Editorials from around New England

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New England newspapers:

The (New London) Day (Conn.), Feb. 7, 2017

President Trump won the presidency running as an insurgent. But he barely won, receiving 46 percent of the popular vote and finishing nearly 3 million votes behind the Democratic candidate. If not for the Electoral College system, he would not be president. His unsubstantiated ranting that millions voted illegally - all against him, of course - does not change those facts.

The traditional approach for a president entering the White House with such modest backing would be to emphasize policies that could attract broad support, while staying true to his platform. Tax cuts, for example, or laying out the details for an infrastructure program to rebuild America.

With such an approach a president can build support and grow political capital, then use that foundation to launch the more controversial aspects of his agenda.

Two weeks into his term, Trump has opted instead to remain the insurgent. In a series of executive orders, and outrageous and often wholly inaccurate comments, the new president has tossed red meat to his core supporters.

Trump has ordered a 120-day suspension of the refugee program and a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. from citizens of seven heavily Muslim countries.

He authorized a U.S.-Mexico border wall and stripped federal grant money to cities with policies that discourage local police from ferreting out undocumented immigrants.

Trump ordered federal regulators to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

The president’s tweets and statements attacking those who disagree, often in personal terms, have been unbecoming of the office of president, dangerous in their undermining of American values, and embarrassing to our country.

In other words, Trump is governing as he campaigned. The results are predictable. The Gallup tracking poll on Tuesday showed his approval number at 42 percent, less even than his popular vote. He can blame the press and celebrity critics, and dismiss the polls as fake news, but the fumbling start to the presidency is real and the blame is Trump’s.

His supporters crow that Trump is carrying out his campaign promises. This is true. But his administration is not doing a good job of it. Issuing orders is easy. Building consensus in support of a policy, assuring that the implications and ability to implement have been addressed, is far more difficult.

The rollout of the ban on travel from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan has been a disaster. Congressional leaders did not receive advance notice. Neither did allies. Transportation Safety Administration officers were not clear on how to enforce it. The handcuffing of a 5-year-old and numerous stories of families unable to unite were among the public relations disasters.

Enemies seized on the ban as evidence that the U.S. is aligned against Islam, not terrorism.

When Judge James Robart of Federal District Court in Seattle ordered a halt to the ban because of the serious legal and constitutional questions surrounding it, Trump attacked him in a series of tweets as a “so-called judge” who had “put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”

This is a nation of laws. It is wrong for a president to undermine the authority of a federal judge to interpret their constitutionality. Too bad if the president feels slighted about the challenge to his executive order.

Politicians being critical about the press coverage they receive is nothing new. What’s new is Trump’s contention that the media is collectively lying and covering up information to discredit him.

“It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it,” Trump told a group of senior commanders recently at an Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., making the false claim that news organizations do not report on acts of terror.

Earlier in his presidency, his ego unable to accept the reality his audience was not historically large, Trump claimed in a speech to Central Intelligence Agency officers that “dishonest” reporters downplayed the size of his inauguration crowd.

Such rhetoric is a signal to Trump backers that they should reject as false any poll or story critical of him. It is the approach expected from a narcissistic tin-pot dictator, not a U.S. president.

The bottom line is that our president needs to start acting presidential by growing a thicker skin, respecting the nation’s constitutional checks and balances, and improving the functioning of his White House before issuing any new half-baked executive orders. As things now stand, Trump is doing this nation and his presidency a great disservice.

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The Portland Press Herald (Maine), Feb. 5, 2017

More than 65 million people across world have been forced from their homes, by ideological extremists, ethnic violence, oppressive regimes and deadly food shortages. It is the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, and like that war it will require a massive global effort to end the suffering and chaos.

Yet it remains an open question whether the United States and the rest of the West will take up that banner. So far, the outlook is not promising.

The Trump administration already has taken steps to withdraw the U.S. from its global obligations, and attempts by European powers to intervene in the crisis have only accelerated the rise of a nationalist, anti-immigrant opposition at home.

But turning away from this unprecedented emergency will not make it disappear; it can only make it worse.

