Tag: Trump unfit for office he holds

The central feature of Trump’s presidency: False claims and disinformation

Washington Post logoWill future presidents return to trying to tell the truth?

For weeks, as the coronavirus silently spread through the United States, President Trump belittled the threat and repeatedly praised China for “transparency” and the World Health Organization for its handling of the outbreak. But when the death toll mounted and the scope of the public health crisis became too difficult to ignore, Trump reversed course.

“I always felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” he declared — then angrily blamed China for failing to contain the new virus and accused the WHO of helping a coverup. He later withdrew the United States from the WHO.

Likewise, when a distraught widower asked Twitter to remove Trump’s tweets insinuating that the man’s wife had been killed by MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough, Trump ignored the plea and repeated the slander. Continue reading.

Trump is all about deregulation — except when it comes to his enemies

Washington Post logoDeregulation always, promises President Trump. Unless of course it comes to his political enemies.

Furious that Twitter deigned to fact-check him, Trump has threatened “big action” against the company, including through an executive order signed Thursday. He accused social media platforms of silencing conservatives and vowed to “strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”

Constitutional scholars point out that shuttering a private firm for producing speech the president dislikes would violate the First Amendment. Notably, it also contradicts a core plank of his economic agenda: reducing burdensome government interventions and regulations, wherever possible. Continue reading.

A constitutional scholar explains why Trump’s understanding of the US system is haphazard at best

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump recently attempted to explain the complex relationship between the federal government and the states, as outlined by the framers in 1787.

“[Y]ou can call it ‘federalist,’ you can call it ‘the Constitution,’ but I call it ‘the Constitution,’” he said at a briefing by the Coronavirus Task Force.

Trump’s statement, along with several others he has made recently, highlights one of the key issues that has affected America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic: federalism. Continue reading.