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The Cold War, now actually forgotten or revised by so many, was the direct result of broken promises made at the negotiating table. Had Stalin condoned even half-hearted efforts at democratic autonomy in Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, who Churchill felt a special duty toward, US history may have been radically different.

Containment strategy, with its inevitable escalation of both blood and treasure, was born from Soviet actions validating the pessimism of George Kennan, who’s telegram from Eastern Europe detailing the folly of believing in Soviet promises gained prescience with every Stalinist doublecross. As the hopes of Yalta gave way to the sober pragmatism of Potsdam, and then the new reality of the Truman Doctrine, Uncle Joe morphed into the enemy he didn’t mind becoming, ready and able to start upsetting the dominoes.

It need never have come to that. Had US negotiators better understood Stalin’s mindset coming into Yalta, and kept in perspective those pocket aces in his hand Red Army occupation of most of Eastern Europe embodied, they may have come to the table more clear-eyed and not have been so taken aback by the result. Fifty years of hostility and the nerve wracking tension of Mutually Asssured Destruction, not to mention the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower feared, was what we got for our troubles. That said, Europe has enjoyed mostly peace; and that’s a good thing.

All of this is worth mentioning now because we made the ruinous mistake
of electing, perhaps with active Russian intrigue, a nihilist fully unconcerned with the maintenance of the principle military alliance and economic collective forged as a result US-Soviet estrangement.

Whatever one’s worst case scenario of Trump’s meeting this week with NATO leaders, it’s imaginable. After the G-7, anything is possible, nothing too out there to conjure. The only two things in which we can really be sure are the leader of the free world won’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and that won’t stop him from doing it incessantly, in the most boorish fashion possible.

At his Montana rally, our anti-statesman spewed trash like he was itching for a fight, ready to do more than lecture about Europe living up to its obligations. I may just have to tell Angela we can’t protect her anymore, Trump slurred to his wretched core. What could go wrong?

European leaders are losing faith they can outlast our albatross, watching with horror GOP capitulation and acknowledging the awful specter of a possible second term. They are not served in any domestic political climate being seen as Trump lackeys; if he repeats his G-7 outrages, things may get very ugly. Macron learned the hard way the futility of swallowing pride in hopes of encouraging rationality. A unified middle finger on the world stage may become unavoidable.

And then L’Enfant Terrible will be off to meet with Putin, the only true friend he can count on. Hard to imagine what part of the store will be given away as he’s fuming about being dissed by the ingrates we’ve been carrying all these years. So what about Crimea, most of em speak Russian anyway! At least Vlad understands strength and doesn’t mooch off my good graces! Poisoning British citizens? Fake news! I don’t owe Europe a thing, and my Russian friends came through when… er, ah.. forget it! Nothing wrong with peace!

When the Berlin Wall was being beaten up by wild celebrants in 89’ we all assumed the West had won the Cold War; optimists even hoped Russia could become more partner than foe. But just as Stalin did after Yalta, Putin and the oligarchs he champions have dashed such aspirations. And after wandering in the desert for years, they are now poised, like Stalin before them, to outperform the odds their military and economic weaknesses should dictate. And why not be confident in the Kremlin? Unlike the Generalissimo, Putin has a flush draw…a useful idiot with his own propaganda operation. A dolt named Trump. BC

The President of the United States would rather do anything other than work. It is not pejorative to say Donald Trump is probably the laziest President in American history; it is simply an observation of the obvious, like looking up at pitch black skies and saying “looks like rain.”

After declaring on the stump he would “never see Doral again” because he would never leave the White House – working non stop negotiating deals for the country – Trump has played more than 160 rounds of golf, many at his Doral course near the “Southern White House.”To put that in perspective, since Inauguration Day, he has played more than five months of golf. Were he a touring golf pro, Trump would have played 40 full tournaments! Think about that!

Moreover, it is clear from countless interviews with White House staff, at least those available before they left – the turnover rate in the Trump Administration is an unprecedented 61 percent – the President has zero desire to either brief himself or, more incredibly, be informed by staff on the issues he was presumably elected to address. One staffer, when asked how Trump quizzes those presenting information to him, said simply it is assumed he is not paying attention.

Finally, the spare number of hours our Chief Executive actually clocks in on a typical work day is well documented. The mornings appear devoted to watching Fox News from the residence and then tweeting accordingly. Actual time in the West Wing seems limited to four hours at most, often spent on the phone to “outside advisors” setting the President straight on the bad counsel he is getting from the people paid to… er, counsel him.

