As the Monitor’s reporters worked on this week’s magazine, with our look at the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, a biblical phrase popped to my mind: “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”
This was not for any partisan reason. Across the political spectrum, Americans are grappling with a highly polarized political environment – one that includes emotional questions around everything from immigration to whether the American dream is alive and well (and, if not, what can be done about it), as well as a technological revolution with artificial intelligence and ongoing upheaval in how people get and share information. Distrust of elites coincides with discomfort with rapid change.
In many ways, we have created a society ripe for division and populism. And some historians say it is not surprising that in individualist and entrepreneurial America, the current version of populism includes a billionaire in the White House.
This week’s magazine offers both a review of the Trump presidency and a historical lens on populism, plus coverage of the United States’ intervention in Venezuela. As we put it together, we realized that no single article could sum up the American political landscape.
On the one hand, President Trump has fulfilled public demand for stepped-up border security, imposed a course correction on some less-than-popular social-policy movements, and instigated what many see as a needed toughening of trade relations with China. On the other hand, his approach to wielding power has been testing the rule of law, stressing the constitutional balance of powers, and altering foreign policy in a way that raises the prospect of a might-makes-right era.
We hope our coverage, collectively, helps put the news of the past year in useful perspective. Mr. Trump is no ordinary politician. The whirlwind we are in is no ordinary moment in time. Our goal is to serve you with fact-based and fair-minded reporting. We’re not about telling you what to think. But if we’re doing our job right, Monitor articles should help you think – and act, too – in the midst of the storm.
