“Did you see 60 Minutes last night?” asked a friend awhile back, referring to former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe’s revelation that high-level officials pondered whether President Donald Trump may have committed crimes warranting his removal from office (hint: yes). “It was a shocker! That man needs to leave the White House . . . NOW!”
I saw the broadcast and I do agree: Trump needs to go. Now. But, frankly, I thought this before McCabe’s revelations, which he later ramped up to include speculation that Trump is acting as a foreign asset. It was still true a couple of weeks later, when Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen likened him to a “mobster.”
Under Trump, the White House has become—to borrow a phrase he’s used about the southern border—‘a major entry point for criminals.’
We have known Trump was unfit for the presidency from the moment he launched his candidacy with a racist rant about Mexicans being criminals and rapists. We knew it when the Access Hollywood tape showed him bragging about sexually assaulting women and getting away with it—one of the rare instances in which something Trump has said appears to be true.
We knew it when he locked children in cages, shut down the government for more than a month, and declared a phoney national emergency so he could funnel money that Congress never appropriated to build his stupid border wall.
Under Trump, the White House has become—to borrow a phrase he’s used about the southern border—“a major entry point for criminals.” While we may chortle along with the late-night comics at, for instance, his protestation that he is the victim of “presidential harassment,” Trump’s presidency is no laughing matter. It is a national embarrassment, and his continued tenure in office represents an actual national emergency.
He needs to go. Now. That is the message delivered at greater length and eloquence by John Nichols, in his cover “manifesto” demanding Trump’s immediate removal from office. Yes, we know that just calling for this outcome will not make it so. But stating loudly and clearly that this is the outcome we want is a necessary first step. No compromise. No accommodation. No doubt.
Elsewhere in this issue, you will read of the Trump Administration’s disturbing alliance with the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—further evidence, if any were needed, of the moral rot at the root of his presidency. There are also stories of resistance—by young people rallying behind the call for a Green New Deal, by communities resisting the Trump Administration’s cruel immigration policies, by a national group combating economic inequity, and even by Hollywood insiders who champion progressive causes.
A subtheme that runs through this issue is the specter of McCarthyism, as evoked by a new book by friend-of-The-Progressive David Maraniss, a newly revived old letter written by E.B. White, and a clip from our archives, from the magazine’s historic take-down of Tail-Gunner Joe (see Books, and Blast from the Past).
It is, we believe, another solid issue, one that occasions no small measure of pride. Day by day, week by week, the small staff of The Progressive performs minor, and sometimes major, miracles. Every day, there is new original content on our website; every issue is packed full of good writing and good journalism—thanks in large part to our readers, and their financial support.
We are, as you can see from our masthead, a small operation: fifteen people in all, including just seven in-office staff. That we do what we do with such a small crew is amazing. I want to give a brief shout out to two people whose work for the magazine may go unnoticed, because of how well they do it.
Every story we publish is carefully edited, reviewed by multiple people, and fact-checked to within an inch of its life. Assisting us greatly in the fact-checking department in recent years has been Catherine Cronin, one of our two proofreaders. She is the best fact-checker I have known in nearly four decades of work in professional journalism.
Our other proofreader is Diana Cook, who has been giving the magazine a final, thorough look before it goes to the printer for forty-six years, since 1973.
That’s not a typo. Forty-six years. Since 1973, a huge share of The Progressive’s 110-year history. And she is a big part of what has made it great.
-Bill Lueders
Editor