Trump

Jesus what an embarrassment. As catastrophic as the radicalization of the left has been--and will continue to be for the foreseeable future--I almost can't even wrap my head around the fact that this guy is the president. He's a loose cannon. He's throwing the country into a tizzy. It's hard for me to separate out with any precision how much is him and how much is the hysterical overreaction of the vocal, visible left. But a lot of it is him. Way, way too much. That guy is a representative and representation of the country as a whole. To our immense shame. I've tried to tune out the noise and focus on the policies. But the noise isn't just noise. Words and attitudes matter. They represent the nation and set a tone. They reveal who we are and help form who we'll become. This sorry state of affairs can't but alarm and distress those of us who take the idea of America seriously. I wish the president were less important. I'm among those who think we've seriously erred by allowing the presidency to become too powerful. But that's where we are. And that's where he is. Even when he does the right thing, it often comes across as mean-spirited, as with his approach to deportations. We need to enforce our immigration laws--and that means, inter alia, deportations. Obama did it; it's got to be done. But it's an unfortunate thing that ought to be done with something more like a sense of sadness. Or at least bureaucratic dispassion. Obviously the press is working hard to make everything he does seem maximally bad; again, it's hard to separate out the real facts from the noise. But damn.
   Eh, it's probably time for me to check out of all this. Some people can keep their wits about them when everything gets this crazy. I can't, really. This stuff is hard. My only real idea is: avoid the really stupid unforced errors. Both sides have basically rushed headlong toward the stupidest available mistakes. They've both gone loopy, and they're making each other even crazier than they need to be. The left seems to have fallen in love with the ideal of a kind of soft Orwellian dystopia in which the viciously passionate denial of plain facts and evidence is the pinnacle of political virtue. Maybe Year Zero isn't quite on the horizon...but it's lurking around somewhere. And the apocalypticism! Jesus. The other guys have managed to elect an unqualified spaz. A loud-mouthed, narcissistic con man. A swine. A jackass. A guy who thoughtlessly generates words, elected to a position in which words matter more than usual, and ought to be chosen with the greatest care. A fan of conspiracy theories, to boot. The birther-in-chief. He's about half as bad as the other loons think he is--but that's way worse than bad enough. Too bad by half, at least.
   We've been through worse, and we'll almost certainly right the ship. But...well, but nothing, maybe. Maybe that's the thought to close with.