Whatever else you want to say about it, the Trump era has so far been an eye-opening experience. Not just because of the fear of what could happen if you stop looking. Before Trump assumed the office, no self-respecting leftist with strong anarchist leanings would want to defend "the majesty" of the presidency, but in the age of Trump, that's a rather moot point because the majesty has been thoroughly pissed out of existence by Trump and his cohort. It's as though the occupant in chief has broken the 4th wall of the political reality spectacle. Not just with the superfluous trappings that go with the territory of occupying the "dump" on Pennsylvania Avenue, but especially with the turning of the meat-grinder that is the political process. The upheaval of the old spectacle itself is not the problem; it's the spectacle that's replacing it.
We thought we knew the drill, exemplified by the run-up to the Iraq War: to simulate the process of establishing reason for pursuit of policy that is the hallmark of good democracy, the white house concocts "evidence" and rationalizations for it ; useful idiots from the expert class and punditry are persuaded to be persuaded by the rationalizations; with a critical mass of the right centrist "realists" parroting the experts, the media will obediently hop into the lap. We knew it was fucked up when we saw it, but we never fully appreciated how "professional-grade" it all was. That's all out the window now. Any pretense of going through the formality of planning or forethought about the national agenda is abandoned. Any impulse to concede that a sizable majority of the country is owed at least the respect of an attempt at persuasion if not consultation for policy that's likely to affect the entire country if not the world is shunted aside. There may be cooler heads than Trump's in his inner circle but given the haphazard path of the "agenda" so far, those heads do not appear to prevail. We know there are pathologies in Trump's character that account for the devaluation of competence (not least of which is pathological incompetence itself), but it's stunning to see them in action.
Nothing has changed my conviction that this could be a short presidency, but experience has tempered the details a bit of how the end of it could come about. An operating theory of mine before the inauguration was that the pressures to compromise that come with leading the executive branch in the current political climate could have Trump resigning in a fit of "who needs this shit", if not leaving the office for good on a stretcher before all was said and done. But experience has shown that Trump doesn't compromise. This is a quality that we admire in those with an informed and inspired crystal clear vision of how things should be (unlike Trump's predecessor, say, who in spite of many virtues seemed to compromise to a fault practically out of the gate even with his mandate for innovation.) The paragons of this "no compromise" quality take the complexities of a situation and use their gifts to craft elegant simplicities from them. There is no evidence that Trump is capable of such a thing. No doubt the workings of his mind such as they are necessarily require the input to be as simple as possible, but the output is always hopelessly mangled.
Don't think we haven't noticed the poor quality of this man's intellect and character. I do know Trump defenders who have lost patience with complaints about the competence of the executive. He was elected precisely because he's not your typical politician, the argument goes. "Just give him time like we gave Obama." Except of course, Obama didn't get time. The tea party was already in fully corporate funded bloom by this time in Obama's first term motivated to my memory by some rather unhinged over-reaction from a disappointingly sizable faction of my generational and demographic cohort. This is not about revenge. Truthfully time was less than kind to my own assessment of Obama's effectiveness before all was said done for quite opposite reasons from the Tea party's. But the degree of incompetence, bad behavior, dishonesty and capacity for outright criminality of the current president, all apparent before the election has only become more blatantly obvious since the inauguration. This is not about ideology. This is about the evidence of one's eyes and ears.
Furthermore, there's a great disingenuousness in the most fervent Trump supporter's entreaty to give Trump a chance. Taken to a logical conclusion, this pretends to assume that not only is it possible for anyone honestly paying close attention to become a Trump supporter, but that unity is even a goal. In truth, if my kind were to suddenly be on board with Trump's program, something would be wrong. He would no longer be the turd in the punch bowl that brings so much delight to so many of his admirers. If there were reason to believe that Trump had in fact actually become competent enough to be trusted by the likes of me, there would still remain for me the stench and residue of the turd in the punch that he has been to date to deal with. Turd drinking takes a special kind of palate.
The media certainly thrive on the perception of chaos in public affairs. To them the extreme is money in the bank. This is why they could not help themselves from making the previous election entirely about Donald Trump and at best are not blameless in our current predicament. So they have had a hand in making the shape we're in. But the media are trained to portray the circus in Washington regardless of its lunacy as evidence of the continuity of American democratic institutions. The owners have a vested interest in coloring their product in this light. This is why the media will be the last to see the damage the vandals in the white house are doing. The devolution will not be televised. It is already underway.
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