Then what is the U.S. role in the global refugee crisis? Whose responsibility is it, exactly? How should the world care for the millions of displaced people? And how can the crisis be kept from getting worse?

The Trump administration appears to be shoving aside those questions. Thankfully, not everyone is.

The Camden Conference, an annual gathering of foreign policy experts and concerned citizens, will celebrate its 30th anniversary from Feb. 17-19,with a topic that could not be more relevant: “Refugees and Global Migration: Humanity’s Crisis.” Speakers include U.N. advisers, professors, human rights activists and other experts on national security, migration and displacement. Among the attendees, thanks to scholarships, will be 20 immigrant students from Maine.

The speakers represent a wide variety of views, and the conference will attempt to get at just how to stabilize unstable regions, quantify the risks and moral obligations of the worldwide community, alleviate the suffering of millions without homes and integrate refugees of divergent backgrounds into new countries.

Those are complex questions with no easy answers.

With all the attention given to refugees and immigrants in the last week, one would think the West already is facing the crisis head on. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Of the nearly 5 million Syrians pushed from their country - along with another 6 million displaced within Syria - only an estimated 10 percent have gone to Europe. Just 18,000 have been resettled in the United States,

Meanwhile, countries with far less wealth and fewer resources are taking responsibility. Turkey, with less than a quarter of the population of the United States, has taken in around 2.5 million Syrians. Jordan has taken in more than 600,000 Syrian refugees, and Lebanon, population 4.5 million, has accepted 1.1 million Syrians.

Of course, Syria is just part of the crisis. Citizens of countries in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and Central America are running for their lives in huge numbers. They are fleeing bombed-out cities, and villages threatened by warlords and dictators that target for death any opposition. They are escaping religious extremists and drug gangs that recruit children at gunpoint. They have been forced to vacate areas left barren by climate change that has turned farmland to desert and shifted fishing patterns, making food scarce.

That makes for a diverse refugee population, and one that will only grow as the factors driving the crisis intensify. It is a unique challenge for world leaders.

But rather than rising to meet it, the Western world is pulling away. Far-right nationalist movements are gaining popularity throughout Europe by using anti-immigrant rhetoric, not the least in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing intense criticism after agreeing to eventually take in more than 1 million Syrians.

And in the United States, where distance has kept us from feeling the full effects of the refugee crisis, President Donald Trump in one of his first official acts cut off immigration and refugee resettlement from seven Muslim-majority nations, including Syria. He calls the ban temporary, but there are elements within his administration that want to severely diminish the influx of foreign citizens to the United States, if not end it altogether.

There have also been suggestions the Trump administration will pull back support for NATO and the United Nations, whose refugee program is already underfunded, leaving refugees trapped in substandard and makeshift living conditions. Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. from climate change agreements, as well.

Turning away from this emergency can not be the answer. It will not repair the unstable and failed nations spurring the crisis; it can only make them more susceptible to extremism and oppression. It will not make our country more safe; it can only make the world more dangerous.

The Camden Conference is a timely opportunity to understand what’s driving global migration and why it’s so important to act.

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The MetroWest Daily News of Framingham (Mass.), Feb. 5, 2017

One silver lining for those who oppose the Trump presidency is that his election has stirred up the pot so much it has caused an explosion of anger, sort of a mini revolution that has gotten passive citizens to get off their butts, stand up and let their voices be heard.

The massive protest for women’s rights in Washington, D.C., and other major American cities was followed up last week by demonstrations at airports decrying the president’s executive order temporarily banning migrants, refugees and foreign nationals from seven majority Muslim countries.

Citizens have written letters to congressional representatives and senators, voiced their concerns by writing letters to the newspaper, and stood at local intersections holding signs to let motorists know their opinions.

It’s especially gratifying that people of all races, religions and economic backgrounds have stood alongside our Muslim brothers and sisters, speaking out against a ban many believe defies America values.

The protests have been non-violent, and for the most part have not interfered with the civil rights of others who hold a different view.

We wish it were the case, but apathy is far from dead.

Too many people continue to complain but do nothing. Too many people see the government as their master instead of the other way around. Too many people fail to take advantage of a basic American right, the right to vote.

