The three things saving us from Trump
By Ruth Marcus Deputy editorial page editor December 29 at 7:05 PM
As this appalling year limps to a close, with President Trump consistently underperforming even the lowest of expectations, a note of holiday cheer: Our country’s institutions and values have, so far, proven remarkably resilient.
This outcome was not a given; complacency that it will continue would be dangerous. And yet, after nearly a year of Trump, the warnings about incipient fascism and the insidious ways strongmen acquire power feel overblown. I suspected so from the start, but I wasn’t sure — nor should we be cocky about the future. Still, for now, there are reasons for optimism in the performance of the media, the courts and, yes, even the Republican-dominated Congress — undergirded and reinforced by the American people.
On the media: How scary it is to have a president who derides us as “the enemy of the American people.” To have a cable news network that inflames his worst instincts and recklessly flings suggestions of a “coup” by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. To have nearly half the public, egged on by Trump’s bellowing about “fake news,” believing that reporters simply invent negative stories about the president.
But while Trump & Co. went to war against the press, we went to work, to paraphrase Post Executive Editor Martin Baron. Without that work, the public would probably not know about: former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with the Russians; Donald Trump Jr.’s “I love it” meeting with a Russian lawyer peddling dirt on Hillary Clinton, and the president’s efforts to mislead people about the event; Trump’s description of fired FBI director James B. Comey as a “nut job” in a meeting with Russian officials in which he also divulged highly classified information. The list goes on.
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