Even by President Trump’s standards, Tuesday was a stunning day in the political and media realm. Consider:
Meanwhile, no one is talking much about the possibility that nearly 4,700 Puerto Ricans died in last year’s hurricane, a natural disaster in which Trump bragged about the response. Children by the hundreds are being forcibly separated under Trump’s zero tolerance policy. We continue to barrel ahead into a trade war with allies; we’ve come to no understanding with allies about the Iran deal (which Trump backed out of with no viable alternative plan); and Trump, with no real understanding of the thicket of diplomatic and military issues, will be heading for a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, already a winner in the PR game.
We recently suggested there are three types of Trump outrages, democracy outrages (e.g., trying to shut down an investigation into your own wrongdoing), policy outrages (e.g., plunging into a North Korea summit with no game plan and a grossly erratic and impulsive president) and morality outrages (e.g., separating young children). Some seemingly small items, such as lying about football players and demanding they exhibit patriotism in the Trump-approved fashion, are in fact affronts to our core democratic values and principles (e.g., free speech, racial tolerance). Taken together, all these incidents suggest the president is struggling under the pressure of the office and the legal onslaughts (criminal and civil). When he panics, he tweets more, becomes more irrational and bangs the drum of racial division even harder. If you think matters cannot get worse, wait a month or so.