On this point, Trump made a good argument referencing the Jan. 21 march in Washington, noting in a tweet: “Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn’t these people vote?”

Of course many did, and one can assume many didn’t vote.

The president later tweeted: “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don’t always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.”

In general, it’s debatable whether protests bring about social change. That question aside, Democrats, Republicans and those of all political stripes, should applaud a citizenry that is not sheepish, but takes as celebrated author William Faulkner once said, to never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.

“If people all over the world would do this,” he wrote, “it would change the earth.”

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The Providence Journal (R.I.), Feb. 5, 2017

As members of the Supreme Court have increasingly substituted their political judgment for that of elected legislators, the makeup of the court has become an ever more contentious political battle. That has led the U.S. Senate, which has the job of approving or rejecting nominations, to behave very badly indeed.

In a brazen stunt last year - one that we and many other newspapers denounced - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell effectively stole a court appointment from President Obama and the Americans who elected him. Declaring that such nominations should not be considered in an election year, an idea not found in the U.S. Constitution, Senator McConnell refused to hold hearings on Merrick Garland.

It was a risky as well as reprehensible strategy. Had Hillary Clinton prevailed in November, she might have picked a far more left-wing justice than Mr. Garland. There was also a danger voters might punish Republican senators in November for their blatant obstructionism.

But voters seemed unruffled. They returned Republicans to power in the Senate and elected Donald Trump, who not only ran on a platform of appointing conservative justices, but provided voters a list from which he would draw. Last week, Mr. Trump delivered on his promise by nominating Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. In 2006, Mr. Gorsuch won the unanimous support of the Senate for the federal bench.

Now, it is the Democrats’ turn to be obstructionist. But that is more difficult for a minority party. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and other Democrats want to delay interviews with Mr. Gorsuch, saying they need more time to study his record. Senator Schumer has also threatened a filibuster to block him.

That carries risks too. When Democrats controlled the chamber, and had difficulty getting judicial nominations passed over GOP obstructionists, then-leader Harry Reid invoked the “nuclear option,” changing the rules to permit a mere majority vote. We opposed that at the time, warning that Democrats would not always control the chamber and the change would weaken the ability of the minority to play a strong role in judicial appointments. Now that Republicans control the chamber, they have hinted strongly that they will expand the “nuclear option” to Supreme Court appointments if Democrats attempt to filibuster Mr. Gorsuch.

Thus, the Democrats are left with a difficult strategic decision: Should the filibuster be used up on Mr. Gorsuch, who is conservative but comes across on television as good-natured, enjoys a friendly relationship with jurists from both political parties, and is exceedingly well-educated and experienced? Or should Democrats save it for later nominees who are potentially more vulnerable and more harmful to the party’s values?

We have always taken the position that voters elect presidents, in part, to shape the court, and that presidents should thus enjoy significant deference in their nominations. The Senate’s job, in our view, is to determine whether the candidate is qualified, honest and inclined to observe the Constitution. That is why we have supported such disparate nominees as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito.

We also believe the Senate should return to the protection afforded by the filibuster for all judicial nominations, which would effectively require 60 votes to approve any nominee. That can only work, of course, if both parties tacitly agree to use the filibuster only in cases that are the most egregious, not just for political expediency to appease their bases.

It is sad that the Senate, like so much in our society, has become intensely polarized. That has undermined its ability to look beyond narrow interests to the good of the nation as a whole.

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The Concord Monitor (N.H.), Feb. 8, 2017

Time, as Einstein theorized, is affected by differences in velocity and gravity. It can also be affected by thought. Years ago, Lincoln Webster Burnham, a Dunbarton farmer whose family settled in town in 1752, thought daylight saving time was stupid. The biannual time change, Burnham said, is a nuisance that “makes liars of clocks and fools of people.” So Burnham refused to switch. His cows didn’t care that they were on daylight saving time so why should he?

Epsom Rep. Carol McGuire and fellow Republican Keith Murphy have constituents who want to eliminate daylight saving time, too. More specifically, they don’t like winter’s early sunsets and want the state to move east into the Atlantic time zone. That would eliminate the need for daylight saving time.

