced budgets, etc., gave way to Citizens United and that was it for those shabby and quaint antiquities. Trump Tower Moscow is the gold-plated reminder that the idea of Russia being the big bad adversary is outdated but useful for purposes of distraction.
9
Trump's enablers--McConnell, Graham, Jordan, Stephen Miller, et al--are the riptide of our democratic institutions. We rail on about Trump. but these men [note the emphasis on men here] have made it more than possible for Trump to thrive in this ultra-partisan autocratic environment.
979
@ruthblue
How about Betsy Devos, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Hope Hicks for example? Woman have done their part too. Don’t just blame the men.
160
@ruthblue For beach people, the proper technical term is rip current. They range from barely noticeable to quite capable of moving people substantial distances, quickly. Some Executive Branch personnel deserve credit, too. White House Counsel Don Mc Gahn did very well at feeding the current of judicial nominees from the Federalist Society to McConnell's Senate, probably Trump's major actual accomplishment as president.
42
@Bob Hawthorne Fair point, & I did consider Sanders, with a venality all her own. But Hicks is young & inexperienced, so I ascribe her behavior to that of any young person in thrall to someone older & more powerful. And DeVos doesn't go out & stump or defend Trump the way the men I cited do. To which I could also add Rubio [little Marco] and Cruz [lyin' Ted].
36
The cyclical view of history is quaint, but it assumes that our system of government and our civilization are permanent. The pressure for large scale change and indeed collapse is at previously unknown levels - overpopulation, environmental degradation, resource limitations. At the same time, a major political party representing a large section of society, the GOP, actively undermines constitutional government and openly promotes collapse. This isn’t Hoover or Carter.
589
“...openly promotes collapse.”
You just hit the nail right on the head.
36
@Skinny J
Quaint is right. The idea that history will cycle politically back to some equilibrium is like saying the Anthropocene Era of massive extinction is just another example what has happened in earlier massive die-offs.
History, like evolution, is an explanatory rather than predictive science. Things will not be the same after Trump any more than the world will be the same after humans are done decimating the planet.
33
While Ziblatt cites "huge demographic changes underway" as a big factor that plays into the racial fear-mongering and radicalization of the GOP. But there's another demographic change underway that has laid bare the starkly antidemocratic structure of our representative government embedded in the Constitution itself. That being the slow but steady rise of urban populations, and decline of rural populations.
About 10 years ago it was noted that for the first time in recorded history, the balance of urban to rural dwellers went over 50%. At the time this was a mere blip on the radar, but it has only been accelerating since then. What this means for our democracy is that low population states, that are almost all rural, and predominantly or almost exclusively white, have the most unequal political power at any time in our history, and the same for white voting power generally since before the Voting Rights Act over 50 years ago. These factors mean that the Senate and the Presidency, because of the EC, are by definition structurally racist institutions.
As if that wasn't enough, the willingness of the GOP to utilize computer designed 'hyper gerrymandering' as well as nakedly partisan voter suppression combined with inadequate push-back from the judiciary, only exacerbates the situation.
THIS is our actual Constitutional crisis.
36
I followed the link to Skowronek's analysis, and found myself in violent disagreement with him regarding Obama. His analysis states that Obama was unable to be transformative, while my perception is that he never wanted or tried to be. For me, Obama showed his true colors when he put some of the same men who had tanked the economy on his financial team.
That said, I think we are in far more danger with Trump than does Skowronek. I am far more alarmed than he is.
13
Except—thanks to the Senate and the Electoral College, dysfunction through backwards minority rule receives a big boost. Founding fathers really goofed on this, and it’s a shame we never corrected it since. Now we’re in a situation where the parties (party) that benefit from it will never go along with fixing things. True dysfunction...
21
The Indiana Law Review and the Indiana Law Journal are different publications of different law schools. The Balkin article was in the ILJ.
3
One source of difference is that Trump does not care at all about the long term, including that of the Republican party.
I am not sure "undo whatever Obama did" counts as a governing philosophy. If we have had another presidency primarily driven by personality flaws and self-enrichment, then it might make sense to talk about categorizing this one. Instead, game theory seems to be the best predictive tool for Trump, as the underlying assumptions woven in to other approaches rarely apply.
15
I read this scholarly column with care. I struggle seeing the current president distinct from an older bully brother of the “my way or the highway” emotional range. I have a difficult time drawing a separation between the adolescent male placed in a private disciplinary military boarding school and the adult in a position of extreme authority running over anyone who gets in his erratic way.
