Crisis for the GOP: Trump Tax Cuts Are Still Unpopular

Yes, I am still pissed about taxes - and so are many other Americans who sadly end up paying more in taxes than those far wealthier and/or many large corporations.  The good news is that perhaps those screwed by the Trump tax cuts - the "corporate greed/billionaire relief act" might be an apt name for the bill rammed through by Republicans -  will vent their wrath come November, 2018.  The only thing humorous about the situation is that Republicans seem blindsided by the public reaction thus demonstrating the danger of living in the Fox News bubble or listening to "economists" who have proven to be consistently wrong since the 1980's.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at how and why voters are rightly realizing that the GOP sold them down the river.  Here are excerpts:

Between 1980 and 2016, the American public never met a tax cut it didn’t like. . . . on each occasion, a plurality of voters were onboard.

And then, America met the Trump Tax Cuts. When Congress passed the president’s signature legislation in December, it was the least popular tax bill in modern American history — a measure even less popular than the tax hikes passed under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

For American conservatives, this was a harrowing development. It was one thing for the public to disdain the GOP’s attempts to pare back Obamacare — retrenching the welfare state has always been the sour note in the right’s paean to “small government.” But if fiscal conservatives can no longer sell voters on across-the-board, deficit-financed tax cuts — untainted by any simultaneous attack on the safety net — what are they so supposed to sell them? Initially, Republicans took solace in the thought that their bill’s unpopularity was merely the product of Democratic duplicity. . . . Surely, Americans would love the Trump tax cuts once they got to know them. The proof would be in the paycheck — and, failing that, in a multimillion-dollar Koch-funded ad campaign. Alas: Americans have now been collecting post-tax-cut paychecks for more than two months — and they still don’t like Donald Trump’s signature legislative achievement. In fact, as Republicans fan out across the country Tuesday for “Tax Day” rallies celebrating their law, the vast majority of voters still refuse to accept that their taxes have even gone down. But don’t take my word for it — take the American Enterprise Institute’s. In a new polling analysis, the right-wing think tank concedes that “overall opinion [of the Trump Tax Cuts] is still more negative than positive,” while an overwhelming majority of Americans say that their paychecks haven’t grown conspicuously fatter. . . . while 53 percent foresee a negative impact from “higher deficits and disproportionate benefits for the wealthy and big corporations.” If voters do not believe that across-the-board tax breaks have positive economic benefits — and resent tax cuts for the rich more than they appreciate ones for themselves — then it’s going to be nigh-impossible for conservatives to realize their “small government” vision on the federal level. On Meet the Press last Sunday, Paul Ryan (unintentionally) explained why this is the case. . . . . The most obvious problem with Ryan’s response is that it’s an unabashed lie: After observing the initial effects of the Trump Tax Cuts, the Congressional Budget Office predicted last week that the legislation will single-handedly add $1.85 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

But a more fundamental flaw in Ryan’s argument is that — to most Americans — it reads like a case against tax cuts. If an unavoidable, demographic change is making it more expensive for the government to meet its obligations to retirees, then why on Earth did Republicans make reducing revenue their top legislative priority?

Further, to the extent that Social Security’s “20th century” design “doesn’t work,” it is because the program is too austere, not too generous. The collapse of private-sector pensions — along with the failure of wage growth to keep pace with the rising costs of health care, housing, and higher education — have left Americans more dependent on Social Security benefits for their retirements, not less: As of 2016, nearly half of U.S. families had no retirement account savings at all, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Contrary to the GOP’s perennial promise, the benefits from corporate cuts aren’t trickling down. Wage growth is tepid; stock buybacks are soaring. Last spring, 61 percent of Americans told Gallup that their income-tax burden was already “fair” – while just 4 percent told Bloomberg that “tax policy” was the most important issue facing the country. Meanwhile, large majorities of the public — including, in one Morning Consult survey, a majority of self-identified conservatives — voiced support for increasing federal health-care spending. There was no popular outcry for “middle-class tax cuts” in 2017 — let alone, for giant corporate cuts financed by reductions in health-care subsidies. The GOP assumed that voters would come around to its view on “starving the beast,” once they got their share of Uncle Sam’s rations. They assumed wrong.