An executive decision-making process does not seem to exist, and access to the President is said to be very limited these days, with Stephen Miller and John Bolton apparently now enjoying the most alone time to hiss in his ear. By all accounts he can’t get out of his office fast enough, and exhibits little focus on anything substantive, usually distracted by some enemy of the moment.

But one thing Trump adores are rallies before his wretched core. To that end he has made clear to staff he wants to be on the road several times a week stumping for GOP candidates. Unfortunately for the candidates, the amount of time he actually devotes to their prospects fluctuates between sparse and sparser.

What the rallies have become, fully illustrated at Thursday’s Montana event, are the unhinged rantings of a pathological narcissist, unencumbered by any responsibility to anything other than his delusions. What this says about the thousands, who wait in broiling heat for hours to applaud his every ugly inanity, is as obvious as his disdain for work, but even more of a crisis to the country.

Trump rallies are first and foremost attacks on the press. Reporters on the ground have grown increasingly alarmed at the vitriol hurled their way by attendees, who undergo a metamorphosis from neighbor to rabid nihilist on the way to their seats.

Forced to locate in a central penned area, the media endures a near constant stream of derision throughout Trump’s monologue. Almost everything he rants is couched within his version – often near unintelligible – and his description of what the conniving, lying media reported.

In Montana, as he has for some time now, no distinctions were made, only holding out the New York Times and Washington Post as particularly egregious examples, fully dependent on covering him to continue as going concerns. So, not only is Trump the victim of their constant lies, but standard bearers of the American press now fully depend on Trump to sell enough papers to survive. Narcissism anyone?

Trump enemies get plenty of attention at his rallies. Montana Democratic Senator John Tester, who has called out the Administration on a number of issues ranging from VA incompetence to agriculture policy, was signaled out for the Trump treatment – equal parts lies and derision, with yet another ugly jab at dying John McCain for good measure.

Perhaps no sitting US Senator has ever been abased in so disgusting a manner by ANY elected official, let alone the POTUS, as Elizabeth Warren was to rousing applause in Montana. It’s not possible to describe the infantile yet thoroughly racist and misogynistic abuse our President heaped on Warren. Of all the outrages normalized since last January, this disgrace may be the worst. Yet it now seems impossible for any one outrage to stand out, such is the torrent of indignities from this President.

Our allies act worse than our enemies; Russia and China are fine; NATO is ripping us off; Democrats love MS-13; it may be time to stop defending Europe; Kim and I signed “this great piece of paper”. And on and on it goes. All qualifying for applause by the bored senseless, but ever dutiful Big Sky branch of the wretched core.

Trump’s rally in Montana was the worst yet, setting new low points for Presidential behavior and servility of his supporters. But Trump is less the issue than his following, who in Montana demonstrated there is not a crevice their champion can descend to without their mindless approval.

Trump’s gibberish from the stump is almost reassuring because it underscores his profound limitations as a tyrant. He is more idiot than totalitarian, too shiftless for a thousand year anything. Yet and still, his millions aren’t going away, and want to follow somebody. They are there for the leading. The next deliverer may not be an orange moron losing his faculties; he may be young and strong and handsome, a veteran of high intelligence and quick wit, without the need to praise himself every sentence. He may be disciplined and subtle, willing to play the long game. And the 35% he inherits from Trump may only be a starting point. Montana is where we are. Where we end up depends on how fully we grasp its significance.

I doubt the US produced many greater than ol’ Harry Truman. A more genuine made in America product you never did see. Raised in Missouri, he grew up absorbing the best and worst characteristics of one of this country’s bloodiest Civil War frontiers. While he failed to rise fully above the ugly bigotry ensconced in his upbringing, he held himself to the highest character standards. Faith, virtue, an incredible work ethic, humility, fairness, unabashed patriotism and fidelity guided him from youth. And while it is surely true and readily apparent he shared what was conventional racism of white rural Missourians at the turn of the 20th century, as a legislator and POTUS he championed civil rights initiatives he perceived as common sense fairness. But, if nobody is perfect, surely Truman’s racial bias was chief among his frailties.

Yet and still, in the pantheon of US Presidents, it is very hard to find a more industrious, better read, or grounded soul than Harry Truman. Whether working dawn to dark in fields he was forced to cultivate after his father lost everything speculating on grain, or vowing with his high school friend to read every one of 2000 volumes stocked by his local library, Truman was self-made from start to finish.

A beloved and decorated Captain of WWI, Truman spoke nary a word in public of his service, yet was always there for reunions or funerals. On war, he was clear: sending boys to battle could only ever be a last resort. And while respectful of the experience of military brass, Truman was up to the task of firing the country’s most famous general after he flouted civilian authority.

