MICHAEL BARONE: Keep Calm And Carry On:
Keep calm and carry on. Those words, though not appearing as widely on posters in wartime Britain as often supposed, are good advice for Americans now appalled by the presidency of Donald Trump.
It is widely proclaimed that he is a president unlike any other, a threat to the institutions of republican government and democratic processes, an ignoramus whose impulsiveness may lead to nuclear war.
It’s true that every president since 1945 has had access to the nuclear trigger. And Trump’s insult-laden style and constant tweeting strikes many people (including me) as repugnant and, if sometimes momentarily effective in framing issues, often self-defeating in both the short and long run.
All that said, Trump’s actions, in contrast to many of his words, strike me as comparable to other presidents. One can argue that an office designed for someone as sternly self-disciplined as George Washington is overly powerful and prominent, but no one seriously contemplates restructuring the Constitution.
On a multitude of issues, the Trump administration has operated like others replacing a president of the opposite party. His judicial nominations, starting with Justice Neil Gorsuch, have been just what one expects from a Republican president.
His appointees have reversed predecessors’ regulations: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on college and university sexual assault kangaroo courts, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on regulations aimed at shutting down coal mining.
The Trump team is operating in a target-rich environment, due to Barack Obama’s legally dubious “pen and phone” executive orders like the DACA “Dreamers” amnesty and spending unappropriated funds on Obamacare’s cost-saving reduction payments. The Congressional Review Act, a 1996 Newt Gingrich innovation that lay dormant for 20 years, has enabled narrow Republican congressional majorities to overturn more regulations than Democrats ever anticipated.
The nonstop freakoutrage about Trump was intended to “denormalize” him, but it’s had the effect of denormalizing his opposition, which would be a lot more effective if it behaved normally.