Let’s begin the weekend by taking a look at a good-news article and a bad-news article. Which is which depends, of course, on your perspective.
"Even without delivering on his biggest campaign promises, President Donald Trump has begun to reshape American life in ways big and small," says Reuters.
The rundown:
He's using an aggressive series of regulatory rollbacks, executive orders and changes in enforcement guidelines to rewrite the rules for industries from energy to airlines and on issues from campus sexual assault to anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, Reuters says.
Under Trump, oil is flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline, and more federal lands are open for coal mining. Arrests of immigrants living illegally in the United States have increased.
Trump has rolled back or delayed Obama-era rules and regulations that protected retirement savings from unscrupulous financial advisers, made it harder for companies that violated labor laws to get federal contracts and restricted what internet service providers could do with their customers’ personal data.
He's rolled back hundreds of rules and regulations, signed 47 executive orders and used a previously obscure legislative tool, the Congressional Review Act, 14 times to undo regulations passed in the final months of the Obama presidency. The law had been used only once before, 16 years ago.
Trump's administration withdrew or delayed more than 800 Obama-era regulatory actions in its first six months. Proposals for new rules, including those to delay or rescind existing rules, dropped 32 percent from the same period in 2016 under Obama, and are down from similar six-month periods under presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Reuters says, citing data from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute.
At the same time, Trump has limited new federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two rules for every new one. He's asked each agency to name a regulatory reform officer to take aim at unneeded rules.
And more.
One of Trump’s most lasting accomplishments, Reuters says, is likely to be the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch, who restored the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and at age 50 is likely to serve for decades.
On the other hand:
"The election of Donald Trump could be one of the best things that ever happened to American democracy,” say E.J. Dionne Jr., Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, authors of the new book “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported.”
"We say this even though we believe that Trump poses a genuine danger to our republican institutions and has done enormous damage to our country. He has violated political norms, weakened our standing in the world and deepened the divisions of an already sharply torn nation.
"But precisely because the Trump threat is so profound, he has jolted much of the country to face problems that have been slowly eroding our democracy," they say in an essay adapted from their book that ran a few days ago in The Washington Post.
"And he has aroused a popular mobilization that may far outlast him.
"The need to contain Trump has given life to new forms of organization. … Many of the new groups are developing models of citizen activism designed to promote lasting engagement.
"The largest of these, Indivisible, started as an online guide to political advocacy from former congressional staffers, but it amassed several thousand local chapters across the country with astonishing speed, assisted by full-time organizing staff.
"Swing Left, another group formed in the aftermath of the 2016 election, is helping to connect progressives living in comfortably blue districts with opportunities to support Democratic congressional candidates in nearby swing districts. And #KnockEveryDoor is recruiting and training volunteers to canvass in their communities with the goal of promoting progressive policies by engaging voters in civil conversations — imagine that! — about the issues that matter most to them.
"Organizations that existed prior to Trump’s victory have reconsidered their political strategies and rededicated themselves to building the capacity of grass-roots activists. The ACLU has launched the People Power platform, an online network to train its members in activism and connect them to events in their communities. The progressive MoveOn.org launched Resistance Summer in June to educate 1,200 people in political organizing and advocacy. This was matched by a similar Resistance Summer effort within the apparatus of the Democratic Party.
"Perhaps the clearest sign of long-term commitment has been the surge in the recruitment of candidates for public office, especially among younger activists who can speak effectively to peers turned off in the past by political action.
"Emily’s List, which trains and funds pro-choice Democratic women running for office, says it has already had more than 18,000 potential candidates seek its assistance ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, compared with fewer than 1,000 in the last election cycle.
"To address racial and gender disparities in politics, Higher Heights is working to recruit more black women to run for office. A new group called Run for Something is focusing on electing young progressives to state and local offices by publicizing their campaigns and connecting them with potential volunteers and donors.
"A broad and powerful movement has arisen to defeat Trump and Trumpism,” say Dionne, Mann and Ornstein. "Its success will be a triumph worthy of celebration."