Thrust into the highest office under the most dire of circumstances at exactly the most pivotal time in US history, Truman called on everything that had shaped him and did not let his country or the world down. Whatever mistakes he made in office he readily owned, whatever successes he achieved were shared with others below him. History paints an exceptional leader with the broadest shoulders imaginable, necessary to accept the burden of momentous decisions.

Yes, on the 4th of July, celebrating the likes of Harry Truman is as pure a show of patriotism as any, I suppose. One last thing… as a Trumanphile, one enrapt by his Presidency and personal story since my college days, I can say with the confidence of a weatherman under clear blue skies; there is nobody HST would have loathed more than Trump. Every action, every tweet, every word this POTUS puts forth would have enraged Harry’s sensibilities. It simply is not possible to create a caricature more at odds with the life and record of Harry Truman than the imposter we are inflicted with for yet another 4th.

Fly your flags and love your country, and harken back to great public servants, who crafted our destiny. Just know that few of them, least of all Harry Truman, pointed their fingers at others and whined “ it’s their fault”. The buck should never stop there. When you get your hot dog, or pop open your 8th cold one, understand this: we have a POTUS incapable of saying anything else! Happy 4th! BC

If democracy is about choices, then it’s survival involves accepting the better at the expense of the ideal. At the same time, abiding such reasoning requires faith the process offers viable options that distinguish themselves from each other. We got Trump because many on one side lost faith in that proposition and figured what the hell. How wrong they were is now on display hourly. Astonishingly, many still hold to their November, 16’ outlook, but just as incredibly, Democratic leaders still seem intent on providing the same reasons to do so.

The concept of common sense suggests the obvious exists and should be recognizable to most. How anyone who watches Trump in public comes to any conclusion other than the nation has a monsterous problem, either challenges the existence of that idea, or means many have lost their bearings.

Trump is so alien to any of his predecessors, so bare in his disdain for established protocol, so wedded to his contrarian impulses, so divorced from a coherent vision of governance, accepting him is either a full and shared indictment of everything before, or an expression of complete apathy.

That 35 percent of America, 85 percent of the GOP, approve of behavior so at odds with established standards, means either Trump is exceptional enough to create new metrics, or something has convinced them the alternative is bad enough that anything else is acceptable… the least is not as bad as the worst, which the other choice certainly is.

Of course Trump exists to promote the former contention, making virtually every sentence he utters about his unique greatness. His rallies ring more of cultist Jim Jones than any previous POTUS, almost entirely in service to his megalomania. Yet attendees, aside from fatigued by having to stand and sheer boredom, don’t see any reason at all for pause.

That both national and local Republican candidates now embrace far more than distance themselves from him reflects two simple truths: they can read polls; and they, not only can accept his behavior, but also wed their political brands to it. So much for common sense on the GOP side. But what of the Democratic alternatives?

It’s hard to argue with anyone promising a simple return to sanity and abidence of previous standards, targeted by Trump for no other reason than to demonstrate his power to do so. Yet there is the emerging wing of the party demanding its own war on the status quo, come what may. Clinton and her machinery denied them; they made us pay. Coming into November they seem uninterested in simply a general resistence to the crisis they created, yet their agenda is evolving. Universal healthcare, a livable wage, higher taxes on the 1% and addressing corporate greed are the broad strokes. Righting immigration injustices and doing in ICE now appear to be added to the list. In short, fast action on intractable political issues… sound familiar?

Kicking the can down the road is no longer tolerated by either side of the populist yellow brick road, but what both sides seek can’t be achieved through compromise, which has always been required for big US legislative changes. Democrats refused to allow GOP refusal to participate stop Obamacare, and gave birth to the dark forces plagueing us now. Trump, as the most grotesque manifestation of Tea Party nihilism, has no political identity giving away ground necessary for compromise. So what are we left with?

Schumer, Pelosi et al seem intent on believing that both of the most powerful forces available to harness are too dangerous to fully embrace. Calling out Trump as the existential danger he shows himself to be on the hour risks alienating soft independents, who he turns off, but don’t have any stomach for a battle to remove him. Moreover, it risks invigorating Trump’s wretched core, who will TiVo Outnumbered and hit the polls to protect their champion from the deep state. Better to go slow and keep powder dry for 2020.

Meanwhile, anything more than humoring the Bernie crowd risks further alienation of undecideds with no stomach for socialism, better the devil they’ve normalized already than another wave of big changes. Again, no need to press too hard. We’ll work to reunite the families, absolutely no to any NEW tax cuts. And let’s fix this flawed Obamacare because the GOP failed to repeal and just wants the issue to go away. Talk about a solid platform!

