1000 Days of Madness

“If we are not currently an authoritarian nation it’s thanks in part to the insubordinate spirit of a good deal of the American public and the underlying confidence behind this relative fearlessness.”  Rebecca Solnit

1,000 days of the madness of would-be King Donald I. At times it feels like a bad dream and I long to snap wide awake and breathe a sigh of relief that Trump never happened except in our imagination. The idiocy, cruelty, venality and mendacity is almost too heavy a burden. When we look back at this period -- if the republic survives and what remains of our institutions hold -- one question that must be answered is why many of our fellow citizens followed Trump, believed in him, and thought he was doing good for the nation. Any conscious, sane person who listens to Trump for more than a minute should reach the conclusion that the man is nuts, insane, a sociopath. I don’t think all of Trump’s supporters and followers are bad people, but I do marvel at how misinformed they are.

Trump is P.T. Barnum on crack. 

Has Trump made us stupid or did we make Trump because we are stupid? During the reign of George W. Bush the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson often said that America was trapped in a downward spiral of dumbness. W. Bush, now being rehabilitated as a kindly nitwit, seemed the epitome of elite decay, a man buoyed by his family name and connections and wealth, a serial fuck-up who always landed on his feet, smiling, a faux cowboy. Donald J. Trump makes George W. Bush look eloquent by comparison. I never thought I would see that. Trump doesn’t have as much blood on his hands as Bush does, not yet anyway, but who knows if he manages to escape impeachment and scandal and win another term via the undemocratic Electoral College. 

As we saw this week, any translator who has to make sense of Trump’s gibberish is in a most difficult spot. “The Kurds have sand, a lot of sand. More sand than is good for them. Lot of sand, too much. It’s hard to imagine so much sand. You can’t believe it. Sand everywhere. Gets in your shoes and your hair. Hard to get the sand out of your hair. I’ve got great hair, the best hair of any American president, ever. Very soft, very shiny, it’s beautiful, my hair, my great and unmatched hair.”

1,000 days of madness, drifts of BS up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, Abraham Lincoln turning in his grave, George Washington sobbing uncontrollably as King Donald tramps over the republic. This can’t be happening, yet it is. It’s not a dream. Trump and the fourth string crew who surround him are becoming more and more blatant and defiant of every norm. Wholesale disregard for the Legislative branch. Total disdain for the rule of law. This is dangerous territory.