Democrats are already winning elections in Red America by spotlighting the GOP’s fringe fiscal priorities. In recent weeks, striking teachers have won victories of their own by the very same method. The Koch network can afford to lose such battles. But by passing the first unpopular tax cut in modern memory, Republicans have proven themselves incapable of winning the wider war. When the “rubber hits the road” — and voters are forced to choose between maintaining entitlement benefits and keeping tax rates low — there’s never been less doubt about which they’ll choose.

Poll: Half of Americans Question Trump’s Mental Stability

With the federal government in a GOP forced shut down and Donald Trump continuing to be the least popular president in the history of polling, congressional Republicans nonetheless continue to prostitute themselves to Trump.  Meanwhile just shy of half of Americans believe Trump is mentally unstable despite the bizarre press conference by the White House physician which seemingly added to Trump's height, downplayed potentially serious heart attack risks, and would have one believe that Trump is cognitively normal.    ABC News has the details of new poll results which ought to terrify Republicans in advance of the 2018 midterm elections which many see as the only meaningful way to limit Trump's ability to do lasting damage to America.  Here are poll findings that indicate that Trump and Republicans are on the wrong side of virtually every issue:

A year in the presidential spotlight hasn’t been kind to President Donald Trump: His approval rating is the lowest in modern polling for a president at this point, with deep deficits on policy and personal matters alike. Strikingly, the public divides evenly on whether or not he’s mentally stable.

[A] lopsided majority, 73 percent of those polled, rejects Trump’s self-assessed genius.

Seventy percent say he fails to acquit himself in a way that’s fitting and proper for a president.

Two-thirds say he’s harming his presidency with his use of Twitter.

And 52 percent see him as biased against blacks -- soaring to 79 percent of blacks themselves.

Just 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, while 58 percent disapprove, essentially unchanged since midsummer. Next lowest at one year was Gerald Ford’s 45 percent in 1975; average pre-Trump approval -- since Harry Truman’s presidency -- is 63 percent.

Women are especially critical of Trump in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates: A mere 29 percent approve of his work, vs. 44 percent of men. And a remarkable 55 percent of women doubt Trump’s mental stability.

Trump’s signature achievement, the new tax law, is unpopular; 60 percent say it favors the wealthy (even most well-off Americans say so), and the public by a 12-point margin, 46 to 34 percent, says it’s a bad thing for the country. At the same time, a majority celebrates his most prominent failure, on Obamacare; 57 percent say the program’s continuation is a good thing.

A vast 87 percent support the DACA immigration program that Trump ended and whose fate in Congress is uncertain -- including two-thirds of strong conservatives, three-quarters of evangelical white Protestants and as many Republicans, core Trump groups.

And 63 percent overall oppose a U.S.-Mexico border wall, essentially unchanged since before the 2016 election.

As reported Friday, Trump -- and his party leaders -- also are at greater risk in the government shutdown, with Americans 20 points more likely to say they’d blame Trump and the Republicans in Congress than the Democrats in Congress.

[H]alf of Americans think members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to try to influence the election. About as many, 49 percent, think Trump himself obstructed justice in the Russia investigation.

Fifty-eight percent say the economy is in good (or even excellent) shape, the most in 17 years. But just 38 percent say the Trump administration deserves credit; many more, 50 percent, credit the Obama administration.

One has to ask why Republicans seem to have a death wish and continue to basically flip a majority of citizens the middle finger.  Let's hope that get a return hand gesture at the polls in November, 2018.