The GOP worked out its internal differences by allowing the Fox/AM fringe to destroy all reason and compassion within its ranks. The Tea Party morphed from an electoral asset to a nihilist albatross in the blink of an eye. Trump came along and simply fully defined himself in line with those ugly traits, rendering them non distinguishable from his hideous cult of personality.

Now the Dems seem paralyzed on how to proceed. One of the short list of usurpers of Pelosi was decisively trounced in his primary by as dynamic and attractive a progressive face as one could ask for. Yet they seem intent on nibbling at the edges rather than creating any wave required to either deliver us from our pestilence or pursue anything more than gridlock, which would suit Trump just fine.

Collective angst toward our system’s warts was responsible for electing America’s worst, who now daily provides a stress test for our democracy’s survival. Whether this bloc subordinates its demands that the Democratic Party move on from the 1990s, and makes peace with simply throwing water on the fire we all see burning, will determine if the current criminal enterprise continues. One can only hope they employ the common sense they were born with. BC

In Maine, two news headlines illustrate our bipolar nation. One story highlights the finishing touches the Maine legislature is putting on its voters’ decisive support of a referendum legalizing cannibis.

After overriding Trumpie Governor Paul Le Page’s effort to nullify the popular will, Vacation State lawmakers are sorting out the specifics of recreational and medical pot use, culminating in a 2019 roll out of a functioning marketplace for marijuana sales and regulation. For now a citizen can possess up to 2 1/2 ounces or grow up to six plants of ganja without penalty. By 2019 boutiques should begin full operations, tax paying enterprises on the cutting edge of medicinal and recreational weed consumption.

Meanwhile, with the announcement of SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, all eyes are on Maine’s own Susan Collins, who now passes for GOP moderate in the US Senate, and along with Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, suddenly has a very strong hand to play regarding any Trump nominee to the Court. Today’s editorial in the Portland Press Herald called on Collins to show “less deference to the President than (she) usually demonstrates”, while appreciating Kennedy’s “unique position on the court over the last three decades.”

Whether Collins, who despite nurturing a political brand of independence, has been as reliable a yes vote for Trump initiatives as Ted Cruz or Orrin Hatch, decides to actually approach the nomination process with fealty to womens’ reproductive rights as a guidepost, there is little doubt that who she will be considering will have no regard for such concerns. And the likely ascendence of a newly solid vote against Roe v Wade means in 2019 Maine women will be able to do bong hits in their back yard without fear of incarceration, but if they take a “morning after” pill may be ripe for felony prosecution. Talk about one step forward and two steps backward! Trump’s America in a nutshell.

What the new SCOTUS reality clarifies is this will fully become John Robert’s court. With his breezy assent of Trump’s travel ban, and servile participation in deleting 70 years of established labor law, Neal Gorsuch confirmed he is Scalia with a fraction of the intellect. Alito joined Thomas in the “originalist” section long ago, and it’s sadly doubtful Trump’s latest nominee won’t follow along. So that leaves Roberts as the sole hope for any sort of discretion in what will surely be a wave of challenges to what were established cases. Reproductive and gay rights, minority protections, voting rights and limits on police conduct are likely to fill the docket.

Only Roberts appears to any degree amendable to something other than a rubber stamp. Of course the long term implications are enormous and will define how far social progress, paid for with blood and toil, will be rolled back by those imbibed only with grievance and resentment of groups they have no problem excluding from protections they take for granted.

So how reasonable is it to hope the Chief Justice will abide stare decisis at the expense of political ideology…in other words what he promised up and down to do during his own confirmation? In short, not very. The travel ban opinion Roberts himself authored requires one to ignore the most divisive political figure in US history and focus only on the authority previously granted by the court to his station. Roberts stipulates that, since the formal wording of the ban is “neutral”, Trump’s endless, fully documented, rants and rages behind the action are irrelevant. In other words, tidy legalese inoculates malignant intent.

While it certainly is true past SCOTUS rulings have sided with broad Executive power, considering action without intent makes no sense unless one accepts the democracy killing proposition that any POTUS can define “national security emergency” as he sees fit and all constitutional bets are off. The fact that Roberts declared Korematsu, the basis for Japanese WWII internment made exactly under such circumstances, unconstitutional 70 years too late, demonstrated breathtaking inconsistency by the Chief Justice on exactly that subject. Such constitutional acrobatics will come in handy if he decides to rule against Roe V Wade.

