TRUMP...WHO ELSE (EVEN ON WEEK-END) ?

The George W. Bush administration waged wars outside, being it out of "a strategic lie". The Trump mafia prefers (for now) to euthanize America first. And no doubt, in case his base might be in need of more, Trump will not hesitate to wage some military action around the globe.

In Washington D.C., the hallways of the State Department are empty by now but the little brains in the Freedom Caucus or the Heritage Foundation work in overdrive, looking for ways to make their sordid coup d'état permanent. The lies of this president suffice already to be piled up at the southern border, giving him his coveted wall, but the threshold of the absurd is not yet finalized.  I bet that the Republican Nosferatus are soon going to forbid the abortion of spermatozoa in men's testicles (?). The NRA will receive a "most favored nation" status. Rudy Giuliani, the Martin Bormann of this White House, actively considered to travel to Kiev to see if there is some "there" there which might embarrass Joe Biden. The ominous shadow of Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State (!) - on his way to Sochi / Canossa - looms over most third countries, with the exception of the usual "clients" like MBS, Orban, Putin,  al Sisi & Co.

For the visitor to the US, the Trump experience starts in the airport, where the shouting, the chaos and the incompetence rule free. The same procedures elsewhere are seldom agreeable, but here they reach a new zenith, in line with the xenophobia which is poisoning the groundwater.

This country is now ruled by a minority of more or less 40%. Everything is already planned and ready to make sure that a small handful of states--Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire- stay subservient, albeit with the narrowest margin. The Republicans have chosen to be the president's Quislings, but let there be no doubt, there is fear in the ranks of the GOP. If Trump were to lose in 2020, the majority of Americans will "sue" this treasonous kleptocracy. To avoid this reckoning Trump will resort to the Third Reich toolbox in order to skip an ordeal which would leave him earmarked for the rest of his numbered days.

A president who takes over from this dark period, which feels endless already, will inherit a Sisyphean task, having to restore, heal, re-establish, re-invent, re-calibrate and re-construct internally. The Democratic candidates are individually formidable but none has the "gutter/street" strength of Trump. deTocqueville said that "there is not, I think, a single country in the civilized world where less attention is paid to philosophy than in the United States."  Hence Trump is all too happy to leave the "social/ diplomatic engineering talk" to the Democrats, knowing that the paucity of intellect agrees with the minds of the MAGA crowd.  For now, a Biden/Harris ticket looks like the better mix of experience and intellect against the Republican's moral Anschluss. Nevertheless, rationality is the weaker half in the battle against a ruthless post-truth strategy.

One hopes there will be solace and redemption in the future. Until then, in this replay of Laocoon and sons, the serpents who inhabit this White House might be too many for too few to kill them off.