![\"The](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2014\/09\/WhiteHouseSouthFacade.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
The cover of the October 2017 issue of The Atlantic<\/em> features the headline \u201cThe Trump Presidency: A Damage Report.\u201d \u00a0The headline announces three articles: \u00a0\u201cWill Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency?\u201d by Jack Goldsmith; \u201cHow Trump Is Ending the American Era,\u201d by Eliot A. Cohen; and \u201cThe First White President,\u201d by Ta-Nehisi Coates.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I may or may not read the third article; I\u2019m not a fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve now gone through\u00a0the first two, and I have to say that, while they\u2019re very intelligent and balanced, they make for very, very grim reading. \u00a0They\u2019re both just a tad long but, for anybody who is interested in serious analysis of the Trump administration \u2014 in these cases, from serious Republican<\/em> thinkers \u2014 I recommend them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe disdains the rule of law. \u00a0He\u2019s trampling norms of presidential behavior. \u00a0And he\u2019s bringing vital institutions down with him.\u201d \u00a0That is the verdict of Jack Goldsmith, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a member of the faculty at Harvard Law School, and a former assistant attorney general in the presidential administration of George W. Bush.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump is testing the institution of the presidency unlike any of his 43 predecessors. \u00a0We have never had a president so ill-informed about the nature of his office, so openly mendacious, so self-destructive, or so brazen in his abusive attacks on the courts, the press, Congress (including members of his own party), and even senior officials within his own administration. \u00a0Trump is a Frankenstein\u2019s monster of past presidents\u2019 worst attributes: Andrew Jackson\u2019s rage; Millard Fillmore\u2019s bigotry; James Buchanan\u2019s incompetence and spite; Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s self-aggrandizement; Richard Nixon\u2019s paranoia, insecurity, and indifference to law; and Bill Clinton\u2019s lack of self-control and reflexive dishonesty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2017\/10\/will-donald-trump-destroy-the-presidency\/537921\/<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n While Jack Goldsmith concentrates mostly on domestic matters, Eliot A. Cohen, who served as the Counselor of the State Department under Secretary Condoleezza Rice, focuses on foreign affairs. \u00a0This is natural, given that he now teaches at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s School of Advanced International Studies and has, most recently, authored a book titled The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor all the visible damage the president has done to America\u2019s global standing,\u201d Cohen argues, \u201cthings are much worse below the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many reasons to be appalled by President Trump, including his disregard for constitutional norms and decent behavior. \u00a0But watching this unlikeliest of presidents strut on the treacherous stage of international politics is different from following the daily domestic chaos that is the Trump administration. \u00a0Hearing him bully and brag, boast and bluster, threaten and lie, one feels a kind of dizziness, a sensation that underneath the throbbing pulse of routine scandal lies the potential for much worse. \u00a0The kind of sensation, in fact, that accompanies dangerously high blood pressure, just before a sudden, excruciating pain.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2017\/10\/is-trump-ending-the-american-era\/537888\/<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And here\u2019s a conservative reaction to the pivot of the until-relatively-recently-Democratic Donald J.\u00a0Trump away from his own adopted party back toward the Democrats:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTrump and His Supporters Care about \u2018Wins,\u2019 Not Ideology\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, on the Left:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You may have heard about the large demonstration against freedom of speech that met Ben Shapiro \u2014 like me, a Never-Trump Conservative \u2014 when he spoke on Thursday at the University of California at Berkeley. \u00a0 Before that, you may have heard about the \u201csafe spaces\u201d and counseling needed by\u00a0some of the poor dears enrolled in the very school where the \u201cFree Speech Movement\u201d was born back in sixties,\u00a0because Shapiro, somebody holding different views than theirs,\u00a0would\u00a0be allowed to speak on their campus.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Well, don\u2019t imagine that Utah is immune to such fascistic idiocy:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cU Students Call on Administration to Cancel Ben Shapiro Event\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, did you hear about the shameful religious litmus test that certain Democratic senators recently sought to impose on a nominee for the federal judiciary?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n An editorial from the Deseret News<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cWe condemn religious tests for office\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m proud of the fact\u00a0that, as the Deseret News<\/em> editorial observes, three Latter-day Saint senators who were present were vocal in their objections.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From my friend and BYU colleague Ralph Hancock: \u00a0\u201cSecular liberals should check their own \u2018dogma'\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n