Spiteful

Piece by piece Trump is dismantling the achievements of the previous administration whether they are in environmental protections, non-discrimination achievements, or international agreements. Yesterday Trump announced that he was dissatisfied with the Iran accords, an international agreement, and directed that Congress see about reshaping the agreement to fit Trump's demands. One cannot say to fit Trump's vision because he doesn't have one. While this agreement may not please the very hard-liners like John Bolton who helped Trump draft the language of his announcement, it does go a long way toward slowing down or deterring the acquisition of nuclear weaponry.

There are several problems associated with Trump's announcement. It will remain an international agreement even without any participation on the part of the United States so if we leave that won't change other than making us have to renegotiate with multiple parties rather than just one. It destroys any credibility that the US has in proposing other agreements. Why should North Korea even listen (if they decided to negotiate which is still not clear) if the US is an unreliable negotiating party? Up to now NK has been the unreliable partner in any agreements made but now we will be seen as such. And every single one of Trump's official diplomatic and military advisors told him not to take this route as chaos would ensue, except Nikki Haley whose only previous governing experience was as the governor of a southern state, not in any substantive investigative or international planning capacity.

So what we have is Trump showing once again that the only vision he has for the US and the world is to remove any hint of Obama's vision of the US and the world. In my home state this means far more pollution and degradation of the environment (we already have some of the worst air pollution in the country but Obama's EPA was trying to change that), far fewer people having access to medical care (Salt Lake City only has two medical insurance providers but now they have more freedom to gouge and deny), and far fewer  protections for my own gender (women are at a disadvantage in Utah anyway but now the GOMB lose any constraints). Those are only a few of the immediate impacts Utah is already experiencing. What the future holds is anyone's guess.

Trump's MAGA simply means that he never had a vision at all; he simply wanted to destroy Obama's. The very worst mistake Obama ever made was to make fun of Trump at the WH correspondents dinner.