Opinion: How to beat Donald Trump

Also: Michael Bloomberg and “the threat of this presidency.” View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, June 21, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist The key to holding President Trump accountable is the defeat of congressional Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. But the key to minimizing the damage he can do until then is working with those same Republicans. Trump’s decision to fold on family separations at the border is a case study. As subservient to Trump as other Republicans have often been — starting with the Russia investigation — they remain, above all, politicians who want to get re-elected. When they can be persuaded that Trump is doing something so unpopular that it hurts their political standing, they will distance themselves from him. And when they do, they can make it very difficult for him to do what he wants. “The events of the past week,” [the political scientist Yascha Mounk]( writes in Slate, “make clear that some of the very same people who favor real curbs on migration, and might even cheer the idea of some kind of wall on large parts of the southern border, will not stand for the separation of children from their parents.” This fight isn’t over, though. Trump appears to be using the crisis — which, of course, he created — to win legal approval to detain entire families for longer than the law currently allows, [Vox’s Dara Lind explains](. And it remains unclear what will happen to the more than 2,000 children who were previously separated from their parents, [as The New Yorker’s John Cassidy writes](. In The Times, [Andrew Cuomo]( [Charles Blow]( [Nick Kristof]( and [Richard Parker]( weigh in on the crisis. ‘The threat of this presidency.’ Michael Bloomberg isn’t just a Democrat who pretends to be an independent. Yes, he’s decidedly liberal on some major issues, like climate change and gun control. But he is well to the right of many Democrats on other issues, including education, policing, business regulation and foreign policy. In recent years, he has donated to both Republican and Democratic campaigns. So why is he giving tens of millions of his dollars to Democratic campaigns this year? Because he understands that this isn’t a normal campaign. It’s not merely about policy issues. It’s about democracy and the rule of law. Trump rejects some basic American values, and congressional Republicans have made clear that they aren’t going to hold him accountable on many of the biggest issues. Which leaves only the Democrats. [Bloomberg explains]( “Congress has essentially stopped acting as a co-equal branch of government, by failing to engage in the kind of oversight of the law that the Constitution requires and the public expects.” As Joseph Crowley, a Queens Democrat in the House, who speaks regularly with Bloomberg, [put it]( Bloomberg “recognizes the threat of this presidency.” I hope that some Republican voters recognize the threat, too. The full Opinion report from The Times follows. At the Border Op-Ed Columnist [The King and Queen of Cruelty]( By CHARLES M. BLOW Melania and Donald Trump are in this terror together. Op-Ed Columnist [Trump Wasn’t First to Separate Families, but Policy Was Still Evil]( By NICHOLAS KRISTOF The world has a long, inexcusable history of taking children away from their parents. [Andrew Cuomo: A Moral Outrage New York Will Not Tolerate]( By ANDREW M. CUOMO These immigrant children shouldn’t be in facilities here or anywhere else. They should be with their parents. [American Internment Camps]( By RICHARD PARKER The government is building tent cities to hold thousands of minors for months at a time. From Our Columnists Op-Ed Columnist [The Prince Who Would Remake the World]( By ROGER COHEN In Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia, women will take the wheel. How much is really changing? Op-Ed Columnist [The Devil and Tom Donohue]( By PAUL KRUGMAN Conservatives made an evil bargain, and evil is collecting its debts [President Trump, Here’s Whom You Should Pardon]( By DOUG {NAME}, ANQUAN BOLDIN, MALCOLM JENKINS AND BENJAMIN WATSON Only sweeping clemency will address the systemic injustice N.F.L. players like us have been protesting. [How the Government Can Lower Drug Prices]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD A form of eminent domain for patents can let Washington make lifesaving medications widely available. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT Contributing Op-Ed Writer [A Question of Legitimacy Looms for the Supreme Court]( By LINDA GREENHOUSE Will the justices take a hammer to public sector employee unions just as teachers appear to be back in the public’s favor? Contributing Op-Ed Writer [The Failed Ideology of Australia’s Conservatives]( By WALEED ALY A wave of banking scandals reveals the bankruptcy of the government’s trickle-down economic worldview. More in Opinion [Why Hasn’t Trump Lost the Evangelical Vote? Ralph Reed Explains]( By BARI WEISS The conservative political powerhouse talks to The Times about immigration, the midterms, Jesus and more. [Standing By as Prisoners Are Raped]( By LOVISA STANNOW Auditors give glowing reports to prisons that are cesspools of sexual violence. [The Christian Right Adopts a 50-State Strategy]( By KATHERINE STEWART Pro-Trump evangelicals and their allies want to build a “great red wall” to keep Democrats out of power. California is high on their list of targets. The Stone [The Illuminations of Hannah Arendt]( By RICHARD J. BERNSTEIN Her work has taken on a new urgency in our own dark times. [New York’s Small Step on Pot Isn’t Enough]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD More people will get ticketed, rather than arrested, for smoking, but racial disparities could remain. [The World Cup Is Fun. Except for the Russians Being Tortured.]( By ALEXEY KOVALEV Aside from being a sporting event of global significance, this is a major P.R. victory for President Putin and his entourage. SIGN UP FOR OUR WORLD CUP NEWSLETTER Read [arguments and opinions]( on the social, political and economic issues around the World Cup, for football buffs and fair-weather fans alike. ADVERTISEMENT Letters [For Families Fleeing Violence, a New Border Policy]( Readers discuss the president’s retreat and the conditions that are compelling families to enter the U.S. illegally or seek asylum. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. 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