I long have thought that every human being has a limit to the amount of emotional baggage he or she can lug around.
Accordingly, it’s fair to wonder just how much bedlam Donald John Trump can endure as he continues — in some form or fashion — to govern the United States as its president.
His first 100-plus days as president have been a stunning exercise in chaos, controversy and confusion.
It’s making me wonder — and I’m quite serious about this — whether Trump has the stamina to continue to function in this manner. My memory of presidential transition goes back to when John Kennedy took over from Dwight Eisenhower in 1961. No one has managed to create the number of firestorms so early in their presidency as the 45th man to hold that office. Not even Lyndon Johnson, who became president in 1963 in the midst of a horrifying national tragedy; or Gerald Ford, who ascended to the presidency in 1974 in the wake of a crippling constitutional crisis and scandal.
In a related matter, it’s also fair to ask just how much of this the public can withstand.
Just in the past week, we’ve seen the president fire the FBI director and ignite a political wildfire that continues to rage out of control. Trump cannot formulate a cogent message. His White House communications team is flummoxed hourly it seems by contradictory statements pouring out of the president’s pie hole.
How do they handle it? How can they withstand this level of chaos?
And I haven’t even mentioned what seems like an increasingly real possibility that we might have an impeachment process starting to take shape in the U.S. House of Representatives.
There might be an obstruction of justice charge leveled at the president over the threat he leveled at James Comey two days after he fired the FBI boss; Trump well might have sought to bully the FBI into backing off its investigation of the president’s campaign and whether it colluded with Russians seeking to sway the 2016 election.
Then we have the Emoluments Clause issue, and questions about whether Trump’s businesses have been enriched by contracts with foreign governments. The U.S. Constitution prohibits presidents from obtaining any such financial gain, yet the president continues to hold onto his worldwide business interests.
I suppose I could mention the continuing string of lies and defamatory statements he makes about his predecessor as president, the woman he defeated in 2016 and any number of individuals and organizations opposing him.
What happens, too, if he crosses yet another “red line” by restricting the media from doing their job, which the Constitution guarantees them the right to do without government interference?
Ladies and gents, we have elected someone who continues to demonstrate every single day that he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. He is unfit for the office he holds. He is making a mockery of the presidency and, sad to say, of the greatest nation on Earth.
His legislative agenda — whatever it is! — is going nowhere. Jobs bill? The wall? Tax reform? Health care overhaul? How does he do any of it while the tempest over what the Trump calls “the Russia thing” continues to boil over?
Are you frightened yet? I damn sure am.