Scathing LA Times Editorial Series Launches with “Our Dishonest President”

“Nothing Prepared us for the Magnitude of This Trainwreck”

The Los Angeles Times today began its four-part editorial series on the 45th President of the United States, “The problem with Trump,” with the editorial board’s first entry, “Our Dishonest President.”

The board, which cites that it had previously called Trump “unprepared and unsuited” for the presidency when they endorsed Hillary Clinton last year, having called his potential election a “catastrophe,” sets the tone early in its series.

“Nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck,” the piece begins. “Like millions of other Americans, we clung to a slim hope that the new president would turn out to be all noise and bluster, or that the people around him in the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of office.”

They further examine that “in a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.”

“What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself,” the piece continues, detailing a man that is “so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation.”

The board promises to review with great detail what it calls “three troubling traits.” Namely, what it calls the President’s “shocking lack of respect,” his “utter lack of regard for truth,” and his “scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories.”

It concludes with a call to arms for those who oppose Donald Trump’s “reckless and heartless agenda,” insisting that protesters, voters, members of Congress (in particular, Republicans), the courts, state legislators and those who hold their leaders accountable “must redouble [their] efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.”

The full piece can be read here, and the subsequent entries will be available daily, beginning tomorrow through Wednesday.