Silly as the notion seems, it is worth considering since next month a Massachusetts commission will recommend whether to adopt Atlantic time. The House passed the bill the two representatives co-sponsored with the caveat that approval would be contingent on Massachusetts making the change first. That’s not good enough. Passage by the Senate should be contingent on most, if not all, of New England makes the change, too.

Since neither the sun nor New Hampshire’s location on the globe will be moved by the bill, the extra hour of light in the evening would come at the expense of an even later sunrise. The shortest day of the year would remain, as it is now, a little less than nine hours of daylight.

The time zone change would be disruptive. For safety’s sake, school would have to start later. Business, any connected to the stock market for example, would be forced to adjust and could suffer from being out of sync with customers. People would quickly grumble about dark mornings. Daylight saving time is a good compromise.

Like we said, the time change idea is worth thinking about. It’s just not worth doing.

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The (Barre-Montpelier) Times Argus (Vt.), Feb. 9, 2017

Those millions of Americans who from the outset found Donald Trump to be a repugnant and dangerous person have always been most confounded by the fact that millions of other Americans were not offended by him and even found his behavior acceptable or appealing.

As each bizarre falsehood, nasty attack or constitutional outrage has followed, Trump critics have wondered when his followers would see him for what he is. It didn’t happen during the primary election, when each Trump travesty seemed to doom his candidacy, and at least with a diehard core, it probably will never happen.

It’s not hard to foresee the collapse of the Trump administration. Unlike any in recent history, it appears to be operating at a high level of dysfunction within a thick cloud of ignorance. The personalities surrounding the president are inexperienced in government and ill prepared for their jobs. Trump’s inability to relate to other human beings in a grown-up way is evident in his bizarre interactions with the leaders of Australia, Mexico and Russia, among others. Our allies are looking at each other in puzzlement, wondering how they should handle the bull in the china shop. Inevitably, there will be a crisis, and ignorance multiplied by impulsiveness and inexperience do not bode well.

The possibility of impeachment because of complicity in Russian espionage is real, as is impeachment because of illegal gains from business. But whether he is impeached or not, Trump’s time in office is not likely to make him a happy man, no matter how often he describes things as “beautiful.”

Thus, his admirers have a major disappointment in store for them. But if liberals are counting on enjoying the pleasure of vindication, they ought to think again. Adherents to a losing cause have a hard time admitting they were wrong. Rather, they tend to hold to the belief that somehow they have been betrayed and to strike a heroic attitude of glory in defeat.

Thus, if Trump goes rogue, defying court orders and relegating his underlings to jail for contempt of court, it will be a sign to his loyalists of the system’s corruption rather than the incompetence and stupidity of the leader.

There are many examples of lost causes and loyal followers who see nobility in never giving up. The American South for many decades adhered to the idea that the cause of the Confederacy was a noble one, and in their hearts they never surrendered. Even as the idea of slavery lost its legitimacy, they clung to the fiction that the war was really about states’ rights.

Revanchism is a movement founded on revenge, and lost causes are often sustained by diehard revanchists. Nazi Germany and post-revolutionary France were populated by revanchists. American revanchists have long sought to reverse what they lost in the Civil War or the civil rights movement.

If character is destiny, then America is destined to a period shaped by the unstable, erratic, narcissistic character of its present leader. Most Americans are on to him, as the poll numbers suggest, and are girding for the roller-coaster ride of his political destruction. Those millions who may have voted for him, thinking they would send a message but never imagining he would win, have already experienced their regrets. They will probably abandon him easily and quickly, as millions finally did when they came to understand the criminality of Richard Nixon.

But there were revanchists who thought that even Richard Nixon got a raw deal (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Donald Trump, among them). Even a demagogue like Joe McCarthy had a few dead-enders who thought he was a righteous figure.

The strange characters Trump has defending him, and the rogues gallery of people populating his Cabinet, are all a sign of the instability of the present administration, which is peculiarly vulnerable to a rapid unraveling. That event will not be vindication for anyone. It will be a system setting itself right by the actions of people who care about their Constitution and their country.

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