2018 Democratic Wave Likely to Be a True Tsunami in California

With most indicators predicting a likely Democrat wave in the 2018 mid-term elections, things look even worse for Republicans in California where the wave is expected to be a veritable tsunami.  A government shutdown tomorrow due to Republicans - who control both houses of Congress - seemingly unable to pass a budget resolution will only worsen an already bleak outlook for the GOP.  The Trump/Pence decision to open the coast to offshore drilling - something equally unpopular in Virginia - only adds to the toxicity of the GOP with voters.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the likely bloodbath for Republicans in California.  Here are highlights:

Everyone knows how strongly Democratic California is, but it’s amazing how quickly and thoroughly the Donkey Party has monopolized political power in the Golden State.

As recently as 2010, California’s governor, lieutenant governor, and state treasurer were all Republicans. Now Democrats hold every statewide elected office. In 2010 there were 19 Republican U.S. House members in the state. Now there are 14. In 2010 there were 15 Republicans in the State Senate and 32 in the State Assembly. Those numbers are now down to 13 and 25. The losing Republican presidential nominees each won 37 percent of the popular vote in California, in 2008 and 2012. The winning Republican presidential nominee took 31 percent of the vote in California in 2016.

Bad as these trends look for the GOP, they are very likely to get worse this November — possibly a lot worse. In a thorough analysis of California’s political climate, Reid Wilson describes 2018 as a “perfect storm” for Democrats. The term we will soon begin to hear is tsunami, to distinguish California from the Democratic “wave” that’s developing nationally.

[T]he few assets Republicans carry into the midterms nationally probably won’t help much in California. The GOP’s signature piece of legislation, the tax bill, is viewed very negatively in California, where it will limit or deny state and local income and property deductions to an estimated 2.5 million taxpayers. And the humming economy is more likely to be credited to California’s own Democratic leadership than to Trump, partly because the state is so large and partly because state leaders have defied Trump’s policies wherever possible.

Trump himself is extremely unpopular in the state: . . . . Just 28 percent of adults approve of Trump’s job performance, according to a December survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. . . . . Two-thirds of independents disapproved of Trump’s performance, and 57 percent of all voters said they strongly disapproved.

Most ominously for Republicans, the state’s top-two primary system, which places the top two finishers in a nonpartisan primary on the ballot in the general election, is very likely to produce a November ballot with no Republicans running for the top two positions, governor and U.S. senator. No prominent Republican appears likely to run against Dianne Feinstein and her Democratic challenger state senate leader Kevin de Leon.

Having nothing but Democrats at the top of the ballot could be disastrous for Republican turnout, while contributing to what will probably be high levels of Democratic enthusiasm in the state. . . . .The top-of-the-ballot vacuum will add to the many problems of Republican U.S. House members from marginal districts, seven of which were carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

California’s move toward a system in which most voters automatically receive mail ballots could erode one remaining GOP advantage: the tendency of Republican-leaning voters to participate at higher rates in non-presidential elections than their Democratic counterparts.

With all these problems, California Republicans are in real danger of becoming a marginal factor as voters become accustomed to Democrats as the natural governing party in the state — particularly if they succumb to the temptation of going Full Trump and spending their time lashing their fellow Californians for being godless hippie terrorist-coddling sanctuary city supporters. Republicans self-destructed in the state once before, in the 1990s, when Pete Wilson identified his party with anti-immigrant policies. If they now become the loud-and-proud “deplorables,” then their exile in the political wilderness could last for a long, long time.

Are Iowa Trump Voters Having Buyer's Remorse?

In many ways Iowa has been surprisingly progressive over the decades be it in public education, women having the right to vote or same sex marriage.  Yet, in 2016, all of that was thrown aside for Donald Trump who carried the state despite promises to seeks to dismantle public education, who is a self-confessed sexual predator and who promised to wage war against LGBT equality. Worse yet, he vowed to pull the USA out of NAFTA which would hit Iowa's agricultural industries extremely hard. Now, as the Washington Post reports, Trump's approval rating in Iowa is in the toilet and the public mood has appeared to shift against Republicans.  Perhaps Iowa voters have discovered that while Trump's calls to racism made them feel good about themselves (the state is over 93% white) as perhaps did his fraudulent calls to support "family values," the true GOP agenda of taking from the 99% to give to the 1% doesn't treat them all that well. Indeed, Democrats are optimistic that the newly passed Trump/GOP tax bill will give them plenty of fodder to run on in November, 2018, and in state elections. Here are article highlights:

Iowa has seemingly soured on the president and his party. The end-of-year Iowa Poll, an industry standard conducted by Des Moines-based Selzer and Co., found Trump with just 35 percent approval in the state. Only 34 percent of Iowans said they would back Republicans for Congress in 2018, and 61 percent said they were turned off by politics altogether.