I will have to reflect on this framing of the situation at hand.
4
We need to see this regime in its broader international context, with a wave of rising authoritarianism scarily like what we saw in the 1930s, the global fulcrum of power shifting away from majorities toward a narrow plutocracy. Underestimating the slide toward authoritarianism was also a key component of what we saw then. And it followed a similar period of rising inequality, using hate politics to divide and conquer.
33
While Mr. Skowronek's theory that Trump represents the end of the Reagan era is interesting, I can't completely buy into it. This "cycle" - poor leadership, corruption at the highest levels, a well-funded military machine that still can't guarantee complete security, a rubber-stamp Senate, crumbling infrastructure, citizens who are not taken being taken care of, the rise of foreign powers while the U.S. stagnates, gross economic inequality disengaged citizens - looks more to me like the fall of the Roman Empire than with the end the Reagan conservatism.
34
Can't we just cut to the chase, add a fifth category with an asterisk and say "won office by cheating and with help from Russia?" Because it would explain SO much more about Trump and, really, is it fair to compare him to any of the other past presidents, who actually seemed to understand the office and responsibilities?
60
When all is said and done, Trump cannot do more damage to America than congress allows.
At this moment, the GOP marches in step with Trump, thus allowing him to grow more autocratic and dangerous to the basic Constitutional norms.
Trump has his own agenda, and anyone who thinks that he cares about what the Congress thinks/does needs to simply look at how they are processing his behavior and actions both nationally and internationally.
13
This analysis is president top heavy and misses several important components to the Trump phenomenon, namely unparalleled fidelity despite intense disagreement with the policy loyalty is demonstrated and that the lack of challenge comes not from voters for president but for state legislators more deeply rooted in votes for local legislators that results in minority winners for president.
To understand more fully what Trump is, look not so much at presidents but who put him there. The important questions are about people like McConnell, not Trump. The lack of respect for norms and rules comes from places less well watched than the presidency. The tactics that have rigged elections came from backwater legislatures and under the cloak of ALEC and business practices that hide under privacy of corporate ownership rather than a democratic procedure. This can be seen now with Trump using the same corrupt practices he used in his so called deals now in the White House.
It is a grave mistake to apply the normal use of historical tools to a phenomenon that did not come from the normal course of history. This is more a history of say, big crime families that resulted in RICO than it is of presidential dynasties.
790
@no one special Exactly spot on. McConnell's refusal to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland set the stage for Trump to reject democratic norms.
231
@no one special Absolutely spot on!
23
@no one special
Right. BTW you are special.
The analogy iwould be better with caudillo/narcessistic demagogues in the Franco/South American style.
There are more parallels with the conduct of Fidel Castro dealing with the provisional government in Cuba, 1959-1961 than with his predecessors.
We don't need no stinkin' subpoenas.Who needs the House of Representatives? The enemy of the people is the media.
His swagger and other demeanor is the same: Fidel without a beard.
39
"...Balkin describes the Trump administration as a “disjunctive” presidency, the last gasp of the vanishing Reagan era that began in 1980."
I see the Trump presidency as a continuum of the Reagan presidency. We must never forget that it was Reagan, who, in his Inaugural Address, declared that "government is the problem." That phrase is rich with many meanings, and none of them are positive. Superficially, it might mean that the American experiment was a failed one and it must be destroyed to be constructed. More deeply, it might mean that norms no longer obtain and that power is the ultimate tool for government and whomever wields it may refuse to be held accountable. This finds dangerous resonance with the current administration.
The Republican Party no longer exists; it is an adjunct of the 45th president. The Democratic opposition finds itself, even with its majority in the House, to be impotent in calling to heel a president--and various of his aides--to account for any decisions or policies or conduct. They simply refuse and the Democrats become enraged but a rage that is--at least as we now see it--powerless.
The balance of Donald Trump's presidency--whether another year or five--will almost certainly turn on the Supreme Court. He has solidified his anarchic, overarching view of incontestable executive power with the additions of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The Chief Justice fights for his legacy and "independence," but it's a losing fight.
Chaos looms.
612
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18 -- this president falls far short of Reagan's sunny optimism and aligns more closely with the dour, pessimistic and ethically-challenged Nixon. The template for the 45th president's malevolence is Strom Thurmond and George Wallace. Neither man was ever president but #45 represents what they stood for...unabashed racism, division, chaos, exclusion, a Jim Crow America and white power.
