Trump can create a new America, but not through reality TV

The US is living through a kind of Trumpian Genesis: seven days of high-speed political creation. In the beginning, Trump created heaven (for supporters) and hell (for mainstream media). And Washington was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of CNN. And Trump said, let Obamacare be repealed.

And Trump saw the reports of his inauguration, that they were bad: and Trump divided the press from the administration.

And Trump called the first day a National Day of Patriotic Devotion.

Day 2 was dominated by the women’s marches. On Day 3, Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and froze new hiring by the federal government. Day 4 saw five new executive orders, two reversing the Obama administration’s halt to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, and a bill requiring that the pipelines use American steel.

On the fifth day, Trump ordered Homeland Security to begin building a wall on the Mexican border. And on the sixth, his press secretary said the wall would be paid for by a 20 per cent tax on imports from Mexico. Technically, Trump was entitled to a day of rest on Friday. He didn’t take it.

On it goes. Each day brings fresh executive orders, interviews, tweets. Each day, the media shoots back at Trump. The New York Times openly accuses the president of lying. One of its columnists even asserts that he is mentally ill.

To read some of the coverage of Trump’s first week, you would think the Apocalypse was imminent. Indeed, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last week moved its famous Doomsday Clock forward to 2½ minutes to midnight. Interesting. Stocks don’t usually rally on the eve of destruction, do they? Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average passed the 20,000 mark.