The American ship is sailing in the midst of a mutiny by the old and drunken tars of its crew. While the course of its voyage has yet to be brought about face, a war for control of its helm rages on; and right now the mutineers are pushing their advantage. Whether, after so long and costly a journey, they will be able to force heading back toward the nothingness of past failures we moved away from now seems to be in the hands of a very few, who have yet to inspire in their service to the mission’s success. We need to more fully engage the battle and tilt the balance. BC

It’s entirely possible that separating families at the border cooked the GOP’s goose in November. The images and audio coming from the southwest won’t be forgotten soon, and it was only a matter of time before otherwise indifferent fence sitters, acquiescent to a POTUS as unable to keep his mouth shut as he is to convey the least bit of empathy, would finally have enough. So what does a wave landslide in November look like and how will the vanquished react?

Trump’s rally in Minnesota and his unhinged cabinet meeting last week betray concern that November might be very ugly for GOP enablers. The more he repeats himself on a subject, the more preoccupied by it he is, such are the tells of a mental midget.

The primary season has brought good news and bad news for Trump. On the plus side loud and proud Trumpie nihilists have proliferated and sent a number of what passes for “moderates” in today’s Grand Old Party – or put another way, those who can read without moving their lips -packing. And the Neanderthal newbies are all in with Der Donald, bathing him in the props he requires to tweet for their cause. What was unimaginable two years ago is now a fact: this is Trump’s GOP. Even shameless Dems like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin are talking the talk (he may vote for Trump in 2020!), and walking the walk (enthusiastically voting for Gina Haspel for CIA.)

But Trump’s paving of the shockingly feckless GOP leadership and rank and file makes November’s elections unmistakenly a referendum about his constant obsession…him! And that’s a campaign few should be excited to run.

Incredibly, it’s salvation may come from the Democrats themselves, who appear skittish about going to war against unhinged nihilism, proffering parlor debates about what’s best for America’s middle class instead. Whether Trump will allow GOP candidates to accept that gift is doubtful, as he has made clear his schedule is wide open for regular rallies, where actually discussing policy differences with Democrats will surely suffer to his lust for inane self-promotion, spiced with a torrent of ugly lies and bigotry. And while that may turn on the wretched 35%, it’s unlikely anyone looking for an excuse to atone for holding their nose the last election cycle will be swayed.

But what if the chickens come home to roost earlier than expected? It’s a certainty an aggressive tariff regime will harm the economy quickly, as trading partners respond in kind, intent on sending the message they will not be cowed by a bully. Inflation and job losses may start spiking by August. And the border now has America’s attention, the fate of families torn apart should remain in the spotlight, with fresh polling placing the blame squarely on Trump. Add to that his knack for digging new holes with divisive gibberish, and a wave trouncing could go from a strong possibility to inevitable by September, no longer if but how bad. And Trump’s response to reality he can’t deny, but surely sees as an existential threat? The abyss is the limit.

What if Trump decides, as he did in the run up to November 16’, when he was convinced defeat was a certainty, to attack the integrity of the electoral system itself? What if the twice a week rallies become dominated by the “rigged system” narrative? What if he takes it to the next level and calls on his lemmings to boycott the election, stay home and be a patriot; don’t participate in this sham. And what if Fox/AM falls in line, bestowing on his sedition crusade status?
If you think this scenario is outlandishly impossible, you haven’t been paying attention.

There exists no dichotomy for identifying which Trump stump vomit is more malignant to the nation because he has been unhinged from the start. Yet and still, we know the country’s well being pales in importance to him when cast against his own rabid survival instincts. Democratic control of the Hill is game over, so why not do what he always does… fully discredit the threat to his wretched core? It is a tried and true standard operating procedure that has served him well to this point. Seems unreasonable to expect anything else.

The soundness of the American electoral process has been the currency of global order since World War II. Trump has been relentlessly attacking that status quo since he took office, with complete obedience from the body our founders assumed would stop him in his tracks. In fact, it now seems tragically certain that the GOP will fully abet Trumpism, if not actively promote it. So where is the logic in assuming this enterprise, when facing certain electoral repudiation and the loss of control of its fate which accompanies it, won’t try to burn down the house to save the plantation?

My father was wise and told me many sensible things, but none more apt for our purposes here than this: “never assume an asshole can’t be even more of an asshole!” BC

“A lie told once remains a lie, but
a lie told a thousand times becomes
the truth.”
Joseph Goebbels

When Roger Ailes was rolling out Fox News he understood that two aims were paramount: 1) creating a point of departure that defined his competition in the worst possible light; and 2) aligning the mission of his new organization with a narrative his target audience could idolize, therefore conveying higher purpose to his news model. The results now devastate our country and the world.

