Some Perspectives on President Trump

Trump: the Populist Demagogue
"He [Trump] inherited his father's outer-borough real-estate empire -- a considerable enterprise distinguished by racist federal-housing violations -- using the language of populist demagogues, from Huey Long to George Wallace to Silvio Berlusconi, the new President implied that he, the Leader, was in perfect communion with the People, and that together they would repair the landscape of  'American carnage' and return it to its [prior] state of grace." [1]

"Trump has left open hundreds of important positions in government, largely because he sees no value in them." "[His]  language, his tone, his personal behavior, all suggest, and foster, a politics of resentment."

"If we were ever naive enough to believe that progress in political life is inevitable, we are experiencing the contradiction." "Trump forces us to recognize the fragility of precious things." "The task now is to not merely recognize this presidency for the emergency it is, and to resist the assault on the principles of reality and the values of liberal democracy, but to devise a future, to debate, to hear one another, to organize, to preserve and revive precious things."

"Tearing Off the Mask"
There is a "more frightening thought than calling Trump a lunatic and an abomination. He is the logical extension of the way the Republican Party has been operating since Barry Goldwater. This is how the Republican Party has gotten votes for 50 years -- Trump is just tearing off the mask. Now he just says right out the racism that was only barely hidden for so long. An accurate history would show that it's always been there. We shouldn't just talk about how weird Trump is." [2]

Culture Wars
"Roughly 750,000 of the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without permission have successfully proven themselves to fit the DACA qualifications and thus have been deemed worthy neighbors." "[The] Trump administration isn't actually debating immigration policy; it seeks an ongoing debate about the criminality of people of color, a constant parsing of which among us are rapists, drug dealers, and terrorists, and which are the 'great people' that Trump allows do exist. If we accept these terms of debate, we accept our inhumanity, which is the point." [3]

"The Trump administration is staffed by people -- Jeff Sessions, John Kelly, Steve Bannon, the president himself -- who have been waging a cultural battle against the idea of the hero immigrant for years, choosing instead to emphasize immigrant criminality."

ADDENDUMS:
*President Trump's gallery of strongmen includes: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Um, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep T. Erdogan, and Abdel Fattah Sisi.

* Trump says he hasn't spoken to Roger Stone for "a long time;" Stone says they spoke recently.

*Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney in New York, was fired after Trump told him personally he would not be fired, because he was involved in a very sensitive case that might have a connection to Trump.

*Alone in the Oval Office with James Comey, Trump opened the discussion by saying that Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information.

*Trump said that the Russians "tricked us" by having their photographer get exclusive pictures in the Oval Office.