The discrepancy between the rosy economic picture and the public’s distaste for Trump in Iowa has confounded both parties and complicated one of the major political stories of the decade — the Republican romp through the Midwest.

Why Iowa has turned against Trump and Republicans is a mystery that both parties are eager to figure out ahead of the 2018 midterms, looking to understand whether it’s an aberration or a sign of a greater political trend.

Republicans took charge of Iowa’s legislature last January and since then have advanced the agenda they promised voters — pushing through tax cuts, passing labor rules that require unions to hold fresh elections and maintaining a privatized version of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.

Some conservatives saw it as a strong start and suggested polling that showed dark voter moods about Republican governance reflected a cynicism that would fade as the policies took effect.

A swing state for decades, Iowa broke so dramatically in 2016 that Democrats wondered if it had become a demographic write-off. Thirty-one of Iowa’s 99 counties voted for Barack Obama twice, then flipped in 2016 to support Donald Trump. 

For the first half of the year, Democrats looked at Iowa as a cautionary tale. White voters without college degrees had wiped the party out in the eastern part of the state, where it had always won strong. National groups had tied Rep. Rod Blum (R) to Trump, expecting a wipeout in a district that had voted for Obama by 14 points in 2012. But Trump won the district, and Blum, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, became a reliable voter for his agenda.

Now, Iowa Democrats believe they’ve begun the climb back. On Jan. 31, the party easily held a state House seat in the first special election of the Trump era. On Aug. 8, it did the same, but in a southeast Iowa district where Trump had won by 21.3 points. And on Dec. 12, when most national political attention was focused on Alabama, Democrats lost a special state Senate race in red northwest Iowa by nine points. The seat had been so safely Republican that Democrats had not run a candidate in 2010 or 2014.

Jeff Kaufmann, the Iowa GOP chairman who has presided over the Republican surge, did not sugarcoat the matter. . . . .  “I see that Senate race as a wake-up call."

In Iowa, Trump’s trade protectionism was a risk and came during a slump for farmers who depend on open markets. Longtime governor Terry Branstad (R) left Des Moines to become the administration’s ambassador to China, and his successor, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), has found herself lobbying the administration to go slow on changes to trade policy.

“Whenever we talk about pulling out [of NAFTA], commodity prices are affected immediately, and that will be one of the first casualties that we’ll see,” Reynolds said at a Dec. 19 news conference. “So we’re going to hold them accountable.”

Democrats talked confidently about running against the just-passed tax cut. It was, they said, going to sail right past the sort of Iowans who had trusted the GOP the previous year.

“They’re going to see who the winners and losers are in this, and they’re going to identify the corporations and wealthy people who came out way ahead of their families,” said Nate Boulton, a state senator who is running for governor in 2018.

One can only hope the Iowa Democrats field quality candidates in every race and replicate the ground game that proved so effective in Virginia.

How High Could That 2018 Democratic Wave Rise?

Eleven months is an eternity in politics, but if current attitudes and perceptions of the Republican continue on track, November, 2018, for some Republicans may fell like a reprise of the Battle of the Little Big Horn - personally, I love the figurative imagery of Paul Ryan in place of Errol Flynn in "They Died with Their Boots On" as the movie ends  -  as a potentially huge Democrat wave sweeps over them.  If the mood that prevailed in Virginia last month continues and Democrats wake up and utilize a coordinated ground game that worked so well for the Virginia Democrat ticket, Paul Ryan, one of the most despicable individuals in Washington after Trump himself, could find himself loosing the House speaker-ship or worse.    A piece in New York Magazine looks at what hopefully will be a nightmare for the GOP.   Here are highlights:

As 2017 approaches its end, Republicans can celebrate a year in power and passage of their unpopular but savory-to-donors tax bill. For Democrats, the happy talk will mostly be about this year being the harbinger of an extremely successful midterm election.

