Trump still wants you to be very, very afraid - By E.J. Dionne Jr.
By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer March 1 at 1:05 PM
The obsession with President Trump’s ability to spend one hour in a disciplined relationship with a teleprompter obscured one of his central goals on Tuesday night: He continued to try to scare the country to death.
Yes, he lived up to media expectations that he would finally attempt to look “presidential” and that he could recite words that sounded optimistic and forward-looking. He and his handlers are well aware that commentators typically reward presidents for doing what commentators say presidents need to do.
And he also issued a ritual call for bipartisanship, even though earlier in the day, he had said he regarded House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as “incompetent, actually.” Put aside that upbraiding his female critics is one habit that is very difficult for Trump to break. It was hard to square the nice, let’s-all-get-along paragraphs with everything else Trump has been doing.
And beneath the obeisance to the Beltway rules about what addresses to joint sessions of Congress are supposed to look like lurked Trump Classic. He’s still the man who wants to aggrandize the executive and expand the power of law enforcement by making the country believe it is under threat from dark forces that only a strong hand can deal with.
He didn’t repeat his controversial use of the word “carnage,” which stood out from almost everything else he said in his inaugural address. He simply described the carnage.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-still-wants-you-to-be-very-very-afraid/2017/03/01/3a260fa8-fea6-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.67a5eaba2364&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
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