From the start Fox conflated watching its news channel with rejecting established premises about the country’s evolution. The idea that social progress was zero-sum and came at the expense of Fox viewers was there from the beginning. Rights vs undo privilege has permeated the Fox narrative from day one. Affirmative action, aid to the poor, voting rights, gun control, abortion rights, even evolution and environmental protection all were redefined as unsettled us vs them questions, misrepresented by mainstream media for decades.

Who decided blacks had been discriminated against enough to require a federal response? And why did Mississippi still need to be monitored for voter repression that happened in the 60s? Who knew just how much welfare recipients were gaming the system? Nothing was firmly established, everything debatable.

From the outset, Fox existed to validate white grievance, and worked from the assumption government was picking their pockets to fund programs they at least felt unnecessary, at worst thought immoral. Facts were fungible and in service to the narrative, no different from what mainstream media had always done. There were no established standards, no best practices, merely a problem to be remedied.

If the mainstream media was the enemy to be opposed, American exceptionalism was the ideal to fight it with. A concept rooted in nostalgia for a time when the target audience felt safest and most preeminent. What began to take shape, trumpeted relentlessly on Fox and the AM talk circuit, was a shangri la lost. America as religion, where straying from the established text was heresy; and that’s exactly what the liberal mainstream media had been committing for years. It stirred discontent for imagined slights, ever trolling for votes to serve its liberal political masters. An existential threat that had to be, not just stopped, but reversed.

To this end, Reagan worship was employed. Who better to personify American infallibility than the man who had stared down the Soviets. Suddenly, what WAS became the focus, not what could be. Where we once were, and how to get back there, supplanted where we should be going.

Somewhere back then was the apex of US power and prestige which was now in decline. Somewhere was a sweet spot where we were the undisputed greatest, before liberals began undermining. Somewhere, presumably sometime during the Reagan years, we got it just right and should have left well enough alone. But instead there was the ACLU, and the EPA, and the NAACP, and Clinton, and whiny blacks, and homos foisting themselves on decent folk, and of course, always the evil of abortion.

Exceptionalism tolerated no remedies to problems of today because they had already been solved. Blacks had their rights now; stop making race an issue. Pollution was over; needless regulations only unnecessarily cost jobs. And when the hell would women ever be satisfied and stop complaining, particularly about so-called rights to their bodies? Anyone in uniform was under-appreciated, and government could do nothing right.

Twenty-five years of relentless 24/7 messaging later the carnage from such psychosis is in the West Wing, Fox/AM’s first POTUS. Exceptionalism is now laid bare for what it has always been…nihilism, a fantasy for white malcontents steamrolled by progress. The fallback for bad choices and personal failure, unable to compete in a rapidly changing world. How long an Administration devoted to such delusions can convulse before the country suffers irreparably is anybody’s guess. Yet and still, the success of Ailes’  model assures a base of supporters inured to fact, addled by more than two decades of day and night storytelling.

The target audience, now Trump’s wretched core of support, is no longer able to make distinctions between right and wrong, only us and them. What somebody does is irrelevant; it’s all about who is doing it, and who they are doing it to. There is no rule of law; there is only who is suffering or benefiting at its hands. And most importantly, whatever is currently happening can only be evaluated in relation to what “they” did or would do because whatever “we’re” doing can never be as bad and thus is an improvement.

The GOP, beguiled from the beginning that Fox/AM served its aims, tried and failed to harness this madness. Now it lies mortally wounded as its leadership surrenders to the Walking Dead. Assuming there are limits they will recognize is a fool’s errand; their allegiance is open ended because they abide no alternative.

Families separated at the border for a misdemeanor won’t phase them. Just like rounding up reporters won’t make any impression. We may be one cherry bomb away from Muslim IDs; nothing is impossible. If the Third Reich taught us anything it was never to underestimate the power of fear and alienation, or a lie relentlessly repeated. Roger Ailes certainly didn’t. That is why we’re here. BC

At the end of Costa-Gavras’ classic film Missing, after Ed Horman, portrayed magnificently by Jack Lemmon, accuses the US Ambassador to Chile and a slimey Military Attaché of complicity in the Pinochet Government’s murder of his son, Charley, the attaché drops his veneer of sympathy and gives dad the hard truth. He tells him Charley was responsible for his own death because he was snooping around where he didn’t belong in a country that wasn’t his…and he got what was coming to him.

It is a certainty Jeff Sessions would have been right at home supporting Pinochet’s murderous coup against Allende. I can’t imagine there is much in Beauregard’s skill set that he wouldn’t have been able to avail the host criminals, who rained blood on Chile’s hopes for democracy and reform.

Near 50 years later we are now getting a full taste from the buffet of those depravities, as Sessions turns us into accomplices to systematic human rights abuse at our southern border, even as he is abased weekly by his fickle employer. The fact that the Attorney General’s job security is a unifying theme in an otherwise frayed GOP conservative caucus underscores its full complicity in the outrage.

