The presidency of Donald Trump is simply exhausting. Though FBI Director James Comey was fired under four weeks ago, it feels more like four months. The inauguration could have been a year ago, and the election easily another year before that. Alas, however, we’re barely 9% of the way through this interminable presidential term.
It’s utterly impossible to avoid politics these days, and that’s terribly wearying. When so much of the news is devoted to what Trump has done, it also affects the writing here on One Foot Tsunami, as it seems more difficult to find offbeat stories worth riffing on. Rather than constantly linking to the latest disastrous Trump news, I’m going to try a summary post containing a few links to the worst of the worst from the past week. These posts will be titled “This Week in Trump”, which aptly acronyms to TWIT. Let’s start with a few of the indefensible things Donald Trump did this past week:
May 29th: After three days, Trump finally condemned an anti-Muslim attack in Portland, Oregon. This horrific incident featured three heroes who stopped the attack, two of them losing their lives in the process. The names of Ricky John Best, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, and Micah David-Cole Fletcher should be heard by all. (Link)
May 30th: It was reported that Donald Trump has given out his personal cell phone number to several world leaders. This insecure phone is certain to be the target of espionage attempts. (Link)
June 1st: The White House released a statement that America would keep its embassy in Tel Aviv. While this breaks a campaign promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem, it should be a positive move because it would keep Arabs engaged in peace negotiations. However, the statement includes this text “But, as [Trump] has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when”, which seem certain to scuttle any useful peace talks. (Link)
June 1st: Trump announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, which essentially ever other country in the world has signed on to. The two outliers are Syria, which lacked a functioning government to participate, and Nicaragua, who feel the agreement didn’t go far enough. The move is met with near universal displeasure from business leaders (and indeed the world), including oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. It caused tremendous backlash, leading presidential advisors Elon Musk and Bob Iger to quite their positions in protest. (Link)
That last one is a real doozy, and it’s all I can take for this week. Stay tuned for further TWIT posts though, because one thing we can be certain of is that there will be no shortage of material.
