Category: Trump effect

On Saturday night, Second Lieutenant Richard Collins III was murdered by a white supremacist student on the campus of University of Maryland, College Park.  Lt.. Collins, who had taken an oath to “support and defend the Constitution” was murdered by a terrorist who belonged to a white supremacist Neo Nazi Facebook group.

Lt. Collins’ murder, though shocking, did not happen in a vacuum.  Throughout this year, the University of Maryland, along with other campuses around the country, has seen a spike in racist incidents.  On four separate occasions, white supremacist flyers were posted on campus. Continue reading “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight”

We all breathed a sigh of relief when Ron Rosenstein decide to repair his shredded reputation and appoint former FBI Director, Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, charged with investigating the extent of Russian interference with our elections and the Trump campaign’s collusion with those efforts.  Mueller, given his reputation for being exacting, honest and apolitical, is precisely the right person for the job.  Mueller’s appointment ensures that his results will be widely seen as credible and free from any partisan bias. Continue reading “Work to Do”

The events of the last two days have left us white knuckled in fear and horror. We wonder aloud if there is no depth to which the Batman villain in The White House will not sink.  On Monday, The Washington Post broke the story that during his jovial meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and Russian Ambassador, Trump revealed top secret, code word classified information that we obtained from an ally. The Post reported that Trump disclosed the fact and location of an ISIS plot – enough information to allow Russia to determine the source of that intelligence.  This disclosure was in direct contravention of our reciprocal agreements with allies, which provide that the United States and certain countries share intelligence with one another on the express condition that it not be shared with third parties without that country’s express prior permission.  Continue reading “We had better be loud”

It is tempting to indulge in schadenfreude at the escalating chaos surrounding Trump in the wake of last week’s events.  Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director Comey, followed by a fusillade of lies from his spokespeople about his rationale, and culminating in Trump’s admission to Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of the “Russia thing,” may mark a turning point in his presidency.  If polls are to be believed, many of his supporters now support an independent investigation into possible collusion of the Trump campaign with Russian interference in our elections.  Republican lawmakers are gingerly beginning to step away from the train wreck in the Oval Office.  We should be clear that this does not represent a sudden outbreak of courage, but rather a recognition that Trump’s volatile and irrational behavior threatens the Republican legislative agenda. Continue reading “The danger of Schadenfreude”

The path to American autocracy runs through the Justice Department.  As Conor Friedersdorf and Ben Wittes detail in a frightening article in The Atlantic, while we are rightly concerned with the erosion of our civil liberties by our national security apparatus, the investigatory and criminal justice powers wielded by the Justice Department pose a far greater threat to the majority of Americans. Continue reading “The path to American autocracy runs through the Justice Department”

April 27, 2017

As we reach the 100th day of Trump’s presidency, we awake each morning feeling like strangers in a strange land.  Efforts to analyze Trump’s tenure thought the conventional lens applied to the 44 preceding presidents are futile.  Although political commentators delighted in their takedown of The White House press release riddled with inaccuracies, laughing at the absurdity of a comparison between Trump and FDR; viewed another way, Trump’s impact has indeed been consequential.  In 100 days, Trump has radically altered our country’s place in the world and shattered its compact with its citizens.  Trump has derided decades’ long alliances with Western Europe, casting grave doubt on our commitment to NATO and emboldening Putin’s dream of reasserting Russia’s place as a global superpower.  Trump has cozied up to authoritarians like Erdogan and el-Sisi, played footsie with wannabe Nazis like LePen, while shunning centrist democratic leaders like Angela Merkel. Continue reading “100 Days In”