Introduction to Trump’s Second Year
This publication is meant to be a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the Trump administration. For the series covering the second year, impacts from about January 20, 2018, to January 31, 2019, are included. There are sure to be things missing, but I have done my best to record all impacts. After this general introduction to the series, the impacts are compiled under 20 different categories, or articles:
1. Cabinet and Other Appointments;
3. Women & Families;
4. LBGT;
6. Ethics;
7. Targeting free press/free speech/Privacy;
8. Health & Safety;
10. Education;
11. Transportation/Infrastructure/Housing;
12. Immigration;
13. Social Contract;
14. Business/Economy;
15. Budget;
16. General Governance;
17. Character;
18. Military/Defense/Police;
19. World; and
20. Some good news. Because there is always some good news.
Since this series takes a long time to write, I will publish each section as I complete it. This article is a general introduction to the second year’s series. You can read the complete series on the first year of the administration here.
Trump’s second year in office will forever be marked by the country’s capsizing into a racist xenophobia that we haven’t seen in a long time, culminating in the most horrific human rights abuses that this country has committed since Japanese internment. As Amy Siskind noted, “generations from now will mark the week [when we began separating families at the border] as the moment Americans realized we were losing our country as we have known it.” The impacts of Trump’s immigration policies will traumatize families for years to come. And the policies extend to the fabric of our country more broadly. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has changed its mission statement to eliminate entirely a passage that describes the US as “a nation of immigrants.”
The second year will also be marked yet again by a misogynist, sexist Supreme Court appointment in the face of strong, credible women testifying about the appointee’s sexual harassment and attempted rape allegations. Serious ethical issues also shared center stage during this year, with cabinet members pushed out but “the swamp” still crowded. The year also resulted in 34 indictments, including 6 former advisors to Trump. As the year came to an end, we found out that Trump paid advisors to pay off women who claimed to have affairs with Trump. According to prosecutors, these payments were intended to influence the 2016 campaign, which is a violation of campaign finance law, a felony. Undoubtedly, Trump’s third year will see a significant increase in indictments. And maybe impeachment?
It was also the year when Trump established the US as a foreign policy and humanitarian failure as we solidified Saudi Arabia’s control of our country when the Saudis murdered an American citizen and stifled the freedom of the press while Trump willingly looked the other way. Saudi Arabia isn’t the only country to control the US, though. This second year may also be remembered as when Trump showed just how beholden to Russia he really is. In what has been described as “the most shameful, stunning moment of the Trump presidency,” Trump wasted an opportunity to tell Putin that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election is unacceptable by instead standing with Putin and declaring to the world that “both countries are responsible.” Even Republican leadership in Congress expressed serious concerns about Trump’s “relationship” with Putin and Russia’s involvement in the 2016 elections.
And of course, the administration will forever be known for the lies. A statistical analysis of every word Trump has spoken showed how what has been described as an “unprecedented avalanche of serial lying” is, in fact, increasing with time. Trump’s words, tweets, and logic are factually and morally wrong, not to mention dangerous. By the end of his second year in office, Trump made 8,158 false or misleading statements. Valerie Plame Wilson summed this administration up nicely by saying, “The entire Trump reign thus far is like turning over a log and watching maggots and other disgusting bugs crawl out.”
In between these high-level characterizations of Trump’s second year in office, there have been thousands of unthinkable incidents, acts, and impacts on real people’s lives. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, analyzed and ranked 50 of the most destructive incidents of this administration. The goal of this series is to detail all of thousands of incidents.
The first half of the administration has been so bad that political science scholars have already ranked Trump as one the worst presidents in the history of the country, ahead of only Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and William Henry Harrison. He was also ranked as the most polarizing. Other scholars and professionals agree. Nearly 30 psychiatrists and mental health professionals declared Trump to be violent, immature, and insecure, and the most dangerous man in the world right now. Two Harvard political scientists identified four warning signs of a dangerous authoritarian and found that Trump is the first American politician since the Civil War to meet all four criteria. And more Republicans in general now believe that Trump is unfit to serve, especially after reading Defense Secretary James Mattis’s resignation letter.
