Trending
The plans of the Trump administration to remake American society were thwarted by Minnesota's resistance to Trump's Metro Surge invasion of the Twin Cities. That is the conclusion of the essay "Trump Has Finally Lost the Plot" by Peter Wehner and Jonathan Rauch. Wehner served in the Reagan and both Bush administrations. Let me summarize their observations.
Before the failure of Metro Surge, Trump had made progress toward: running the federal government as "the leader's personal property and family concern," degrading "what is considered acceptable in American public life," the goal for "career civil servants to be viewed as 'villains.'" defunding colleges and universities, "punishing or crippling major law firms," "efforts to bully and reshape the media," degrading the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and other cultural institutions, exerting control over world soccer, the Olympics, and other sports enterprises.
"Probably most important, the administration used displays of force in an attempt to teach Americans docility." "Those operations were" the Trump administration's "effort to instill fear in its citizens." The most prominent of these operations was Metro Surge in the Twin Cities. "The architect of the operation, Stephen Miller," reportedly said that protesters "need to be vanquished by any force necessary."
"History may one day judge that the tide turned in Minneapolis." "The people of Minneapolis answered with disciplined, peaceful resistance." "The administration backed down." "Minnesotans shook off their despair and found that they were not powerless. The moment became a catalyst far beyond the Twin Cities. The mass public saw what was being done in their name and many were repulsed by it."
The "president's approval rating collapsed." Trump's "preoccupations have shifted away from intimidating and dominating civil society and toward building monuments to himself." "The MAGA movement is fracturing. And the president no longer inspires the fear he once did;" "many Americans -- probably enough Americans -- are determined to live within the truth rather than the lie."
Sherwin Skar
Marshall