When They Said Don't Take Him Literally We Should Not Have Taken Them Seriously
What is the business of America?
Bloomberg’s Matt Levine, who rightly noted that “Taking Trump literally means believing that he’ll do what he says. Taking him seriously means believing that he’ll do what you want,” has further thoughts:
Many people in the business and financial and technology communities listened to what Trump said, and cheerily assumed he’d do something completely different. Sure he talked about restricting trade and banning Muslim immigrants, but what they heard was that he’d enact “sensible immigration policy” and pro-growth trade agreements, reduce taxes, cut back regulation and generally improve conditions for business…. And what has happened so far? Immigration bans (with more to come), abandoned trade agreements, “alternative facts,” unprompted promises to bring back torture…. If the president can, without consulting the courts or Congress, banish U.S. lawful permanent residents, then he can do anything. If there is no rule of law for some people, there is no rule of law for anyone.
More here. (If you can stomach business news Matt Levine should be a regular part of your diet.)