Slate Voice

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Not long after the 2016 Republican National Convention, I got a tip from a friend of mine. An old acquaintance of his in California was close to a woman in the adult-film industry who claimed to have had an affair with Donald Trump. I reached my friend’s friend, who put me in touch with the actress, who is known as Stormy Daniels.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

This article is part of aweeklong serieson President Trump’s first year in office. When a few disparate women—spread across several states and with little history of organized activism—conceived of a women’s march on a whim after Donald Trump’s surprise victory in November 2016, no one knew how it would turn out, or whether it would happen at all. Nothing about the march went as planned.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Slate is running a weeklong series on President Trump’s first year in office. Read Jamelle Bouie’s companion essay about the only promise Trump has kept from his inaugural address. After eight years of a Democratic administration, the new Republican president came in with a lightning-strike agenda. He confirmed reliable, career conservatives to the Cabinet and stocked the federal judiciary with young, right-leaning judges.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Slate is running a weeklong series on President Trump’s first year in office. Read Jim Newell’s companion essay about Trump’s conventional—and reversible—policy agenda. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” With that promise—the centerpiece of his inaugural address—Donald Trump committed to a populist presidency. In his first year, President Trump has delivered the opposite.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

I don’t like to accuse people of racism. That word is used far too often, unjustly, to smear good men and women. It has been thrown at House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Mitt Romney, and other decent conservatives. It has been attributed to anyone who defends law enforcement or opposes a government program. When everyone on the right is a white nationalist or white supremacist, these terms lose their meaning. But Donald Trump is a racist.

The past week has revealed a new principle in American politics: As President Trump grows more unhinged, his allies in Congress grow evermore committed to his administration. The new year began where the last one left off, with a spate of alarming outbursts and transgressions. There was the president’s social media brinksmanship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un about the size of his “nuclear button.

When world leaders came together in 2015 to settle on a framework for action on climate change, the resulting agreement set a goal of limiting the rise in global average temperatures from preindustrial levels to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. The climatologist Michael Mann, voicing what has been the scientific consensus for some time, has warned that warming beyond that could lead to “environmental ruin.

A daily selection of Slate’s best writing, read out loud. Learn more about this members-only feature at slate.com/voice

Nearly two dozen legislators joined the president at the White House on Tuesday for what was supposed to be a private meeting to work out a deal that could decide the fate of millions of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. It was one that members and senators on Monday afternoon had said would be pivotal.

Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff’s book about chaos in the Trump administration, tells some curious tales. It suggests Trump didn’t know who former House Speaker John Boehner was, even after Trump had golfed with him and had repeatedly tweeted about him. It says Trump used to offer hookers to men while letting their wives listen in on speakerphone. Stories like these sound too juicy to be true, and Wolff has a history of embellishment.

On Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened the burgeoning legal marijuana industry by rescinding an Obama administration memo that effectively ensured states could legalize pot without federal interference.

President Trump’s election integrity commission didn’t get far before it was mired in controversy. State officials from around the country refused to comply with requests for detailed information on voters, and on Wednesday, after nearly a year of conflict and litigation, the president finally disbanded the commission. “Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud.

To look back at Donald Trump’s first year in office is to see steady assaults on truth, on propriety, and on the rule of law. Looking forward, we can expect more of the same. Already, on the second day of the year, President Trump has asked the Justice Department to investigate a political opponent, a textbook example of authoritarian behavior.