Thread by @Noahpinion

1/I think it's worth it to list the ways in which the Trump administration has already caused material harm to U.S. citizens.

2/Trump's weakening of Obamacare is probably causing Americans' health insurance premiums to rise.

businessinsider.com/obamacare-prem…

3/This may also be causing health care costs to increase, though it's hard to isolate exactly what makes that happen.

money.cnn.com/2018/01/30/new…

4/Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs are raising prices for U.S. manufacturers, which hurts U.S. manufacturing companies and the people who work for them. wsj.com/articles/steel…

5/ICE arrests have increased a lot under Trump: cnn.com/2018/02/23/pol…

Given ICE's habit of arresting U.S. citizens and making them prove their citizenship, this is certainly having a negative impact on U.S. citizens. thehill.com/latino/385261-…

6/Of course, it's important to remember that for every one citizen ICE wrongfully arrests, many many more are justifiably frightened of being arrested.

This fear is worsened by Trump's increase in internal searches and checkpoints far from the border: nytimes.com/2018/02/21/us/…

7/There is some chance that Trump's weakening of environmental policies is already leading to more pollution and worse public health, but I haven't seen any detailed calculations of this.

news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-tr…
cnn.com/2017/12/30/pol…

8/Trump's restrictions on international students, and general xenophobic stance, is depriving universities of export revenue, hurting local economies and probably forcing colleges to increase tuition for U.S. citizens.

money.cnn.com/2018/03/12/new…

9/Trump is also probably deterring Mexican immigrants from coming, which is hurting U.S. farms. nbcnews.com/nightly-news/v…

10/Attorney General Jeff Sessions' encouragement of "civil asset forfeiture" (basically, police robbing people) has probably resulted in a lot more people being robbed of their possessions. newyorker.com/news/news-desk…

11/Additionally, Trump has canceled a large number of policies that Obama had planned or begun to implement. This often prevents Americans from being helped, which IMO is not very different from hurting them. politico.com/agenda/story/2…

12/And note what this list doesn't include:

1. Polices that haven't hurt many American citizens yet but probably will

2. Policies that hurt non-citizen residents

3. Policies that hurt animals and the natural environment

4. Harms from rhetoric that we can't easily measure

13/The list also doesn't include:

5. Harmful policies Trump has threatened to implement

6. Harmful policies the courts have stopped Trump from implementing

7. Long-term harms from the weakening of norms of governance

14/It's very hard for a president to do great material harm to the citizenry in just 1.5 years.

Congress and the courts create checks and balances, and many policies take a long time to inflict harm.

But I'd say Trump is off to a decent - i.e. ominous - start.

(end)

Oh, and note that this list didn't attribute ANY of the Puerto Rico hurricane deaths and economic damage to Trump.

It's likely that Trump could have done a lot more for Puerto Rico, so some of that harm must be attributed to Trump.

npr.org/sections/healt…

Also, I'm sure I left out some important things.

For example, Trump is almost certainly responsible for some of the big decline in tourism to the U.S., which is hurting the livelihoods of many American citizens.

nbcnews.com/business/trave…