It might be easy for some observers to declare the virtual end of the Trump Era in the wake of the spectacular flameout of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
I wish to offer a word of caution.
* The principal character in this drama, Donald John Trump, is a guy who wasn’t supposed to win the Republican presidential nomination this past summer. But he did.
* Then he was supposed to be trampled by the Democratic Party juggernaut led by that party’s presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton. He defeated Hillary in the general election.
* Trump was thought to be a goner after an endless litany of verbal gaffes, insults, revelations of hideous behavior. He not only survived all those incidents, the legions of Trumpkins rallied behind him.
Trump shouldn’t be president. However, he is president. He doesn’t know the political system works. He has surrounded himself with sycophants who have little knowledge of the system as well.
He got his head handed to him by conservative congressional Republicans.
Is this the end of Trump’s tenure as president?
Sure, except that he survived some hideous mistakes on his way to the presidency.
There might be circumstances that develop along the way that derail this guy. One political miscalculation — admittedly it’s a big one, indeed — likely isn’t enough to do him in.