All That Is Seen And Unseen
The Trump administration at 100 days
Here we are at long last — the weekend to launch a thousand think-pieces noting (somberly or triumphantly ) the Trump administration’s first 100 days in office.
A small ocean of digital ink pours forth to excoriate President Trump for the ongoing threat he poses to democracy, tally up policies enacted thus far, or otherwise compare him to his predecessors on any number of metrics. Like all too many things, the arbitrary milestone of the 100 days was hyped up by Candidate Trump on the campaign trail and later dismissed as less-than-important by President Trump in the Oval Office.
The administration can point to few clear successes, assuming they would prefer we ignore Ivanka Trump’s business ventures. The appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court seat that Senate Republicans kept waiting for him is one. Firing off 59 Tomahawk missiles at an air base in Syria without triggering meaningful domestic or international backlash is perhaps another.
Attempts to impose the vision of America that Trump sold to his supporters have run up against popular protest, legal challenges, or the reelection concerns (and ideological extremism) of members of his own presumed party.
The failures have no doubt been heartening to President Trump’s opposition — the combination of protest and court action that greeted his repeated attempts at shuttering immigration from several Muslim-majority countries, the inability to ram an ACA-gutting health care bill through Congress with a fractious Republican majority, the press’s dogged pursuit of clear conflicts of interest that toppled National Security Advisor (and ardently unhinged Islamophobe) Mike Flynn.
Yet much as the Trump administration is discovering that the ship of state does not turn on a dime, we continue to sail in troubled waters.
In evaluating the import of these first 100 days, recall political theorist Stephen Lukes’ three-fold definition of power: the power to make key decisions, the power to set the political agenda, and the power to shape the very informational environment surrounding public debate.
The Trump administration and its Congressional allies have had their greatest successes on the latter two fronts. Stymied by failures of coordination at the top, they nevertheless lay the groundwork for future battles by burying conflicts deep within the labyrinthine structures of American markets, the American bureaucracy, or American federalism.
The initial victory on the Affordable Care Act, for example, is far from a done deal. The longer the GOP and President Trump can project an air of uncertainty over the program’s future, the more likely it is that insurers will flee the state exchanges, with UnitedHealthcare, Humana, and Molin announcing various exit plans this year. Every weakening of the program strengthens future Republican claims that the program’s disintegration is and was “inevitable” — there is little incentive to avoid such malign neglect.
On the federal front, Congressional Republicans moved to “let the states decide” on issues of Planned Parenthood defunding, opening the doors to a venue-by-venue fight for the organization’s continued existence.
Likewise, much of the federal bureaucracy has been set adrift, as President Trump simply refuses to appoint hundreds of key positions. Nowhere is this more starkly apparent than at the State Department, where Secretary of State Tillerson is overseeing the drastic downsizing of America’s diplomatic corps.
Popular action and legal challenges may suffice to block certain of Trump’s actions once they’re on the agenda, but they face a far steeper challenge in putting any issue on the agenda to begin with. Plenty of people have and will be hurt by this administration in ways that do not garner sympathetic New York Times profiles.
Immigration enforcement is ramping up far from the public eye, while the consequences of attempted travel bans and the Department of Homeland Security’s airline-specific electronics ban continue to unfold overseas. The President’s business holdings continue to generate profits from foreign governments, while taxpayers continue to shell out millions for Melania Trump to live in New York City and President Trump to spend every other weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Congress cannot be counted on to hold anybody’s feet to the fire,with Congressman Nunes having done his best to scuttle the legitimacy of a House investigation into Russian meddling in our elections and the Senate staffing its own investigation into the same at a part-time bare minimum.
All of which is to say nothing about the administration’s efforts to redefine reality, begun so memorably by Kellyanne Conway’s attempt to banish criticism to the realm of “alternative facts.” Attorney General Jeff Session has little intention of letting such facts intrude on his prosecution of “sanctuary cities” or his hesitance to impose any measure of oversight on American police departments. Early efforts to store all publicly available climate data likewise seem more than justified, as the EPA “temporarily” shutters its climate change website.
On the foreign policy front, President Trump’s stances have moved about with whiplash-inducing speed, undermining his ability to send any credible international message about U.S. intentions to unless (apparently) backed up with explosive ordinance. It has been scarcely easier to get his own staff to echo a single line on a case-by-case basis.
Contrast with the stark clarity of Mr. Trump’s messaging in addressing the National Rifle Association, assuring a key support network that he was still the man for the job of keeping access to guns as free and far-reaching as possible.
For the President, no day in this past hundred — nor indeed any in the years to come — can match the exuberance as he felt in the immediate aftermath of his election. Little wonder he brings up his victory at the slightest opportunity, mentally fast-forwarding to November 3rd, 2020, when he hopes to live it all again.
As for the rest of us, on y va, as the French say — onward we must go, past the hundred days. I have no desire to close with vague pro-liberal-democracy platitudes — plenty of rehabilitation-seeking Bush-era neocons to help you there — so let’s stick to practicalities.
Keep tabs on our unfolding political fiasco to see when and where you can pressure your representatives, but remember to look past the man in the orange mask — as hard as it is to believe, there’s meaningful news out there that has nothing to do with Trump. Build ties in your own communities — especially around subjects of immigration, environmental action, education and policing — to call on state and local governments to act where the federal government will not.
Figure out what’s cooking in 2018 (or earlier) in terms of elections, and see where you might help out. Even consider running for office, especially if you have the kind of expertise you’d rather see utilized and appreciated than dismissed and derided in government.
And keep hoping for the best.
Andrew Leber is based in Boston.
