The world’s most unpredictable man has become so predictable. Just weeks in, President Donald Trump has become a bore.
Even the hyperventilating press, thrilled by the shock and subscription-building value of Trump’s seemingly endless bag of gaffes, lies, and general effrontery, have had all we can stand.
The overwhelming torrents of breath-taking weirdness, delusion and deceit is exhausting in itself. But life in the media under the Trump administration is like a white-knuckle action-disaster film. Just when you thought you survived today’s hurricane-force winds, Trump tweets out a tsunami in the dark that he just found out that Obama “tapped his wires” and was a “sick” person for doing it. And seconds later? Arnold Schwarzenegger is just so sad in The Apprentice.
So presidential.
Can’t we get one night’s sleep without #BLOTUS nut-bombing the intertubes at the crack of crazy?
As predictable as physics, the Flabbergaster In Chief tweets that kind of insanity, and in an opposite re-action, the Tin Foil Brigade explodes in a cacophony of tortured ecstasy. They escalate like screaming matches at the monkey house, flinging mountains of tweets and memes in lieu of poo.
In a matter of minutes, the president — who made the world unclench their jaws for a couple of hours after he at least appeared somewhat sane in his first big, public address — resumes his job providing a flood of fodder for this week’s skits on Saturday Night Live.
It was a bad week for a president that’s having a bad political career. Ready to bask in a feeble but visible light of normality, the president has a Trumper tantrum when Attorney General Jeff Sessions steals the stage. It all goes hurly-burly again with Sessions defending the meetings he had with the Russian ambassador that he forgot about when the Senate was grilling him about meetings Team Trump had with Russian officials before and after the election.
I know in Trump years it seems like this mess started centuries ago, but the whole reason this Trumpster fire started was because American intelligence discovered at the end of the election that the Russians hacked the Democratic Party and wanted to throw the election for Trump. And in seeking out that information, it just so happens that a growing list of all the president’s men had meetings and other connections to Russian officials.
So while it may have been news to Trump that he and his were the subject of intelligence queries about just how deep and treasonous this Russia thing might go, we all found this out months ago. That’s why there’s going to be an investigation.
As to allegations that Barack Obama and Joe Biden pulled a Mission Impossible stunt, acting like pizza dudes at Trump Tower to hang alligator clips on Trump’s ringer, that is where the rubber meets the room.
As fast as they humanly could under these circumstances, the media rounded up experts Saturday explaining how the law and reality works; the president — not even this one — can order wire taps. The day’s news cycle was filled experts and witnesses saying how wrong and crazy Trump’s latest meltdown was.
Alternate facts? This man lives in an alternate universe, slipping in and out of ours at inopportune moments several times a week.
So we all wait for what we know is coming. The rationalization. The double down.
This one came from the king of Alternate Facts, White House spokesman Sean Spicer. In his best Melissa McCarthy, Spicer tweets out bright and squirrelly that he and his are shocked, shocked and dismayed that Obama would undermined Trump, and that the Congressional committee investigating whether Trump was a Russian stooge or accomplice should determine whether Obama was criminally subverting the Constitution and common sense.
We all know the drill. Trump is accused of something. “I know you are, but what am I?” Then he denies it. “Fake News.” The evidence comes out that something happened. Trump downplays it. Evidence mounts. Trump discredits the sources. The story becomes undeniable, even while he and his supports try. He then deflects, saying that he’s actually a victim.
Repeat.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans stand by and watch this continue, so thrilled that they finally have more than the power of “no” to get their way, that they don’t care what it costs them and the country to have a little fun. Like some kind of greedy Dickens characters, they shrug off the screams and moans of America as the price we all must pay for making America great again. Sure, the White House is run by someone so psychologically impaired that he couldn’t get a job in the government, but it’s OK that we let him run it.
I just don’t see how this can last four years. Is there an “X” on the RNC calendar some weeks from now that Congressional Republicans, having had a few critical bills signed, hold their first press conference to discuss articles of impeachment?
It would be nice if they we could move up that date. I need some sleep. We all do.
Reach and follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook or at dperry@aurorasentinel.com or 303-750-7555.