The New Yorker:

It’s not just tariffs—from ending low-pressure showerheads to pulling troops out of Europe, the President’s second-term obsession is pushing through the unfinished business of his first.

By Susan B. Glasser

Amid the chaos of a week when the world nearly witnessed its first global depression caused by the caprice of a single man, Donald Trump took some time to reflect on another recent demonstration of Presidential power—his January order for the Army Corps of Engineers to unleash billions of gallons of water from federally controlled reservoirs to fight wildfires in California. The water was unnecessary and will likely cause major problems for farmers who had been expecting to use it this summer, as officials knew at the time, but Trump was the boss, so they sent it anyway. In Trump’s telling, this was both “a beautiful thing to see” and a “long fought Victory,” all the more savored because he had tried and failed to make it happen the last time he was in the White House. At a White House event on Tuesday afternoon, he explained, “My first term, I said, ‘Do it.’ And I don’t know. I think the second term is just more powerful. They do it. When I say, ‘Do it,’ they do it, right?”

It’s hard to find a simpler and clearer statement of the difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. The second time around, Trump is doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with little regard for the constraints that held him back before. This applies to tariffs and the unleashing of an international trade war—and to many far less consequential personal obsessions of the President. Whether it’s ending globalization or personally dictating the water flow on federal land in the West, unfinished business is the business of Trump’s second term; it’s a do-over Presidency with no precedent in America’s modern history.

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