But just as Ed Horman discovered after finally learning his son’s fate, we have been informed directly by Sessions that the ordeals now suffered by migrant families, torn apart to be held in separate prisons for the crime of seeking a better life at the shining city on the hill, are entirely their own doing. In fact, our current policy is actually tough love because eventually it will discourage others from setting out on such hardships and stay put where they are, come what may…government attack, spousal abuse, gang violence, destitution…whatever.

This is principled leadership promised so articulately by Trump at his campaign rallies: “We’re going to get em the hell out of here!”

It is doubtful Sessions needs much in the way of rationalization to push this policy; his entire career has been one long dog whistle tribute to the glory days of Jim Crow Dixie. Yet and still, it is shocking, even knowing his bigotry well, the terse lack of empathy now displayed for children ripped from their mothers’ arms.

MAGA has always been an amorphous term. Of course, those clear-eyed enough to see Trump’s ugliness for the bile it is could imagine just such an outcome. To Sessions et al MAGA means simply whitening America, turning back the demographic clock with any and all means necessary. Conscience is for snowflake liberals, taking a country back requires the will to hurt people. It’s all for the best.

And what are Democrats doing as America’s soul is destroyed? That’s a good question. When you find out let me know. The increasingly bleary eyed Nancy Pelosi, as well as Chuck Schumer, appear intent on watering down the issue by mixing it with other grievances, like the tax bill, tariffs and Trump’s corruption. And while an increasing number of lawmakers are joining Jeff Merkley and others down at the border to see things unfold for themselves, no formal unified response to stop the calamity has even yet been floated.

It now seems to be dawning on people, formerly consumed by finding any shred of decency or genuine concern, that – surprise! – none is anywhere in sight amongst this collection of moral devoids.

Right now the awful reckoning of that reality is being suffered by immigrants misguided enough to actually want to become Americans. How long will it be before the natives themselves begin to suffer the same kind of fate? The lesson down south is as clear as the Texas sky after a tornado: the wretched core will go anywhere they’re told. Believe it! BC

There’s the story of the guy who kept getting told by his boss he was going to be laid off. Week after week he was warned the cuts were coming. At home, he budgeted and told his wife to spend as if there would be no paycheck the next week. Slowly, over time, he accepted his fate, and started actually enjoying life more. One day his boss calls him into the office and asks him to take a seat. The man sits down with a resigned look on his face. “Great news,” his boss smiles, “the company got a big new order, your job is safe!” The man lowers his eyes and doesn’t talk at all. “Don’t you have anything to say, buddy,” his boss laughs. The man finally raises his head and simply says… “I quit.”

In America people are working very hard to enjoy their lives, even as it becomes clear their political system and the government it produces are imploding. People want selfies with friends, selfies with celebrities, selfies with family, selfies with…themselves. There now exists a near pathological desire, reflected in Facebook and Twitter accounts throughout the land, to let people know “I am living life to the fullest. It’s great to be alive!” All this as a nihilist POTUS runs roughshod over the Congress meant to stop his rabid whims in their tracks.

Far from retreating toward any dustbin, Trumpism now seems poised to co-opt the GOP, which first held its nose, then got on its knees. And the electorate? Of course many are determined to resist, and lose sleep nightly, jaws clenched, pondering the outrage of the day. But many others, perhaps the ones who count most, are determined to tune it all out. They no longer distinguish narratives; it has all become one cacophony, shrill and more than just annoying, a threat to well being.

The Trump campaign portended to anybody with decency and a set of eyes and ears a breakdown of established norms that had to threaten something. No candidate for any public office, let alone the Presidency had ever spoken so recklessly, lied so casually, and basked in policy ignorance like Trump. As the campaign wound down, certain he would lose, and fully unbound by any responsibility, he began to resemble Jim Morrison in descent, stuperously fumbling lyrics, and actively trying to incite riots. The system is rigged, Trump babbled over and over. They’re going to steal the election! And then the impossible happened. Nobody was more crestfallen that Wednesday morning than the man with no plan. But awful men do not rise to occasions, they just don’t.

Inaugural hopes quickly gave way to the horror of his CIA speech. A full bank of CNN analysts sat stunned, afraid for the future. And the die was cast.

Now the 35-40% that celebrated Trump’s election demand he lead them further into the chaos of government by tweet, honing their grievance and hatred to a fine edge, moths ever more attracted to the light of atrocity.

