I happen to believe that the United States of America is heading toward a whole new era of political weirdness. We haven’t seen this before. I hope we never see it again.
In 2016 a carnival barker named Donald John Trump got elected president of the United States. It’s gotten worse since then … if you can believe it.
Alabama voters rejected a goofball Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. Roy Moore, who lost a special election to Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, hasn’t conceded yet. It’s been nearly two months after the election.
The president continues to foment division and disunity among the two parties — and has created a widening schism within his own Republican Party.
Donald Trump has declared war on the FBI and the Department of Justice. When did you ever see that happen? How many of you thought it would happen now?
The social medium Twitter has become the favored method of communication among the president, members of Congress, high-powered federal government agency heads and, oh I don’t know, just about anyone with a platform from which to spout public policy.
The government cannot fund itself past the next fortnight. Congress is fighting among its members over immigration. The president wants to build that wall along our border with Mexico. He still insists Mexico will pay for it. Mexico’s president says, in effect, “Ain’t no way, dude!”
In Arizona, a former sheriff who Trump pardoned for civil rights crimes and for violating federal court orders, is now running for another U.S. Senate out west. Joe Arpaio might win his Republican primary race! Can you believe that? Me neither, but it could happen.
Members of Congress are retiring in droves. Some of them have flat-out quit. Democrats and Republicans are being accused of sexual misconduct.
And, oh yes, the president himself is now believed to have paid a porn queen $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair the two of them had. Trump and the “actress” deny the affair, but no one is denying that the president paid her the dough.
Trump told us as he ran for president he would shake things up. He promised to toss out the orthodox playbook.
He has lied about damn near everything. Trump has insulted our allies, recharged the bogus allegation that Barack Obama wasn’t qualified to serve as president, accused Hillary Clinton of committing crimes, fired an FBI director, called the media the “enemy of the American people” and stoked cynicism at every opportunity.
The special counsel is continuing his probe of “this Russia thing.” Trump accuses Robert Mueller of engaging in a “witch hunt” and then promises to speak to him “under oath” if he is asked; oh, but then he backed off of that, sort of …
Many millions of Americans, meanwhile, are on the verge of going crazy as we watch all of this unfold in real time before our eyes.
Help!