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TRUMP’S BOARD REVIEW

The editorial board of the New York Times dedicated an entire Sunday opinion section outlining the lies, anger, corruption, incompetence chaos, and decay in the Trump Administration.  The editorial board presents a “The case against Donald Trump.” The section has various editors contributing to the story in a summary and 5 individuals opinion essays supporting their conclusions.

The summary written by the editorial board explores his fitness for office in an opinion titled “ A man unworthy of the office he holds.”  They begin with the premise that “Donald Trump can’t solve the nation’s most pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.”  Donald trump is well known by the New York media with his long tenure in the city where he lived (I was going to say grew up but I couldn’t force myself-has he ever grown up?). 

The board expressed their feeling of the importance of this election saying Trump’s re-election would pose the “greatest threat to American democracy since the second World War.” 

His “ruinous tenure has already gravely damaged the United States at home and abroad.  “He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations.  He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political intreats.  He has shown a breathtakingly disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans.  He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.” 

The board acknowledges their constant call-out of Trump’s xenophobia and racism.  They have also criticized what I would call isolationism and they call the “vandalism of the post war consensus a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain,  we have again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. ”

Americans have been tested by Trump’s antics and his daily reality show.  “The enormity and variety of Mr. Trump’s misdeeds can feel overwhelming,  Repetition has dulled the sense of outrage, and the accumulation of new outrages leaves little time to dwell on the particulars.”  We must all recover from the funk and regain the sense of outrage! Vote!

“He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.”

“As the world runs out of time to confront climate change, Mr. Trump has denied the need for action, abandoned international cooperation and attacked efforts to limit emissions.” 

“He has mounted a cruel crack-down on both legal and illegal immigration without proposing a sensible policy for who should be allowed to come into the United States.”

Trump has, at every turn attempted to reverse any Obama’s achievements.  He has persuaded his justice department not to defend the law but to remove it from the books entirely  which would wipe out insurance for 20 million and increase premiums for those with pre-existing conditions thought to be as much as 100 million.  Under Trump an addition 2.3 million lost insurance prior to the pandemic.  All the newly unemployed have surely increased that number.

Trump campaigned as a champion of the working class and governed only on behalf of the wealthy.  He promised to raise the federal minimum wage and invest in infrastructure.  His tax cut he delivered mostly inured to the wealthy.  He has answered the prayers of the corporations by indiscriminately erasing regulations, and for those rules he could not erase he would ignore enforcement. 

Trump has stripped many of his departments and pulled their teeth.  He has taken over the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and they now do not protect the consumer.  The Environmental Protection Agency has stopped protection of the  environment and have stricken the term climate change from all official documents ignoring science. 

Trump has levied billions of dollars in tariffs paid for by Americans without extracting any significant concessions from China.  His goal to reduce the trade deficit has failed and is the same as it was at the end of the Obama administration. 

Trump’s handling of the pandemic had also drawn the board to talk about his inadequate response and lies about the pandemic.  Trump is still trying to force the resumption of economic activity  and opening the economy without having the virus under control. 

The board’s stated purpose was to remind readers why Trump is unfit for office.