Jonathan Chait: “Judged against Roosevelt’s record, the first 100 days of the second Trump term would be deemed a miserable failure. The president has passed no major legislation, and his economic interventions have had the opposite effect of Roosevelt’s, injecting uncertainty into a healthy recovery and seeding an economic crisis.
”“Yet his presidency has still been consequential. In just a few months, Trump has smashed democratic norms, crippled the federal bureaucracy, and realigned America against its traditional friends. Because Trump’s goals are so historically aberrant, the traditional measure of presidential achievement is of hardly any use.”
“His Carter-esque record as legislator and economic steward stands in stark contrast to his Lenin-esque record in stamping out opposition. For the president’s ruling claque, the effect is a triumph. For nearly everybody else, it portends ruin.”