While there will always be a small group of Americans who are so disillusioned or so racist or so taken in by ignorance disguised as information that they will support Trump no matter what (and who don’t even recognize or acknowledge the horrors of this administration), many Americans are starting to realize the full extent of what we did to ourselves in November 2016, from the horrors of children being kidnapped and put into cages and concentration camps at the border to the government turning into a cash cow for the donor class, as Charles P. Pierce explained. In fact, as Conor Friedersdorf reported, it’s time for Trump voters to face the bitter truth, that rather than drain any swamp, Trump has “surrounded himself with people who saw his victory as an opportunity to enrich themselves by selling the promise of access or influence.” Another writer opined that Americans in fact don’t know how much trouble we’re in, that the crossroads we’re at may not have any road back to civilization or sanity. umair haque wrote, “A democratic society cannot really survive the [assaults on democracy that Trump is committing] and go on being one.” And Scott Martelle described how when a president attacks due process, democracy itself is at risk. This has been proving true as the US dropped in the global Democracy Index for the second year in a row, which lists the US as a “flawed democracy” coming in 25th out of 167 countries around the world.
This year has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that many of the positive values that the United States once had are gone. As Paul Waldmen wrote,
American values [stood] for certain fundamental things such as democracy, freedom, and respect for human rights. That is no longer true. ‘America First’ has turned out to be not just Trump’s intention of putting our needs above the needs of others. It’s a declaration that we will no longer be guided by any moral principles at all.
And Paul Krugman described the “fall of the American empire” by describing how “American goodness and American greatness went hand in hand,” and how we have given up on the ideals that “made us a different kind of great power that inspired trust” by “committing atrocities at the border, attacking the domestic rule of law, insulting democratic leaders while praising thugs, and breaking up trade agreements.” For Republicans especially, as Republican Peter Wehner explained, “honor and integrity are now passé” under the full spectrum corruption of Trump. Hate crimes have had the largest increase since 9/11 as we’ve become a nation led by a man who stokes anger against immigrants, against minorities, and against anyone who disagrees with him at any moment. And Trump’s tyranny has caused general American patriotism to plummet, as David B. Grinberg described.
Despite the attempts at destroying democracy, the checks and balances shrouded in our constitution remain nearly intact for now. Zach Beauchamp noted, “The state of the union is strong. We know because it stopped Trump’s most authoritarian moves” during his first year as president. This second year has tested those checks and balances, as well as the very strength of our democracy, as you’ll read throughout this series. One test that we clearly failed was relying on institutions to constrain the consolidation of Trump’s power. One example of that was when Justice Kennedy so selfishly retired, destroying his entire legacy and leaving a Supreme Court to the control of Trump.
Trump may have been helped into office by Putin, and Putin may have an unknown hold on Trump, but so far, the republic is surviving, if only by a thread. That survival is being stoked by many people, including a resistance movement within the administration itself of people who work for Trump and have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and “his worst inclinations.”
In a brilliant piece describing what two years of Trump’s wrecking ball has done to America, David Smith even noted a school of thought suggesting that Trump’s winning was necessary to bring about a democratic renaissance and a surge of civic activism, including the Women’s March, which was the largest single-day demonstration in US history, as well as the highest midterm voter turnout since 1914. This school of thought argues that “the rise of a narcissistic authoritarian has brought about a moment of reckoning, forcing white Americans to confront a racism many had dismissed as ambient noise and forcing everyone to confront a broken politics.”
As Trump continues to stack the federal judiciary with right-wing extremists and cronies deemed not qualified to serve on the bench, time will tell how much of our democracy will survive, how much American culture will change — both for the better and the worse — and how long Trump will last in office. As Eliot Cohen described, “Sooner or later, tyrants are always abandoned by their followers.” For now, I invite you to provide any and all feedback on this series of articles covering the comprehensive impacts of the Trump administration.
The first article on cabinet and other appointments will be published shortly.
