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Ongoing reports and analysis

With the U.S. midterm elections less than 100 days away, the focus of much of the country’s politics will turn to questions such as how quickly Donald Trump, like most two-term U.S. presidents before him, will be transformed into a lame duck, and what the results could mean for gaming out who will succeed him in two years.

As compelling as questions like these are, there are other matters, equally or even more weighty, that will shape the country’s future and its place in the world. Whatever one thinks of Trump, future historians will probably conclude that he was one of the most consequential leaders the country has ever had. Trump, no doubt, would agree with this appraisal. Consequential, unfortunately, does not equate with “good.”

With the U.S. midterm elections less than 100 days away, the focus of much of the country’s politics will turn to questions such as how quickly Donald Trump, like most two-term U.S. presidents before him, will be transformed into a lame duck, and what the results could mean for gaming out who will succeed him in two years.

As compelling as questions like these are, there are other matters, equally or even more weighty, that will shape the country’s future and its place in the world. Whatever one thinks of Trump, future historians will probably conclude that he was one of the most consequential leaders the country has ever had. Trump, no doubt, would agree with this appraisal. Consequential, unfortunately, does not equate with “good.”

Despite his campaign slogan promising to “Make America Great Again,” Trump’s eventual successor will likely spend much time and energy reckoning with the serious damage that he has wrought to the country’s democracy—and the sapping of U.S. power, influence, and global standing that has accompanied it.

To understand this, one need only think of the United States’ weakened Atlantic and Pacific alliances, which have been the envy of rival powers since the start of the postwar era. But that is only for starters. Think also of the way that Trump has attacked or degraded incarnations of unmatched U.S. excellence, such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the research science and higher-education........

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