Before Inauguration Day, it was just possible for optimists (I wasn’t one of them) to predict that Trump would jettison his ignorant racist blowhard campaign persona and evolve into a serious politician when he took office. “American Carnage” put an end to that. As Dennis Green would have said, he is what we thought he was, and he will never change.
“American Carnage” was, in retrospect, the high point of the Trump-as-Batman theme, because, with time, he has to take more and more responsibility for the status quo. But what of his promises? Where are we today?
Our political system has been corrupted. The nation has not been this divided in the last fifty years. Nuclear war is a real possibility. Our country has never been less respected overseas (except in Israel and Saudi Arabia)–at least not in my lifetime. And now the government is shut down, because Trump wants to use a program that he has previously claimed to support as bargaining leverage for other immigration concessions, which is either dishonest or completely insane.
Against that, the market is up, and unemployment is at four percent. His deregulation program and regressive tax cut have played a small role in that. On balance, is it worth it? You decide.