"fear of the future means a greater willingness to play dirty and to block the emergence of any “recuperative presidency” captures exactly the philosophy of the Republican Party today.
That's why Mitch McConnell was so visceral in his hatred of President Barack Obama, his determination to make Obama "a one-term president" and his un-Constitutional stonewalling of Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination.
It was McConnell, more than any other Republican, who gave #45 a seat at the American presidential table.
207
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
I agree with Trump carrying on the destruction of this country as Reagan did with all of his deregulations and other assorted reckless acts.
But I must be honest - I always felt good inside and proud to be an American after every time Reagan spoke. He was a master at fooling people with his policies, but he certainly knew how to work the camera and work the room. He was extremely talented at displaying compassion, concern, empathy and the pride of America. I can't take that away from him. Whether he was a talented actor or not, he really loved this country and loved being an American. I can't say that at all with the likes of Trump. As far as temperament goes, he is the exact opposite of Reagan.
37
@Marge Keller: Reagan was a grade B actor; nothing more.
I worked with many knowledgeable and extremely bright professionals at the Chicago Tribune when I was a researcher there (1990-2009). Now let me tell you a story about Reagan that’s close to home. I had a cousin from New York City. She held a Ph.d in Psychology. She married a white man from a prominent family in Greenwich, Connecticut; he, too, owned a doctorate’s in Psychology. After Reagan destroyed Jimmy Carter in 1980, his advance team was putting together a team. Via telephone, they recruited my cousin and her husband, sight unseen, on reputation alone. Both were on the faculty at a Colorado university. In serious doubt but with good faith, both resigned their chairs and signed on to the incoming Reagan administration, hoping to effect needed lasting change. When Edwin Meese, who would become Reagan’s Chief of Staff, discovered that an interracial couple was coming on board, Reagan cancelled the joint appointment. My cousin and her husband were left out in the cold, without tenure.
That’s how I remember Reagan. I don’t doubt that his smile made millions feel warm and fuzzy. I, and our extended family, know better.
174
Trump represents something that these academics will never be able to get their head around. Even if he loses in 2020 the partisan divide & GOP obstructionism will continue. Someone else will pick up Trump's torch. He won't be as crass, as obnoxious, but he will advocate the same policies. He will bring suburban women back into the Republican fold. And their march towards complete political dominance will continue. The courts are the source of the Republican's power, their blunt instrument in the cultural war that divides us. The GOP is playing a long game. Trump will be gone soon. They will still be here. The GOP will wait him out & achieve all of their objectives. Their main goal is to nominate 3-4 very conservative Supreme Court justices. Trump has gotten two SCOTUS appointments, he may get more. He’s moved much faster on lower-court appointments than Obama did. The legal arm of the conservative movement is the best organized & most far-seeing sector of the Right. They truly are in it — & have been in it for the long term goals. Control the Supreme Court, stack the judiciary to the sky, and you can stop the progressive movement, no matter how popular it is, no matter how much legislative power it has. Nothing will get in the way of that goal. A Trump re-election victory in 2020 will be the end of of the Progressive movement as we know it. There will be a civil war in the Democratic party and they will be forced out. The GOP has a good plan. Heads they win, tails they win.
318
@Bill Brown ... True, except for they are too dysfunctional and klepocratic greedy to get it together the way the old Repub Party could.
22
@Bill Brown
Interesting perspective, and I agree with you about the organization of the conservatives in the judiciary branch. I don't think, though, that somebody "as crass as Trump" is going to work, though, as that's the major part of his appeal to his supporters. I don't perceive him as a "black swan" event as Joe Biden does, and true, the Republicans will still be horrible, which means they must be defeated as a PARTY, not just Trump. Still, they need somebody to coalesce around. Trump is an idiot savant demagogue, they are actually far rarer than people think and it did take somebody with his particular talents to cause all the poisons in our society to come to the surface.
50
@Bill Brown "He’s moved much faster on lower-court appointments than Obama did." Yes Trump has moved much faster on lower-court appointments than Obama did, but that was because McConnell would not allow or confirm any nominees Obama wanted depriving him of his ability to appoint anyone. Just like McConnell stymied and obstructed any and every Obama effort to do anything else while in office. Mitch is the man who broke America and democracy and I hope he is never forgotten for this - he is evil.
463
My take: All it will take is one of the old men currently running for President (Trump, Biden, Sanders) having a senior moment or health crisis -- a heart attack, a stroke, a fall that results in momentary confusion captured on television -- for the public to lose its appetite for 75+ year old presidential candidates. Above all else, Americans love a winner, and winners don't get sick, fall, etc.