Before it all gets very real, Democrats probably owe themselves the pleasure of fantasizing about how high a 2018 wave they could get if everything goes right. When it comes to House races, forecaster Harry Enten has an interesting way of thinking about the high side of potential Democratic gains, operating from an assumption that the current 12.2 percent Democratic congressional generic ballot advantage holds or actually goes higher:

There are 58 Republicans in seats with a partisan lean of +12 points Republican or less. This includes representatives like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Dave Brat. […]

Now, I’m not saying all or any of these particular Republicans will lose. Most incumbents win — even in wave elections. . . . . What I am saying, though, is that when the generic ballot is showing this large of a lead for one party, the playing field of competitive races also tends to be correspondingly huge. Consider the 2010 election, when Republicans won the national House vote by 7 percentage points. Heading into that election, there were 101 Democrat-held seats with a partisan lean of +7 Democratic or less. Republicans won 65 of them (or 64 percent). If Democrats netted a similar percentage of 58 potentially vulnerable seats, they’d pick up 37 of them, or 13 more than they need to hand the gavel to Nancy Pelosi. And unlike some other calculations, this takes fully into account the GOP’s advantage in individual districts because of redistricting or efficient voter concentration or whatever.

But if it’s the high end of the congressional generic ballot polls that is most accurate — like, say, the 56/38 percent advantage for Democrats in the latest CNN survey — then things could get crazy:

There are an astronomical 103 seats that have a partisan lean of +18 Republican or less. This expanded list includes the highest-ranking woman in the House, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and the longest-serving House member, Don Young.

That large a Democratic wave may be very unlikely. But the point is that Republicans can’t just intone “redistricting” or “incumbency” and assume their House majority can withstand any conceivable national Democratic advantage. An 18-point Democratic advantage is already conceivable, and a double-digit advantage is now actually likely. So Republicans better hope they are right that the public’s frowns over their precious tax bill turn into smiles before next November. The GOP may need all the help it can get.

Why the GOP/Trump Tax Bill is So Unpopular

I continue to be dumbfounded by the manner in which Republicans seemingly believe that the tax bill - many are referring to it as a tax scam - signed into law by Der Trumpenführer will help them in the 2018.   At present, the bill, which is a massive give away to the very wealthy and large corporations, remains hugely unpopular (recent polls show 2/3rd's of the population views the bill negatively).  And this in a climate where almost the same percentage view Trump negatively.  On what planet are Republicans living?  Are they so lost in the Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, bubble that they truly do not get the fact that most voters realize that they are getting the equivalent of table scraps while the wealthy and large corporations are getting filet mignon with Dom Perignon?  A piece in Politico looks at the bill's unpopularity and makes the case that it fails a basic sense of fairness and that, therefore, most voters look beyond their own meager short term gains to the huge windfall to those already living a lifestyle far beyond most people's experience.  I suspect this bill will be a huge albatross to the GOP come November, 2018.  Here are article excerpts:

Undoubtedly, it’s no single thing. For example, Trump is considerably less popular than Reagan and Bush were when they and their party pushed through their own tax-relief packages, and some of this ill will is presumably spilling over to legislative initiatives he is associated with. What’s more, the bill received far less bipartisan support than previous tax overhauls, particularly the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s. Not a single Democrat joined the GOP in supporting the new bill in either the House or the Senate. With solid opposition like this, Democratic partisans among the general public may have received a stronger signal than in previous eras of tax legislation that the bill is unworthy of their support. And, as conservative pundits have complained, the media coverage of the effort has been overwhelmingly negative. But there may be another factor behind the lack of public support for the tax overhaul: the public’s perception that some people are more likely to cash in than others. Though the bill will offer most taxpayers some relief in the near term, analysts believe that the benefits to corporations and relatively wealthy taxpayers will be much greater—especially over the long haul. Importantly, the public seems to see this: Recent polling suggests that most people see the bill as a boon to the wealthy above all. Still, even if the rich are likely to benefit the most from the new tax cuts, shouldn’t the promise of some tax relief generate at least some enthusiasm for the bill in the broader public? As it turns out, many years of research in both psychology and political science suggest not. For the most part, studies indicate that self-interest in the pocketbook sense matters a lot less than we assume: Citizens are not moved to political action by perceived shifts in how they are doing as isolated individuals. They can, however, be roused to political anger when they think others will end up doing better in comparison to people like them—that is, when they experience what social scientists refer to as “relative deprivation.” Thus, even the promise of a few more dollars in one’s wallet might be dissatisfying if other folks end up with thousands more. Relative deprivation can produce an especially strong reaction when a policy seems to make one’s own group worse off compared with some other group of people. This group element seems to be present in people’s thinking about the GOP tax bill. Since most people tell pollsters that the wealthy and large corporations will benefit disproportionately from the tax rewrite, it’s quite likely that many citizens have concluded that this round of tax relief will benefit “them” (the wealthy and large corporations) more than “us” (average Americans). Psychologists also find that relative deprivation can be especially powerful when it appears to violate some standard of fairness. . . . . polls suggest that most Americans do not believe that upper-income people and corporations pay enough in federal taxes. For example, according to Gallup’s 2017 Economy and Finance Survey, when asked whether they felt various groups paid their “fair share” of federal taxes, 63 percent felt that the wealthy paid too little in taxes. Sixty-seven percent felt the same way about corporations. In contrast, 51 percent felt that middle-income people paid too much in federal taxes. Other recent research indicates that tax provisions that appear to help the wealthy avoid taxes are seen as especially unfair. . . . . the level of opposition we are seeing to the bill should be no surprise. Even if many taxpayers knew that they would personally see a lower tax bill in the next few years, they might still feel like they had gotten a raw deal—and perhaps an unfair deal—relative to the well-off. [C]hanges made by the bill will have a big impact on certain taxpayers. For instance, the overhaul’s trimming of the state and local tax deduction is likely to increase the taxes of many citizens living in high-tax states like California, New Jersey and New York. Should Democrats choose to highlight this change when campaigning in these states next year, voters might act on more than a mere distaste for how much the tax plan’s tilt toward the wealthy—potentially adding to the headwinds the GOP is facing going into the 2018 elections.

Put another way, most Americans realize that the small temporary  tax break they will receive adds up to less than the very wealthy pay for a pair of shoes or dress.  Meanwhile the very same wealthy will see tens of thousands (or in the case of Der Trumpenführer, millions) in tax breaks.  Again, I hope this bill bites the GOP firmly in the ass come November, 2018.

Putin’s First Year in the White House

As a student of history and a long time political activist - first for the GOP and now against the GOP - I find it chilling to watch what has been transpiring over the past eleven months.  The lessons of history from the Russian Revolution - first the overthrow of a monarchy and then the overthrow of a short lived democracy - and the rise of Hitler are utterly ignored by much of the American population or thought as irrelevant.  Viewers of Fox News, of course, have no grasp of what is even happening given the alternate universe that Fox presents, not to mention it's function as the American equivalent of Pravda under the Soviet Union.  Worse yet, Republicans are aiding and abetting in the threats to our democracy with abandon and helping American oligarchs to loot the country.  In a piece that is dead on, Andrew Sullivan looks at the first year of Putin's asset in the White House.  The entire piece is set out below and ought to be mandatory reading for anyone who doesn't have their head in the sand or up their posteriors. 

What are we to make of Vladimir Putin’s first year in the White House? How has he done.

