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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 11/8/17  

A Year Without a President

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Robert Reich
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Or firing the head of the FBI who wouldn't promise to be more loyal to him than to the American public.

A president's job is to govern. Trump doesn't know how to govern, or apparently doesn't care. So, logically, he's not President.

2. The second thing we've learned is that Trump's influence is waning.

Since he lost the popular vote, his approval ratings have dropped even further. One year in, Trump is the least popular president in history with only 37 percent of Americans behind him.

Most Republicans still approve of him, but that may not be for long.

He couldn't get his pick elected to a Senate primary in Alabama, a state bulging with Trump voters.

Republican senators refused to go along with his repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And they're taking increased interest in Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Business leaders deserted him over his remarks over Charlottesville. They vacated his business advisory councils.

NFL owners have turned on him over his remarks about players. Tom Brady, who once called Trump "a good friend," now calls him "divisive" and "wrong."

There's no question he's violated the Constitution. There are at least three grounds for impeachment -- his violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution by raking in money from foreign governments, his obstruction of justice by firing the head of the FBI, and his failure to faithfully execute the law by not implementing the Affordable Care Act. And a fourth if he or his aides colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.

But both houses of Congress would have to vote for his removal, which won't happen unless Democrats win control in 2018 or Republicans in Congress decide Trump is a political liability.

3. The third big thing we've learned is where the governing of the country is actually occurring.

Much is being done by lobbyists for big business, who now swarm over the Trump administration like honey bees over a hedgerow of hollyhocks.

But the real leadership of America is coming from outside the Trump administration.

Leadership on the environment is now coming from California -- whose rules every automaker and many other corporations have to meet in order to sell in a state that's home to one out of eight Americans.

Leadership on civil rights is coming from the federal courts, which have struck down three different versions of Trump's travel ban, told states their voter ID laws are unconstitutional, and pushed police departments to stop profiling and harassing minorities.

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Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, has a new film, "Inequality for All," to be released September 27. He blogs at www.robertreich.org.

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