IT IS DANGEROUS TO BE RIGHT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT IS WRONG : VOLTAIRE

Legitimate empires seldom fall under foreign pressure alone. They usually collapse because of their own home-grown failures. Rome, China, the Inca and Aztec realms or British power, for instance, fell more under the weight of their own aberrations than under the onslaught of a qualitative alternative. Today's America is not under direct attack. It is not hiding in some territorial panic room. It is comfortable in its own habitat but it fails to pay enough attention to the cracks in  the walls and ceilings, since the maintenance rests in the hands of a sociopath.

Trump is starting to unleash rants, purges and his brand of culture wars, which are making a hard landing in the middle of American institutions. He is trying to remake them in his own image (imagine?).  If he is re-elected, the decor and the script will be ready for a second act furioso and renewed carpet bombing.   Already, his current cabinet acts and moves like a Praetorian guard. The next team might look more like the cast of Goodfellas, enjoying their happy hour.

The death of Elijah Cummings, Democrat House member and civil rights symbol, under these el Greco ominous skies should  awaken the dormant better angels. The doors of the White House did not open to let the air in.

The Democrats continue on their road to "political spam". The Speaker tries to maintain decorum and gravitas. Some Democrat contenders already look like "death on arrival". While the "socialists" should be on Trump's payroll, the moderates start to act desperate, as if they were considering packing, out of sheer ennui.  Too much is being said about America's sunset. True, after Trump lauded his achievements in the Syrian imbroglio, one is entitled to question the delirium which seems to have taken hold of this swollen brain.  After all, the Middle East starts to look like Putin's mare nostrum. The US raid which led to the death of al Baghdadi might change the conversation for awhile but it leaves the geopolitics unchanged. Trump's effusive thanks, mostly to Russia and Turkey, speak for themselves. Plus ca change...

 It will take a long time to clean up the mess since the internal "occupation strategy" of the administration is marginalizing the moral and sophisticated fiber in all sectors. It will demand effort and brains to roll back this "Berlin: 1945 landscape".

One has to admit that Trump has managed to rule and to shift the rules in such a way that the ones who dare to oppose him  look irrelevant, small. The brutal force of his personality outweighs any legitimate, sophisticated counter-argument. There is no match for his Sumo body-language, which creates a frenzy in his base. This phenomenon will occupy writers and sociologists for years to come. He killed the traditional Republicans and dwarfed the Democrats. Every opposition is countered on the spot by a tactic not seen since Stalin and by the abject complicity of the 1%.  Unfortunately, this poisonous political dividend internally (based on an enormous budget fraud) is financed by overall losses externally. America becomes dispensable because of the wrong choices made. It seeks now to protect the oil in Syria. This is the latest existential decision made, a choice between humanism and materialism. Trump's America has chosen to show its real face, again. Not a pretty view!