The resistance, such as it is, determined to stand for principles they have only just discovered can be fungible, subject to different assessments depending on just how much one stands to lose, braces for the worst. The rest? They don’t say it, probably couldn’t articulate it, and surely would never admit it, but they are busy proving to themselves life can be enjoyed with democracy lost. Forget what it meant and you won’t miss it when it’s gone.

Dictatorships have kids soccer leagues just like democracies. And Thanksgiving will surely still be celebrated. And fireworks are fireworks, even if what they used to celebrate no longer means anything past an old beer commercial. It’ll be ok. Just take another selfie. BC

The stunning implications of Trump’s nihilism at the G-7 can’t be overstated. Everything was on display in this performance, which may well be remembered as the worst by a US President in our diplomatic history. Unprepared, disinterested, confrontational yet disengaged from actual discussions, our “master negotiator” shamed the country apathetic and uninformed enough to entrust him with the world’s most powerful office. And while his embarrassing conduct was nothing new, the venom his aides spewed spinning it afterward was.

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s Chief Economic Advisor, carved out a media career based on the myth he was consequential in the Reagan Administration. Whatever the gravitas Associate Director of Economic Planning for David Stockman’s OMB actually carried, it was more than enough for Kudlow to claim himself both a Republican political insider, as well as an economic expert. Now defunct Bear Sterns made him their chief economist in 87’, and when Christine Todd Wittman grabbed New Jersey’s Governorship in 1993, Kudlow was her economic advisor. All this as he was developing a ferocious alcohol and coke habit that would compromise his ambitions. He eventually landed, as many conservative refugees end up, on a Fox/AM perch, holding forth with decreasing responsibility to facts.

Where Kudlow went from mainstream to the outer edges to maintain relevance, Peter Navarro has been a back bencher from the beginning. Aside from being a perennial Democratic election loser in both local and national contests in the San Diego area, Navarro made a name as a fierce critic of US trade with China and Germany. In fact, stripped of the essentials, Navarro seems mostly a proponent of thoroughly debunked import-substitution approaches to economic growth. In other words, the US has little need for trading partners, only raw materials we can transform within our own manufacturing kingdom. This “who needs em” attitude has been on vivid display since previous Trump Economic Chief Gary Cohn, a free trader increasingly marginalized by protectionists Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, resigned earlier this year, replaced by the more pliant Kudlow. With Cohn gone, Navarro has enjoyed enhanced access to go full Rasputin, beguiling Trump about the horrors of being an American dairy farmer… forget price supports.

And so the “let Trump be Trump” hombres tag teamed the Sunday news shows and kicked some Canadian ass! It’s hard to imagine what Trump and his team expected Trudeau to say in response to steel and aluminum tariffs assigned under obscure national security provisions, presumably meant for adversaries not friends. No matter, the Prime Minister’s otherwise modest and restrained statement might as well have been delivered with the middle finger to hear the MAGA twins tell it.

The US was “stabbed in the back,” declared a strung out looking Kudlow, accusing Trudeau of pandering to domestic politics as he betrayed his earnest patron, the Donald. A regular Iago, this smooth Trudeau hustler turned out to be, and on the eve of the Singapore Summit! What kind of an opportunist doesn’t abase himself and country to the West’s dealmaker extrordinaire at such a time?! How is Der Trump supposed to feel and touch his way to a deal with Kim after such treachery?!

Fear not, glowered Navarro to those patriots wanting Trudeau on a spit, “a special place in hell” awaits the Montreal ingrate. The fact that no foreign leader had been subject to such White House sanctioned vitriol since Saddam Hussein couldn’t have meant less to Navarro. For Trudeau to exert such uppity consternation – even after Trump signed off on the group’s “socialist” communique – was the lowest of low. He’s going to pay!

It bears repeating that Navarro does not believe in trading partners. Trade is unnecessary for a country as big and militarily dominant as the US. We take what we need for our own manufacturing base to convert for our domestic market. If other coloni…er, countries want to buy from us, fine, but we run no trade deficits…period. There’s a word for solving problems intransigent “trade partners” cause us….War!

Whether G7 countries and other Western allies will opt to try and ride out Trump, praying America comes to her senses, is of course up to them. Trump took his ball home, but they can certainly find another game to play, leaving us the loser. We need them at least as much as they need us; George Marshall fully understood this when he helped create the global trade system we have been prospering from since WWII, and Trump and his whacked lackies are unconcerned about destroying. Yet Navarro gets one thing right; we are a preeminent military power. How that power is deployed, more importantly whether it’s mission is corrupted in pursuit of facsi-nationalist economic aspirations should weigh very heavily on anyone paying attention to Trump’s new messaging. Sauron, himself couldn’t portend more darkness on our horizon. BC