Trump Wasted First 100 Days on Indulging His Base

Ed Kilgore: “Trump had a basic choice to make in planning his second administration. He could have moved cautiously to consolidate his support, extend the public-opinion honeymoon any presidential-election winner invariably enjoys, register some early wins, and convince a skeptical and fearful country that Trump 2.0 would represent the sort of return to normalcy that Joe Biden once promised but could not provide. This approach might have sent the wounded Democrats into an extended wilderness and made MAGA Republicanism into the greatest political success story of the 21st century.”

“As we now know, Trump chose a very different approach that highlighted all his worst characteristics: a raft of extremist appointments rewarding loyalty rather than competence, a vast array of executive actions that stretched every known limit on presidential powers to the breaking point, an escalation in vituperative rhetoric and threats against anyone who dared to question him, a rapid reorientation of America’s international positioning to blow up alliances or any other restraint on aggressive assertion of unilateral American interests, and a trade war that spooked global and domestic markets and U.S. consumers alike.”