We have finally reached the end of the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
It is, as he now reminds us, a “ridiculous standard,” but he has himself to blame for emphasizing it. During the final days of his campaign, he repeatedly bid us to “think what we can accomplish” during those first 100 days.
The milestone comes as the president and Congress play a game of chicken over whether to fund the government or not. The charade offers an apt conclusion to this administration’s first 100 days. After initially blaming Democrats for their failure to join him in replacing the Affordable Care Act, he came closer to pinning the blame where it belonged when he tweeted: “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”
Having failed to “repeal and replace” the ACA or offer any plan for fixing the nation’s infrastructure, a government with a Republican in the White House, with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress finds itself struggling to fund the government.
One bright spot (from the Republican point of view) was the appointment and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. It was a solid achievement, though marred by Senator Mitch McConnell’s sanctimonious preening, a red flag in the face of an opposition whose cooperation he needs in the days ahead.
Meanwhile, a summary by the Washington Post showed that, as of April 22, of 554 top executive branch positions that require confirmation by the Senate, only 22 have been filled. For 473 of them, no nominee has even been announced. This egregious failure to perform a fundamental constitutional obligation makes it almost a joke to call Trump the chief executive.
I don’t know how it works in the real estate business, but in public administration, such inattention to staffing is appalling. The cabinet includes some excellent soldiers: generals James Mattis at defense, John Kelly as secretary of homeland security, and H. R. McMaster as national security adviser (after the firing of the appalling Michael Flynn). But with these exceptions, Trump has put together a team that is predominantly white, male, and heavy with Wall Street types, a rich boys club.
Much of this sound and fury is at one level just the noise of politics in a rich, powerful nation. In two respects, however, the stakes are more grave.
The first problem is constitutional. Who determines when the United States must go to war? The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was clearly correct about that. We go to war only by the joint action of Congress and president. Neither may take us to war without the other.
The War Powers Resolution was passed by overwhelming majorities of both houses. Nixon vetoed it, but it passed again by overwhelming majorities. Its enforcement mechanisms have not worked well, and efforts to strengthen them by amendments haven’t worked either. Nevertheless, the principle underlying the resolution was and is correct, and it is an absolutely fundamental part of constitutional democracy.
Until we develop meaningful restrictions on presidential war-making, we must rely on the character and judgment of the president. If we elect people who are not committed to meaningful consultation and collaboration, we are essentially at the president’s mercy.
You know a deeply dangerous politician when he or she fails to see the importance of this principle. Trump’s act of war in hammering the Assad regime for the use of chemical warfare was the scariest moment of the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency. He made matters worse when he dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in the American arsenal on Afghanistan. Knee-jerk support for these acts by virtually everyone in Congress showed how shallow is our commitment to constitutional government.
We need a constitutional arrangement that guarantees that we never again go to war without a joint, positive decision by the regime’s legislative assembly and executive authority. Until we have that, pious expressions of commitment to the Constitution, whether in its “original” or evolved form, will be just mockery.
The other critical testing of our nation’s political system is contextual, and its importance cannot be overestimated. Noam Chomsky, MIT’s brilliant professor of linguistics, has not always been fair or persuasive in his critique of our political leaders, but he was profoundly right – a truly prophetic voice – when he said in his April 13 lecture at the University of Massachusetts that nuclear weaponry and climate change pose mortal threats not just to us, but to the possibility of human life on this planet. By failing to confront these challenges, we are marching in virtual lockstep toward annihilation.
We seem incapable of prioritizing the dangers we face. We continue to devote virtually all of our political attention to a narcissist’s tweets, meanwhile ignoring the existential threats that surround us.
We are in danger of demonstrating that democracy is an unworthy steward of human life on this planet.
Don Robinson, a retired professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, writes a regular column published the fourth Thursday of the month. He can be reached at drobinso@smith.edu.