This is the final Saturday installment of Opinion Today’s weekly guide to the Trump presidency. The big picture of President Trump’s first 100 days: On video, Times Opinion columnists tell us which image has defined Trump’s second term so far and what the past few months have taught them about America. On his podcast, my colleague Ezra Klein and the historian Steven Hahn trace the roots of Trump’s illiberalism through American history. My colleague David Brooks explains that Trump’s energetic willingness to take initiative is his greatest strength but argues that his inability to tell the difference between “a risk and a gamble” is his greatest weakness. The path forward for Democrats: In the Conversation my colleagues Gail Collins and Bret Stephens speculate which Democrats are capable of capitalizing on the political opportunity opened by Trump’s falling approval ratings. Patrick Healy, Opinion’s deputy editor, hosted a conversation with four influential moderate Democrats who helped steer the party back to power in the 1990s about what its strategy should be now.
The fallout of Trump’s crackdown on immigrants: A main feature of Trump’s second term has been his aggressive, morally deplorable, sometimes legally dubious deportation and detention strategy. My colleague Lydia Polgreen argues that this strategy isn’t delivering what Americans want and that it risks turning America into a place people don’t want to come to. For international students already here, it’s created an atmosphere of fear on campus, a current professor and a retired professor from Cornell University write in a guest essay. One case that looms large here is that of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts graduate student from Turkey who was arrested on the street by plainclothes government agents, apparently over an opinion essay about Gaza in the school newspaper. Senator Ed Markey and Representatives Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts write in a guest essay about visiting Ozturk in a detention facility in Louisiana and call for her release. Other members of Congress have tried to visit Andry Hernández Romero, a Venezuelan makeup artist the administration sent to prison in El Salvador, but they failed to find proof of life. My colleague Michelle Goldberg argues that rescuing people like him is a “moral imperative.”
What else I’m reading to understand the world today: “What It Means to Tell the Truth About America” by Clint Smith for The Atlantic, “A.I. as Normal Technology” by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, “Weaponization of Expertise” by Robin McKenna and “What’s Legally Allowed in War” by Colin Jones for The New Yorker. Games Here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Spelling Bee. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com. If you have questions about your Times account, delivery problems or other issues, visit our Help Page or contact The Times.
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