AMERICA'S LONG JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

The White House is becoming totally inept at remaining in control of its agenda and narrative. Not only are the moves--tax cuts, infrastructure, immigration--pushed by an inglorious staff, they are usually overshadowed by the countless lies, misrepresentations and overall corruption which are the claims to unsavory fame of this nightmarish administration.

This lazy president is also morally bankrupt.  One has become used to the many Camorra-like transgressions--which are more abundant than the body-count in all the Godfathers combined--but lately the spin doctors seem lost in their cover-ups. Their fabricated scenarios implode upon close inspection. From early on, the Trump administration reached out beyond the pool and recruited from the swamp. Today they cannot even find Kamikazes to work for this unraveling nightmare. 

The new American irrelevance in the world is creating a windfall for all who like to take advantage of this retreat. The results of this falling apart will be hard to correct in the future. This almost a-cultural US president can no longer be compared with his former equals. He is a freak accident.

In the NY Times column of February 12, David Brooks (Republican pre-Trump era) describes very well how the American political fabric is being subjected to a botched euthanasia. Rules of courtesy and professional ethics are on life-support. Chaos and warfare against formerly accepted gold standards prevail over any attempts to stop the descent into the vulgar reality-show of sleaze and money which are this administration's hallmark.

The sad reality is that this power grab is less the result of an election, than the outcome of a "trick" by way of the Electoral College. America appears to be more skilled in preserving relics of bygone considerations than in revisiting and correcting these errors of the past.  Hence Jim Crow is making a come-back and gerrymandering continues to create districts not seen since reason prevailed. The Republicans choose to stick with a president, whom many actually despise, because they consider the tax breaks as their only hope for salvation in the mid- term elections. Trump has the instincts of a street fighter, the "moral fabric" of a Neanderthal, and the sexist DNA of a closeted molester.  His God-fearing vice president and the conservative flock in the House fear the wrath of their leader of choice. The Obama years already look as unreal as his portrait in the Smithsonian.  Was America really touched by magic and how come the spell died?

Since the Rob Porter's spousal abuse became public, the handling thereof is now a showcase of the total hypocrisy in Trumpworld. The president also continues to deny, for now, that there is a Russian elephant in the oval office. Meanwhile, in the same vein, he pretends to ignore the "wife-beater issue". David Brooks thinks that the American malaise might end up with the rise of a European-style  multiparty system. However, the political culture has become so stressed that such an outcome looks almost Utopian.  Besides, such a U-turn would need the involvement of an intelligentsia which is on leave for an unforeseeable time. Trump has created a zeitgeist of overall disgust with politics which will be difficult to roll back.  Just as Weimar intellectuals chose exile over compromise, their American heirs prefer distance over a Judas embrace.