Donald Trump Has Begun a Frontal Assault on Financial Reform thenation.com

Friday’s executive order is mainly just a message, but it's a scary one.  Donald Trump signing an executive order has now become a cultural trademark, with its own Twitter feeds and play-by-play. What the orders don’t share is any consistency. Some, like the immigration ban, lead to immediate (and tragic) impacts. Others commit the government to generally look around for regulations to trim, or to try to come up with something around Obamacare.

The latter executive orders are signals, statements of intent that do little on their own but suggest the thrust of administration policy. That’s the proper context for Trump’s signing an executive order Friday on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Dodd-Frank won’t be repealed by executive fiat. But unlike some other policies, if the administration sees fit, Dodd-Frank can easily be effectively repealed by neglect.