Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

It's a Woodward book so it must be taken with at least a grain of salt. But if the level of insanity inside the White House is just half as bad as Woodward indicates, we may be far deeper into a constitutional crisis than we ever feared.

We've all known that Trump is an ignorant pathological liar. But because he was able to run a successful primary campaign and "win" an election, it caused many to believe that there was some sliver of a method to Trump's madness. Woodward's book blows that idea out of the water.

In addition, it has long been clear that members of his administration were selectively ignoring Trump's orders, primarily the ones issued by tweet. What Woodward's reporting shows is that Trump's advisers are engaged in constant and borderline treasonous actions in order to protect the country from Trump's worst instincts. That includes literally stealing papers off the President's desk so that he can not sign them.

This book also supports the claims in Omarosa's book that Trump's mental capacities have seriously declined. It is now apparent to virtually everyone who comes into contact with him that he is seriously unfit to be President. And the people who work for him are now put in the unenviable position of having to ignore or refuse direct orders from the President, occasionally taking actions that, in normal times, might be considered disloyal and potentially treasonous, bordering on a coup d'etat.

What's frightening is that I'm guessing there are far more serious and incredible incidents where Trump's aides had to intervene that we have not yet heard about, especially since we've heard little from Mattis, McMaster, or DNI Coates directly. What remains to be seen is whether all these aides will be seen by history as having saved the country and potentially the world from destruction or simply as sycophants to an out-of-control narcissistic autocrat.

Since Watergate, Woodward has very much become the voice of the "establishment". What this book shows is that the establishment may finally be reaching its breaking point, especially with Trump now having delivered the massive tax cut, widespread regulatory rollback, and a Supreme Court dedicated to restoring America to the pre-New Deal society that the establishment has always desired. The problem is that the establishment has far less clout than it used to, having played footsie with the racists, evangelicals, and anti-intellectuals so long they lost control of the Republican party, which is now effectively controlled by Trump.

So, while the establishment may have had enough of Trump, none of what Woodward documents will stop the Republicans in Congress from abetting Trump's insanity by refusing to fulfill their constitutional duty to restrain him. And now, Trump will get his hand-picked jurist who will fulfill all the dreams of the Chamber of Commerce while further insulating Trump from any restraint. And if you think Trump is out of control now, it will only get worse if Democrats win one or both houses of Congress.