Tag: Trump damaging American democracy

The Memo: Obama enters battle, enraging Trump

The Hill logo

Former President Obama returned to the political battlefield with full force on Wednesday — and immediately got under the skin of his successor.

Obama cast President Trump as an existential threat to American democracyduring his speech to the Democratic National Convention. Such an intervention by a former president against his successor is unprecedented in recent history — but merited, in Obama’s view, given the stakes.

“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” Obama said near the climax of his speech. Continue reading.

Yes, Trump is incompetent. But he’s becoming alarmingly good at corrupting the government.

Washington Post logoWe have become so accustomed to President Trump’s incompetence that it’s easy to miss a crucial change: In his fourth year in office, Trump is learning to bend government to his corrupt purposes.

The incompetence was and remains uppermost, most lethally in the president’s surrender to the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. mortality rate, while not the world’s highest, is some 84 times greater than South Korea’s.

But in less visible corners, Trump is coming to understand how to use the bureaucracy to his ends. We might welcome such a learning curve in most presidents, because most presidents want government to serve the public good, as they see it. Continue reading.

Trump’s IG firings prompt questions of whether more are coming

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s recent shakeup of federal watchdogs has questions swirling over whether more inspectors general across the government may be on the chopping block in the coming days.

In less than a week, Trump fired, removed or publicly berated inspectors general across multiple federal agencies, including the oversight official who was tasked last week with overseeing the massive $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package.

Oversight experts and Democrats have protested the president’s inspector general (IG) reorganization, while some of the president’s allies are pushing for further review of current watchdogs. Continue reading.

Trump’s Politicization of the Justice System

Center for American Progress logoSince the vast majority of Republican senators failed in their constitutional duty to be a check on serious government corruption, President Donald Trump has repeatedly exhibited his willingness to abuse the power of his office. But involving himself in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recommended sentencing of Roger Stone, a convicted federal criminal—and Trump’s close political ally—was perhaps the most flagrant display of how little respect Trump’s administration has for American democracy.

As the situation develops, the president has attacked not only federal prosecutors but also the federal judge overseeing the case. Throughout his presidency, Trump and his attorneys general have worked to turn the DOJ and the federal judiciary into political puppets, thereby delegitimizing both institutions. This most recent scandal, however, signals that these attacks are only ramping up.

Undermining the DOJ’s independence

After Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone was convicted of multiple federal crimes tied to investigations into the 2016 Trump campaign’s efforts to work with Russia—including making false statements, obstructing Congress, and threatening a witness—career prosecutors at the DOJ issued a sentence recommendation of seven to nine years in prison, consistent with the sentencing guidelines that the agency uses to make these determinations. The president subsequently took to twitter to criticize the recommendation as “horrible and very unfair,” adding: “The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”  Continue  reading.

Your tax dollars at work: Trump’s new policies are way more alarming than his vengeance campaign against perceived enemies

AlterNet logoSo, while Donald Trump has been parading his vengeance campaign against perceived enemies, what’s his actual government been doing?

Inquiring skeptics want to know.

Mostly, once we set aside the pomp of awarding undeserved medals to Rush Limbaugh and continuing to irritate foreign leaders who had considered themselves allies, the answer is that the government continues to pursue the anti-immigrant, anti-science, anti-environmental policies that have marked the last three years. Continue reading.

Marie Yovanovitch: These are turbulent times. But we will persist and prevail.

Washington Post logoMarie L. Yovanovitch served most recently as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

After nearly 34 years working for the State Department, I said goodbye to a career that I loved. It is a strange feeling to transition from decades of communicating in the careful words of a diplomat to a person free to speak exclusively for myself.

What I’d like to share with you is an answer to a question so many have asked me: What do the events of the past year mean for our country’s future?

It was an honor for me to represent the United States abroad because, like many immigrants, I have a keen understanding of what our country represents. In a leap of optimism and faith, my parents made their way from the wreckage of post-World War II Europe to America, knowing in their hearts that this country would give me a better life. They rested their hope, not in the possibility of prosperity, but in a strong democracy: a country with resilient institutions, a government that sought to advance the interests of its people, and a society in which freedom was cherished and dissent protected. These are treasures that must be carefully guarded by all who call themselves Americans. Continue reading.