Hard rain's falling here in Washington as 2019 ends and the Newseum is closing to underline the dreary moment in time.

The showy museum of journalism, with the First Amendment emblazoned on its frontispiece, is over now, slinking into the shadows while a miscreant, proud hater of the press remains president of the United States.

That's pure salt poured on a wounded profession in the social media era. It sure feels like a stark, symbolic win for Donald J. Trump over surviving scribes in the Fourth Estate — if not a real one.

A very palpable hit, as a prince in Shakespeare says. It was not a lean, hungry journalist like Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein who instigated the 2019 impeachment. It was a conscientious insider within the government establishment, a CIA officer whistleblower.

Ironically, on his first full day in office, Trump went to the CIA and boasted to officers about his "war" on the press, ranting about reports of his inauguration crowd. That marked a bitter new American epoch: Jan. 21, 2017.

Yet at year's end, Trump is wounded, too, facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. Journalist-historians are kicking around the lofty question of how past presidents have changed the office. David Shribman, former editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, wrote a long front-page essay on this sober topic for the Los Angeles Times, surveying presidents since the Civil War.

History means nothing to Trump. The real point here: The office has not changed Trump one whit, not one bit.

The presidency inevitably changes the man inside the White House — always, until it comes to Trump. His scorn and hatred of institutions (like the press), countries (like those in Africa), government agencies, treaties, immigrants and individuals has only become more known and intensified.

Trump has not grown in personal stature, with qualities like kindness, compassion, eloquence or empathy for the human condition. Nor has he shown an iota of sophistication in dealing with domestic politics, a House turned blue or foreign policy principals like North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Russia's Vladimir Putin or, um, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

A simple call to Zelenskiy for a sinister "favor" set the House stage for impeachment this fall. (Trump pressured Zelenskiy to announce an investigation into Joe Biden for personal gain.)

Trump's tongue is a blunt force instrument, a weapon that never rests.

On the contrary, the cruelty in constant tweets leaves one gasping at first, thinking, a president can't say that. White men are his favorite people for the Cabinet and company. Women and people of color seem his worst nemeses, inspiring fury at Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The man from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, was no slave abolitionist when he stepped off the train in 1861. By New Year's Day in 1863, he was the greatest abolitionist ever. Franklin Delano Roosevelt reinvented and expanded his political genius to meet monumental crisis after crisis: The Great Depression followed by world war. Harry Truman grew in office, as did Dwight D. Eisenhower. Young John F. Kennedy visibly matured during his "thousand days" presidency cut short. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush lost their Texan swagger with their unpopular, losing wars.

The magnitude of office forces presidents to change. It's written in Obama's gray hair, in Lincoln's sad eyes, in Bill Clinton's acquired gravitas under siege.

Trump, the singular exception, is immune to all that. No grandeur or prose of his predecessors rubbed off. He has not answered history's call to address all Americans.

Getting back to the free press, I take that institution personally. The Newseum was too fancy for my ink-stained taste, but its demise goes with the knell of more newspapers than I'd care to count in this century.

There are no rules left as Trump openly seeks to break the mainstream media, not even caring to hold press briefings anymore. Every tweet, even a ferocious falsehood, gets reported, which plays into his hands.

"Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd recently confessed "naivete" when asked about Republican guests on the show spreading misinformation — but even this is no match for the formidable man in the White House.

Come 2020, our press playbook must catch up to Trump's war.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit the website creators.com

Photo credit: skeeze at Pixabay