One Week Under Trump

Let’s see: alternative facts, rogue tweets, and refusing to keep our mouth shut

So. It’s been one week.

In that time, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave his first press conference, in which he told several flat-out lies and took no questions from reporters. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway defended these lies as “alternative facts.” President Donald Trump told the C.I.A. itself that he had a “running war with the media,” who “are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Chief Strategist Steve Bannon called the media “the opposition party” and said it should just “keep its mouth shut.”

Rather than let go of campaign-style competitiveness and focus on what he called his “oath of allegiance to all Americans,” Trump repeatedly disputed the obvious truth about how many people attended his inauguration, not to mention how many people cast valid votes in the elections nearly three months ago. Despite a complete lack of evidence and bipartisan condemnation, he’s used his first days in office to call for an absurd “major investigation of voter fraud” that undermines the legitimacy of the democratic process itself.

Meanwhile, although Trump criticized Barack Obama’s use of executive orders back in 2012, he’s already signed a dozen himself, each more backward-looking than the last. His first steps as president sought to weaken enforcement of the Affordable Care Act, freeze federal hiring, pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, restrict funding to foreign NGOs, expedite controversial oil pipeline projects, initiate the construction of a Mexican border wall at the taxpayers’ expense, and accelerate the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Our new Commander in Chief is also facing a fresh “barrage of legal actions” related to corruption, conflicts of interest, and sexual assault. Cases are being brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the American…