Why does Trump 2.0 feel different from Trump 1.0?

WHAT a difference eight years make. In February 2017, a few days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, my neighbours in our apartment building in the Washington, DC, area, the majority of whom were proud liberal Democrats, were still shocked, panicked and full of rage.

They just couldn’t believe that a real estate tycoon and former television show host whom they regarded as a boorish political demagogue was elected as the 45th president of the United States (Potus), and were worried that he would pursue an authoritarian agenda and devastate America’s democratic foundations. They were stunned.

The women in my co-op, wearing “pink pussy hats”, joined thousands of others in a giant Women’s March in the capital, responding to the threat that the new president posed to reproductive rights.