9
Thank you Mr. Edsall for a most insightful article. Unfortunately, Ziblatt and Levitsky are right in their assessment of this Presidency and the country as a whole. Anyone who thinks Trump and what he stands for is a passing phenomenon can look at what Republican-controlled states have done to eviscerate voting rights, the power of a non-Republican governor, and a woman's right to have control over her own body.
1066
@Sledge I like to think of it as a dying gasp. The vast majority of Americans are not Republican. The Republicans have accomplished most of what they have accomplished by cheating and lying and relying on the fiction that is Fox News.
55
@Sledge
That's all the more reason that Democrats must fight tooth and nail and even fight dirty to win at all costs.
Not just the presidency, but all the House and Senate seats up for grabs. And every other elected seat be it a judgeship, sheriff or dog catcher.
VOTE 2020.
Let's take our country back from the evil kleptocrats and make our nation the America we all grew up loving.
37
@Sledge Apparently, these state-wide actions by Republicans are exactly what the residents want, otherwise they would vote them out.
3
This piece seems to be over-analyzing what is actually occurring: the centrifugal forces that caused the Civil War are once again at work, but this time without the definition and clarity of state borders to define the combatants.
The fear by Whites that they will soon be in a minority and that politicians over the decades have failed to address this impending reality is the fuel that propels Trump and his Party. One need only read the excellent biography of Frederick Douglass by David Blight to see the parallels between Antebellum America and today.
Either we accept and accommodate change brought about by globalization and adapt to this new reality (the Progressive approach), or we fight and destroy the threats to preserve White hegemony (Trumpism).
Allowing the latter to emerge as the dominant solution can only spell disaster for the future of America.
12
I believe the real political alignment that is going on today is the Religious politic. In particular, radical evangelical Christians. Rising during the Nixon administration and now barely holding on with the Trump's administration, it is fighting for its political life.
Emerging from the South, and spreading midwest and west, it became a very strong faction of the Republican party. It is now the Republican party's ground troops to fundraise, get out the vote, and rally demonstrators. Unflinching, undeterred, and uncompromising.
Unlike past religious battles, during the 1930's against socialism or 1940's and 1950's against communism, the religious right is dealing with an America that is less inclined to follow/believe in religious doctrine than at anytime in its history. They also lack a centralized enemy that the entire country can unite behind. Demographically, their numbers are perpetually dwindling as well. Nonetheless, the power they do have today they are leveraging it to keep Trump in office regardless of how morally repugnant he may be or become.
37
@Progers9 What you are referring to is called a "demographic." The Republican demographic includes religious right and white nationalists. Neither constitute a majority in America and they never will because theirs is a caustic, anti social, faction that creates more problems than it solves.
2
The thing that scares me the most is the very possibility that what Ms. Pelosi says will come true. That Trump will not give up power voluntarily if he loses a close election in 2020. What recent history has taught us is that there seems to be no end to the supply of sycophants available to Trump like William Barr who would be willing to help him retain illegitimate power. Our only hope would then be that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts would not allow a Republican president to destroy democracy. Unfortunately that is probably the most likely 2020 scenario the way things are going. Ugh!
11
As long as Faux Newz exists the US will be a weak stupid corrupt nation fighting with itself. Why do we allow those who clearly are a clear and present danger to democracy to simply do whatever they want?
19
Forget our founding fathers and American history up to the 1980s. You neglected to mention the historical legacy of Newt Gingrich’s political theory and practice of Chimpanzee Politics (from Newt’s favorite book by primatologist, Frans De Waal). Unprincipled warfare, power grabs, and disdain for any kind of compromise with the dreaded enemy (fellow Americans of the Democratic Party) have been the heart and soul of the Republican Party ever since. Trump is the perfect culmination of the Republican Revolution. It’s not enough to beat Trump at the polls in 2020; we must reveal and discredit the vicious and deeply unpatriotic Republican Party.
57
Trump is an outlier. There is no category of Presidents into which he fits.
22
Trump is the first President in American history who simply couldn't care less about our country.
92
@Sparky
It is more than this -it is not indifference, but a determined effort to undermine the institutions, laws, mores, national security objectives,and "principles for which we stand." He wishes to destroy America as a democracy and turn it into an oligarchy, a Kingdom, or maybe even a Banana Republic. When he leaves office, (on his terms), expect one of the Trumps to take over, ala Peron or Fidel...