I’m only slightly kidding. Or rather I’m just channeling a CNN interview earlier this week with James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence. Here’s what Clapper said: “I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president […] You have to remember Putin’s background. He’s a KGB officer. That’s what they do. They recruit assets. And I think some of that experience and instincts of Putin has come into play here in his managing of a pretty important account for him, if I could use that term, with our president.”

Clapper clarified his statement by saying he was being figurative, rather than literal. So let’s just ask a figurative question, shall we? How successful has the Kremlin’s figurative investment been this past year? Pretty damn impressive.

Look first at Putin’s domestic goals. His core concern, as with any despot, is the legitimacy of his pseudo-democratic autocracy - which means, in turn, discrediting the very different features of the liberal democracies of the West. And in this, he must be scarcely able to believe his luck. After decades of the West’s championing of liberal democracy, the American president has spent his first year attacking it. Trump has exhibited contempt for a free press, describing the bulk of Western journalism as “fake news,” words that have gladdened the hearts of dictators across the planet. He has minimized Putin’s assassination of critical journalists, saying that America has no moral standing to criticize. He has treated the judiciary either as instruments of loyalty — hence his packing of the federal bench — or as pests to be slandered or dismissed. He prefers total loyalty from law-enforcement officials to the actual rule of law. For good measure, Trump has legitimized Putin’s core model of governance — that of a benevolent cult hero of the nation, shored up by religious reactionaries — by plagiarizing it. As for the other critical aspect of Putinism — the looting of the treasury by oligarchs — I give you the latest tax bill. It even carves out special goodies for real-estate investors.

Then there is Russia’s permanent interest in deepening the racial and partisan divides in America — the better to force the United States to be more concerned with internal strife than with foreign affairs. On this, Putin’s success is even more impressive. What better propaganda could the Kremlin get than the Charlottesville horrors, the racial divide crippling the NFL, or the candidacy of Roy Moore? In the Cold War, the Kremlin constantly cited America’s racial strife as proof that, whatever its democratic pretensions, the country was still a bastion of white supremacy. Now, much of American academia and an entire rising generation agree with what the Soviets long argued. As for the stability and legitimacy of liberal capitalism, Putin could scarcely do better than the GOP tax proposal. When economic inequality is at record highs, undermining the social compact that undergirds capitalism, the GOP is making things far worse. It would also add well over a trillion dollars to the U.S. debt. Trump is not just looting the Treasury for himself and his buddies, he is looting the younger generation as well.

Internationally, Putin has had an even bigger year. One of his central goals — the disintegration of the European Union and the entire concept of the West — has been advanced by Washington in ways never seen before. Trump backed Brexit, breaking the U.K. away from its European partners; he supported Marine Le Pen in France for the same reason; and he has routinely lambasted Merkel, whose power is now hanging by a thread. He chose Poland, where an authoritarian party is busy dismantling judicial independence, as the site for his major foreign-policy address. He has permanently undermined the core Article 5 commitment that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all of them, by being the first U.S. president to equivocate on it. America has also broken with its European allies by withdrawing from the Paris Accords on climate, threatening the Iran nuclear deal, and backing the ethno-nationalist extremists who now run Israel on the status of Jerusalem. Last week, the U.S. found itself utterly isolated at the U.N. on the question, and openly threatening all its allies with payback. In the Middle East, Russia has never been stronger — it is now the key player in the future of Syria, while Putin’s naked annexation of Crimea and sections of eastern Ukraine remains in place, unmentioned by the White House.

What more could Putin ask for? Well, he could hope that his grotesque attack on the last U.S. election would lead to no serious effort to prevent it happening again. And lo, an American president has emphatically refused to lift a finger to defend the Constitution he is duty bound to protect. There’s been no attempt by the White House to protect the integrity of our elections — just a constant disdain for those who worry about them, and a general, somewhat egregious, complacency.

No American president in history has ever given Russia so much in so short a time. Congrats, Vladimir. You’ve achieved what no Soviet dictator ever managed to. Your asset in the White House, figurative or not, has given more than all the British and American traitors in the history of the Cold War.