It’s easy to get caught up in the deeply flawed character of Donald Trump. We also need to recognize the policy catastrophe of this presidency.
This past week Trump ordered an end to the Obama-era executive action that shielded around 800,000 young undocumented immigrants – often called Dreamers – from deportation under what’s been known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Look at other of Trump’s recent policy decisions and you see the same arbitrary and unnecessary cruelty. What’s the point of banning transgender people from military service? Of siding in court with a businessman who doesn’t want to sell his services to gay couples? Of weakening the standard for responding to sexual violence in universities? Of banning Syrian refugees and reducing by half the number of refugees admitted to the United States?
There is no point, in terms of policy. None of these decisions makes America safer or economically stronger or fairer.