The Plan for Trump's First 100 Days

I was going to do the same sort of analysis of each of Donald Trump's First 100 Days Plan points that +Doyce Testerman ended up doing before me, but he did a lot of what I would have done in terms of points made, I might as well point you at his instead of repeating him 95% of the time:

http://doycetesterman.com/index.php/2016/11/the-first-one-hundred-days-of-the-hurricane/

I'm not quite as confident that majorities in polls about social issues are going to in the least way enter into the calculus of either Trump or the GOP Congress (which is largely immune to that kind of pressure for at least four years), but I would love to be pleasantly surprised by that, or by an outpouring of national protest and tying up of such actions in court (at least until SCOTUS gets stacked and some new federal judgeships get fast-tracked).

I agree with Doyce that there are a lot of those promised actions that:

a. Congress isn't going to diddly-squat about (even if Trump is actually vigorously in favor of all of them, about which I have my doubts). It's going to be very interesting watching the dynamic between Trump and McConnell and Ryan, and see how he actually deals with ostensible allies that aren't about to hop to when he gives a command. This could very well buy some time in general or around specific proposals.

b. Aren't going to work, and so cheese off a lot of people. The question is whether Trump will then be held responsible for it, or whether he will effectively scapegoat others (Democrats! Foreigners! China! Mexico! ISIS!) for their failure. The track record of demagogues managing to pull that trick off is not promising for the nation, but one can hope.

That said, it's a litany of awfulness, and enough of it will get through to cause pain for years, decades, centuries and more (in the case of climate change). But a lot of it won't, or it holds the prospect of backfiring on the folk who put it through. It won't be easy, and it's just the punch list for the first 100 days.

Stay strong, defend what's important, and help one another. This, too, shall pass — and pass faster if we work at it together.

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