Tomorrow’s going to be a rough day.
I imagine you’ve already read your fill of people wringing their hands/gnashing their teeth/working themselves into a lather over the prospect of a Trump presidency. That’s hardly a surprise as the president-elect hasn’t shown much in the way of good judgement or good taste since winning the election. Chuck Wendig posits that the awfulness is by design, and that could well be the case.
What worries me the most about our next president is that he refuses to be held accountable for anything. Right from the beginning, he made it clear that the he didn’t care whether what he was saying was true or not, and when he was caught, he regularly doubled down with another lie. He couldn’t even be forced to produce his tax returns, the bare minimum financial disclosure expected of presidential candidates. Think about that one for a moment: It’s like interviewing someone for a job and having them tell you “you can see my references after I get the gig.”
He’s appointed his son-in-law to a White House staff position, which is potentially a violation of anti-nepotism laws. He’s refused to divest himself of his business interests, which may be illegal in and of itself, but it sets up a situation where breaking the law at some point is a certainty. After admitting that Russia was likely behind the leak of extremely damaging information against Hillary Clinton, he said it was “time to move on,” suggesting that he wasn’t interested in investigation whether or not a foreign power interfered with the presidential election.
The man who will take the oath of office tomorrow morning has made it clear that he does not feel even remotely beholden to the law and thinks he is not accountable to anyone. There are more things to scare me about a Trump presidency than I care to list, but this is the greatest. He has refused to accept any restriction, any limitation on his actions. That fact that he hasn’t been held accountable for his actions suggests that it will only get worse.
-RK
P.S. My thanks and admiration to everyone who will be in the District to march in protest, including my wife and several of her friends.