Here’s what I said before I knew the outcome of the election:
6. Are we facing a bad interregnum, as during 1932-33? Perhaps, especially if Trump becomes bitter and blames the American people, much as Hitler blamed the Germans for letting him down. (Oops, I’m not allowed to compare Trump to Hitler.) Perhaps the only constitutional amendment with a prayer of passing is to have presidents take office in early January with the new Congress, or better yet right after the Electoral College votes in mid-December. It’s hard to see how either party would object, at least if the interregnum ends up being a mess.
And here’s the FT:
Just before boarding his Marine One helicopter to depart the White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump vetoed a $740bn bill that funds everything from weapons to military pay. The veto came less than 24 hours after he rejected a stimulus relief bill that his team had helped craft with Democrats and Republicans.
On top of throwing a spanner into the legislative works on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump on Wednesday issued a series of controversial pardons, including to Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager. That followed another set of pardons on Tuesday, including to four men who killed unarmed Iraqi civilians when they worked for Blackwater, a security company founded by Erik Prince whose sister Betsy DeVos is Mr Trump’s education secretary. . . .
Some critics have accused Mr Trump of trying to spark turmoil to spite his opponents, while others have suggested that the president is throwing a long temper tantrum because of his failure to win re-election.
“Every day it feels like it gets worse. It is not just incompetence, it feels like malice,” said Mieke Eoyang, a former top Democratic congressional aide. “There’s no American analogue in terms of the scope of what he’s doing . . . I’ve never seen this level of malevolence in American government.”
Some critics portrayed Mr Trump as a petulant child throwing his toys out of his pram. “He just wants to break stuff on the way out,” tweeted George Conway, a Republican lawyer and persistent critic of the president whose wife, Kellyanne Conway, recently served as a White House aide to Mr Trump.
Trump’s making the congressional GOP look “mean” just days before an election that will determine control of the Senate. An election that is arguably as important as the presidential election.
And why do people say Trump has a big ego?
Merry Christmas!!