I predicted all sorts of dire results during the initial phases of a Trump presidency during the campaign. Does the record prove me right?
It has actually been worse than I thought in three respects. First, I figured that Trump would decapitate the top of the civil service in order to make it serve his interests. Instead, he is cutting the “deep state” viciously and randomly in order to assert his dominance over it; as a result, one of the most powerful men in America is a nineteen-year-old who calls himself “Big Balls” on the web. Second, it never occurred to me that we would be threatening to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal. Finally, the hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center came as a surprise. Where was that in the Trump campaign commercials?
Everything else–the tariff chaos, the defiance of court orders, the abandonment of Ukraine, etc.–is as expected.