2
While all the learned university thinkers mull over the problem, taking precious time to manipulate and roll the issues from side to side, and place them just so into whatever political categories they arrive, the rest of us are dying a million times over trying to figure out how we, the little folk, the commoners, can best respond to the current threat against our precious democracy.
It is existential for me. I'm older, and tired, and less likely to take to the street to march, with signs and bullhorns. Does that even work anymore, unless there is a news camera rolling to capture the event and scatter it into the internet and blogosphere?
I feel like the only hope we truly have lies with awakening the consciousness' of millions of like-minded voters to get to the polls and make their small marks known.
Study it 'til the cows come home, but if you can't get voters, many, many, i.e., a supermajority of people to the polls on election day, to vote these hideous, destructive clowns out, and definitively so, our future is doomed.
How about we study that.........how to engage voters enough that they leave their private bubbles momentarily, and actually do the democratic thing our founders had in mind, and vote?
67
Amen! Turnout is the key. @Betsy
6
@Betsy
It was strange and wonderful how women (and many men) turned out after Trump was elected- remember the global Women's March(es)? That is the energy and passion needed -where is it now?
5
@Betsy A thoughtful comment that resonates with me. Yes, I show my support to my reps that I like , donate to campaigns and causes as well. But our right to vote has never been to precious, so important.
You said it so well: 'Study it 'til the cows come home, but if you can't get voters, many, many, i.e., a supermajority of people to the polls on election day, to vote these hideous, destructive clowns out, and definitively so, our future is doomed.'
1
Better to compare him with Henry VIII than any president.
10
@glennmr
Whoa! First off, Trump is 3 wives short.
Secondly, Henry VIII was a very good king overall in spite of his messy personal life.
1
Trump's presidency is a stain on the history of our nation. He will forever be remembered that way. The 2020 presidential election will not be a vote of Democrat versus Republican. It will be a vote to restore decency and justice to our nation. Our elected officials need to stop bickering. They need to solve the real problems facing our nation. And angry, grumpy older Americans need to turn off Fox News. Trump does not give a hoot about you.
47
What? There is NO comparison between Trump and anyone else. I wish people who know better would stop pretending that he is sane.
33
Trump has one huge supporter, albeit a posthumous one. Before Trump, James Buchanan was widely recognized as the worst US President by a consensus of historians of all eras and political backgrounds. Buchanan is now #2. Yes Donald, you are #1. Congratulations.
29
“... that Mr. Trump would not give up power voluntarily if he lost re-election by a slim margin next year.”
The People should never fear the president. The president should fear the People. We do not live under a monarchy or an autocracy. America is not yet a dystopia.
Trump assumed the presidency peacefully based on the results of the 2016 general election. If he refuses to give up the office should he lose the election in 2020, then the Secret Service can escort him to the door and/or to prison. That will be his choice.
We should no longer allow our apparent despot wannabe to guide this narrative. AT ALL.
15
There's an `intense argument' over where he belongs? Wow. This would seem like the easiest of all answers: the bottom.
50
trump makes me want to go and erect statues of the woeful Warren G. Harding. He is that awful.
He is well beyond the worst ever as he plays a daily game of limbo with the Oval office and we all wonder: "How low can it go?"
15
Gentlemen gentlemen!
Give it a rest.
Mr. Donald J. Trump has not even finished Term Number One. He has what?--a year and a half to go.
I don't mean to be snide. But I am distrustful of historians who--with the din and clamor of political life going on all around them--
--find it easy to step back and evaluate and summarize and draw plot lines in the sand. Tell us just what's happened--what's happening--what's gonna happen.
What'll other historians be writing in ten years? Or twenty years? Or a century--if the United States lasts that long?
And you can tell--I don't feel too good right now about the United States. About our government. About our society. WHATEVER kind of president Mr. Donald J. Trump turns out to be.
Consider this:
History is not JUST a pattern. History is sometimes irreversible. That is to say--
--we reach turning points. We can't go back. "You can't go back home again." Change happens. The change is permanent.
When Julius Caesar took power in 49 B.C. (Or whenever)--
--that was it. The Roman Republic was dead. And after a while--
--people knew it. Everyone knew it. But that only happened--"after a while."
And Mr. Donald J. Trump? What'll be the effect of HIS presidency?
Maybe we'll all know the answer in ten years. Or twenty years. Or a hundred years. When, perhaps, the extent of the calamity that was Mr. Donald J. Trump becomes clear.
