2017 was a year of experiment in Trumpland. The man on golf cart didn’t expect to win the election and had little idea of what to do when he did. Lacking firm views of how to govern, he was persuaded to hire and accept guidance from the “axis of adults.” While the corrosive quality of his rhetoric remained the same, he acted, with some notable exceptions (e.g., gratuitously offending our allies; refusing to condemn overt racists), as a conventional Republican. He won on the tax cut and lost on Obamacare, but he didn’t run the show in either instance. The markets, and many world leaders, decided to ignore his tweets and pay attention only to his actions.
2018, on the other hand, was a year of discovery. New allegations of misconduct rained down on the administration on a daily basis. Mueller’s work intensified. Now confident that he could run the country in the same manner as his real estate business, Trump decided he didn’t need the “axis of adults,” so he replaced them with the “circle of sycophants” and governed more and more often with his golden gut. The Democrats won the midterm elections and prepared to investigate Trump and his family. The long-awaited trade wars finally began. The year ended with a partial government shutdown and no clear solution in sight.
What will 2019 bring? That will be the subject of my next post.