We are living through normalization of a vindictive, ignorant tyrant

[NRaleighLiberal]

Sure, he gets called out, commented on, tweeted and facebooked at, pilloried on late night tv.

So what?

All indications are that he can just laugh at it all and keep ratcheting up.

The damage being done is incalculable.

Our political process...our structure...is not set up to handle this.

[RKP5637]

1. Our processes are broken. Trump is crapping all over the US and nothing is really done. Our

founders never envisioned one like Trump to come along and reach the presidency with an intent to undo democracy. I bet he laughs all the time at how he is walking all over this country.

[BigmanPigman]

2. He relishes every minute of it...sick bastard!

[CrispyQ]

3. I'm not optimistic at all that we'll come back from this.

People say the Mueller investigation may take years. The damage done already will be difficult to recover from. The GOP has shown that they are party first, committed only to tax cuts for the rich. In the meantime, they are working hard to disenfranchise as many voters as possible by 2018 & 2020. The dems have hardly any influence & may never have any again. It's as grim as I've ever seen it.

[catbyte]

4. Every day that the Republican party lets this orange horror get away with shitting all over

the Constitution, the rule of law, and basic human decency, I'm more & more convinced that the Great American Experiment is dead. We had a helluva run, though. I see many dark days ahead. I don't know if we can come back from this.

[smirkymonkey]

5. It is at a crisis point. If the republicans don't grow a pair and do the right thing

our democracy is essentially over. He has turned our political structure into a joke and he's the only one laughing.

[RestoreAmerica2020]

6. They don't have the ganas to stand up to a racist bigoted lawless gayo...they can come

..out give a nice little speech, tweet a nice sentiment, write a nice letter...watch what they do not what they say-- they can disparage yet not really rebuke out right this asshole by evoking articles of impeachment..and why not? Because they are all racist bigoted assholes themselves, eltrumpf is not an anomaly he is a reflection of the republikkklan party..they just found a loud obnoxious trumpeter to spew hate propaganda, lies about...well evergone nonkkkhristian, nonwhite, and especially non gay..he is the very reflection of each and everyone of them...is there not one good man or woman that will take a stand? Answer: NO.

So no they're not going to grow a pair, no they don't have ganas(same as having a pair) to take a stand, they are all racist bigoted cowards.


* gayo: rooster, cocky, asshole

[smirkymonkey]

7. Unfortunately, I think you are right.

Welcome to DU!

[Bettie]

8. They won't do anything

because they applaud his actions and statements.

He speaks for the lot of them.

He reveals who they are at the core.

People keep saying "remember, Trump voters aren't all bad people".

Yeah, not buying that for the most part. This guy made it OK for them to be who they really are, deep inside and now, they have a perverse pride in their hatred of, well, pretty much everyone who isn't exactly what they view "normal" as.

[smirkymonkey]

9. Remember that those people are still a minority in this country.

The only silver lining to all this is the hope that this disaster of a presidency wakes up the former non-voters out of their complacency and they mobilize to vote him out of office. Trump - and the republicans - can't survive on the 25% of the hateful, racist, ignorant voting population. Sooner or later, they are going to have to realize that most Americans are sensible and decent and that without the majority they aren't going to win.

[Bettie]

10. I hope so

because right now, the people who run the show are not sensible or decent.

We only have to get a small percentage of non voters and we'll have it.

I don't believe that Trump voters will ever change and I will never, ever look at the ones I know the same way.

[oberliner]

11. Didn't you feel that way when George W Bush was POTUS?

Especially during the invasion of Iraq.

[The Genealogist]

12. The Dubya Years were bad, to be sure.

His eight years remain as a big black mark on American history. But not even his presidency was like this nightmare.

[Grammy23]

14. As much as I despised Bush II,

I wasn't as genuinely afraid of him like I am tRump. I think there is a huge dufference between the two men. Bush was bad, but essentially not at his core an evil man. Hapless an easily manipulated, but not a bastard. tRump, on the other hand is souless and is a psychologically twisted man-beast. Everything the psychologists predicted about him in advance of his election is proving to be true.

I have no idea where we are headed in this country, but dare I say, we are in uncharted waters? Never in our history have we had someone so fundamentally screwed up in the position of leadership that tRump holds. We have been bouncing along since last summer assuming that tRump would either rise to the occasion or would be held in check by cooler heads. Neither has proven to be true. The closest we've come to the cooler head is John Kelly and even he cannot stop tRump from doing certain things---like issuing pardons as casually as ordering dinner from KFC. Was that a trial balloon, as some have suggested? Testing the waters to see how much power and authority tRump has?

I worry what comes next but since tRump is so erratic and unpredictable (the way he likes it), I am hesitant to even speculate. What I do know is we probably won't like it and it won't be good for the USA.

[Moostache]

13. Never felt certain that Shrub would declare the Constitution null and void

Trump is going to declare himself "Chancellor" or "Emperor" or whatever the fuck else his warped little mind can come up with and NO ONE is going to do shit about it.

Democrats have ZERO power.
Republicans have ZERO will.

America has ZERO chance....

[oberliner]

15. One could argue that the Iraq War was unconstitutional

Certainly by the end of his administration.

[Toorich]

16. YEARS OF DELIBERATE AND CALCULATED ACTION:

Southern strategy
Crushing Unions
Elimination of Fairness Doctrine of OUR airwaves
Elimination of prohibitions against Corporate Monopoly of OUR airwaves
Capturing voter turnout with wedge issues
Capturing State Houses with that voter turnout
GERRYMANDERING with those State House majorities
THEY WORKED THEIR ASSES OFF while good folks SLEPT
They Controlled the Message while good folks whined
They HIT US in the face and KICKED US in the crotch and good folks said "you'll be an insensitive boor if you defend yourself"
The RICH and POWERFUL bribe (campaign contributions) politicians of all stripes and WE THE PEOPLE allow it.
We wanted a President who'd drink a beer with us. We got a President who'll sip his wine, piss on our heads and call it rain.
And to think we used to believe Mexico and Latin and South American countries had the market cornered on corruption.

[steve2470]

17. The Republicans could go along with impeachment & conviction or the 25th Amendment....

but they won't. Not until they give up hope on him aiding their tax reduction schemes.

By the way, I see being a narcissistic sociopath as meeting the criteria for the 25th Amendment. Even if Trump does not meet the diagnosis of early dementia.

[FigTree]

18. Stress test has failed.

This might be looked at as the political equivalent of the 1929 financial crash. The system has failed to prevent or even obfuscate the development of a self-destructive dynamic. Which, on an international scale, incidentally, is a victory for Putin. Each passing day further validates this institutional failure. The financial system changed after 1929. The political system will have to change if this country is to preserve a shred of credibility and standing in the world. When the dust settles, this will have to be at the very center of the national debate. People would be inspired to begin to tackle this immediately.