It isn't perfectly clear right now.
It will be.
Count on it.
6
Yes. And we Americans all watch in horror and do nothing. The power is with the people who should be taking to the streets but prefer to keep their heads down, remain silent and watch Game Of Thrones.
5
Interesting analyses. One thing missing is the pressure of global population growth and extreme overuse of planetary resources beyond stable carrying capacity of humanity. This leads to extreme instability and crazy politics.
If we fail to focus on ways to counteract our own biological imperatives to grow our population we will end up crashing and burning (as Bill Nye so recently dramatized on the John Oliver show). None of these historians seem to have looked at our extreme growth in population and its pushing against real physical limits
6
@Rodin's Muse I assume you are kidding? An argument using Nye and Oliver as your expert analysis, might be flawed.
As Mr. Edsall points out in his own parsing of Prof. Skowronek's remarks at the LSE this May, Trump is the apotheosis of the historical development of executive authoritarian power. This increase in executive power has developed due to gridlock in the legislative and politicization of the judicial branches. The weakening of these other branches has been due, at its most basic level, by the influence of money on our politics.
We are entering an era in which climate change and mass migrations due to climate change will wreak ever greater chaos on our governmental institutions. Add this to the already profound cultural and economic displacements in our society, and you have the recipe for authoritarian rule. This is not a nightmare from which we will awake soon, or perhaps ever.
6
I am more and more convinced that Trump
is going to be re-elected.
the current crop of Democrats will spend
the next nine months
tearing one another
to pieces or in the case
of the radical leftists,
making such unrealistic
proposals that the vast
middle class of America
will be turned off and turn
to Trump.one can only
imagine that with no
re-election restraining
him,Trump will be utterly
untrammeled in whatever
schemes his right wing
fanatic followers come
up with.one day historians
and sociologists will try to
analyze this period of our
history, but we are the ones
who will have to survive it.
9
@Frank A primary in which questions about a potential candidate's past concerns or ideas can be asked and to which a candidate can respond does not have to be a circular firing squad. We cannot be afraid of the democratic process. We need to put our personal concerns aside and vote for the person who will do the most for the country. We need to be aware of any oppositional (negative social media attacks) interference and not succumb to the ugliness of 2016's GOP.
4
@Gwen
party primaries Have been a source of the country’s hyperpartisonship problem
they tend to bring out the most radical voters in each party resulting in Republican candidates pushed to the right and now Dems facing anger from the left
How do the parties Solve this dilemma? either increase the number of primary voters or increase the power of party leaders.
democracy does not require rule by the vote of an angry mob
@Gwen "does not have to be a circular firing squad" but the odds favor it.
Trump is yet not as bad as either Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. There is a legitimate argument about his place vis a vis Hoover. So, he is probably our 42nd or 43rd best president.
2
Where he belongs?
Definitely not in the White House, but a prison.
33
He is, to put it simply, the worst President in American history. Sorry, James Buchanan.
10
He belongs in jail.
23
The Trump presidency, and the current iteration of the Republican Party, have three core ideologies: unregulated proliferation of gun ownership, absolute opposition to abortion rights of any kind, and hatred of all non White immigrants. These ideologies are unsustainable in a democratic America. Guns kill 36000 Americans a year, an unjustifiable consequence of current lack of effective gun laws. Only one fifth of Americans support repeal of Rod v Wade. And America will soon be a majority non White country. Voter suppression can only go so far. America will have to discard its democratic institutions, including its Constitution, in order for its inevitably White, Christian minority to sustain these core ideologies. The 2020 election will either be the end of Democracy, or the birth of autocratic theocracy. It is up to the voters.
17
Ultimately there is only one Philosopher who has the right to declare where Trump fits in - and it is Donald Trump - and as he already had declared that he only could be compared to Abe Lincoln or Elvis Presley - we finally HAVE to go with ''The King''.
As nobody did ''disjunctive moves'' better than Elvis Presley.
-(perhaps Michael Jackson- but Michael Jackson wasn't a US President as we believe)
1
My conclusion from this article is that Bernie Sanders will be our 46th president.
4
45 is unique because he had never held elective office or serverd in the military. First President to be elected as a disruptive force with reality-TV background. First President to not drink or smoke or own a dog. Lots of firsts for NYC born and bread, Trump.
2
@Frank
Jimmy Carter never drinks or smokes - one reason he's lived to a healthy 94.
1