Tragedy or Farce?

It's getting to the point that I can't write anything because I don't know where to begin. The idea of Donald Trump as president was preposterous from the beginning, but nobody could quite imagine what the reality would be like. At this point it's an even bet, for me, whether the Trump presidency self-destructs in an explosion of idiocy, or whether it destroys us first.

The oppo research memo on the Russian connection is a lot of fun, but the absurd prospect of appointing RFK Jr. to head a presidential commission on vaccine safety is more telling. This will almost certainly not end up convincing people not to vaccinate their kids -- instead it will convince people that Donald Trump is a fool. If he wants funding for it he'll need legislation, which he won't get. If he tries to let Kennedy mess with the CDC in any way, the entire medical establishment will rise up in outrage. He is certain to make blunders of the same magnitude almost daily. For example, Ben Carson as secretary of HUD is similarly buffoonish, although HUD doesn't have such an influential constituency.

My thinking is that it's going to become increasingly damaging to the Republican party to continue owning him. They're going to start flailing for a way out. They are already flailing with the realization that they can't just repeal the ACA, but their president in waiting is trying to order them to do it next week. Their Chamber of Commerce constituency most definitely does not want tariffs and they don't want their low wage workers deported either. Their foreign policy establishment is going to howl like a pack of wolves with their tails on fire about buddying up with Vlad.

Public policy doesn't really matter to voters, who don't understand it anyway, but the man is a clown. The Republicans benefited enormously from Ronald Reagan's avuncular persona -- it's cast a glow over them ever since, despite Reagan's manifest incompetence. Trump, in contrast, will go down in a golden shower of ridicule. That gives me hope.