erik lundegaard

Monday November 16, 2020

It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Not top 500, just weird as hell. 

Over at the NY Times, Bret Stephens and Gail Collins have a good conversation about the bad times that were/are the Trump era. Stephens is particularly succinct here:

The child-separation policy was definitely the administration's single most disgraceful policy. Cruel, reckless and stupid — like Trump himself. I'd place that in the same basket of deplorable acts alongside the Muslim immigration ban, his accusation that Democrats want illegal immigrants “to pour into and infest our country,” and his drastic reduction of the number of refugees admitted into the country.

Collins adds Trump's COVID response (“history will remember Trump as the president who pooh-poohed a pandemic”), and then it's Stephens again:

We also can't ignore the foreign policy hit parade. Exchanging “beautiful” letters with Kim Jong-un. Taking Vladimir Putin at his word on the question of Russia's election interference. Strong-arming the president of Ukraine to provide political dirt on the Biden family. Asking Xi Jinping's help to get re-elected. Calling NATO into question. Maybe one of our clever readers can set all this to the tune of Billy Joel's “We Didn't Start the Fire.”

What bothers me most of all, Gail, is Trump's serial trashing of political norms, which wasn't so much a moment as it was a constant. He'll be remembered as the president who treated every civil servant as a personal servant, every cabinet secretary as a toady, every critic as an enemy, every enemy as a role model and every supporter as a fool.

So many horrible moments, day after day, that it's tough to keep them straight. Maybe making a list as Stephens suggests isn't a bad idea. He says Top 5 but I'd suggest Top 1,000. It could be a book. 

Posted at 11:02 AM on Monday November 16, 2020 in category Politics  
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