Trump’s Smash-and-Grab Presidency Reaches New Heights

Mr. Edsall contributes weekly essays from Washington on politics and demographics.

President Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran exemplifies his smash-and-grab approach to governing: acting without apparently considering the lives to be lost, the law or the institutional damage he will leave behind.

Trump seems to have attacked Iran unprepared for the intensity of Iran’s counterattack, the full range of threats posed to Americans in the region, the inflationary effects of sharply rising gas prices and the angry reaction........

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