Dem 47
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GOP 53
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He Is Who We Thought He Is

Readers who have been following the NFL for the last two decades (or more) are probably familiar with the rather legendary meltdown of then-Arizona-Cardinals-coach Dennis Green in 2006, after a loss to the Chicago Bears. Although the Cardinals weren't very good, Green felt he had developed an excellent game plan for the matchup. And yet, the Bears won 24-23, after a big comeback. Speaking to reporters, a very disappointed Green barked: "But they are who we thought they were! And we let 'em off the hook!"

We could not help but think of this as we reviewed the litany of (largely unpleasant) news stories yesterday. Yesterday marked the one-week anniversary of the commencement of Trump v2.0, and he's spent most of his time reminding everyone of what kind of president he is, and plans to be. That is, a president who is interested substantially in praise and adulation, and also in score-settling, but not in governance. A rundown of the most egregious illustrations of this:

The damn thing is, this list isn't even exhaustive. There were plenty of other Trump maneuvers yesterday that spoke to his motivations being things other than good governance. For example, freezing the Justice Department's civil rights division, in anticipation of dismantling it. Or canceling the security clearances of 50 long-serving national intelligence employees because those employees have been deemed not sufficiently loyal. Or firing all three Democratic appointees on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

We received a question, not too long ago, that essentially boiled down to: "Do you think you will struggle to fairly evaluate Trump's policies because you don't agree with them?" As with much talk of bias, we think this kind of misses the point. Most bias emerges from dynamics that have little or nothing to do with ideology or politics.

In the case of Trump, a much greater barrier, at least for us, is that such a huge percentage of what he does is self-serving, mean-spirited, and without any purpose that serves the general good, we could very well miss something that is more positive than it appears. That said, we think that our assessments of all the maneuvers above are on target, and that we are on firm ground in believing that none of this has anything to do with good governance. (Z)



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