March 5, 2018--Trump: "Pure Madness"

Saturday night I violated Rona's 7:30 PM rule--No Internet surfing after 7:30--and paid the price. 

I didn't sleep much after reading the Washington Post's, "'Pure Madness': Dark Days Inside the White House as Trump Shocks and Rages."

Based on 22 interviews of White House staff and Trump friends, some of them on the record, it paints a deeply disturbing picture of Trump--

At times angry and increasingly isolated. He fumes in private that just about every time he looks up at a television screen, the cable news headlines are trumpeting yet another scandal. He voices frustration that son-in-law Jared Kushner has few on-air defenders. He revives old grudges. And he confides to friends that he is uncertain about whom to trust. . . 

Friends are increasingly concerned about his well-being, worried that the president's obsession with cable commentary and perceived slights is taking a toll on the 71-year-old. "Pure madness," lamented one exasperated ally.  

Retrired four-star general Barry McCaffrey said the American people--and Congress especially--should be alarmed. 

"I think the president is starting to wobble in his emotional stability and this is not going to end well. Trump's judgement is fundamentally flawed, and the more pressure put on him and the more isolated he becomes, I think his ability to do harm is going to increase.

There's more, but this should offer a flavor of the full article and an indication as to why I tossed and turned Saturday night. His "ability to do harm" made me think, of course, about where next and what--North Korea? Nuclear war?

"Pure madness" is not the best orientation for a president in an increasingly dangerous world.

Before my attempt to sleep a friend called, all excited.

"Did you see the piece in the Post?" I said nothing. "Very exciting, no? He's going down! We got him! He's unravelling, which is great. I'm so excited. I think it's terrific that they have him and his family in pincers. The sooner they take them away in handcuffs or, in his case, a straight jacket, the better."

I continued to say nothing, letting him go on and he eventually hung up, laughing gleefully.

The call was disturbing for reasons I at first did not fully understand. Why was I not also feeling gleeful? I have been coming to despise Trump since early in the campaign and later enjoyed watching and chronicling his decline as Robert Mueller and his investigators pressed closer to Trump's inner circle, his family of grifters, and especially Trump himself.

So the report in the Post was good news, no?

Yes, but also, I came to feel, no. 

The "yes" is obvious--Trump has been a political and cultural disaster, driving wedges of fear and hatred between Americans. Along racial lines. Along gender lines. Along religious lines. And of course he has taken the lead in coarsening political discourse, whatever little of it that remains.

The "no" case, less so. On a personal level I do not enjoy seeing any form of human suffering even, as in Trump's case, when deserved. And so to see him being driven literally mad has not given me much pleasure. OK, I admit, some.

And I have been enjoying the spectacle of his political implosion. The more things that contribute to that the better. He brought this and more upon himself. To be destroyed by the forces he himself largely unleashed seems Aristotelian, Shakespearean, Freudian. 

At some highest level of human retribution the self-imposed form of being held accountable is most just and satisfying. It also, in political terms, suggests that even when fully tested the "system" has the capacity to work.

Nothing that new here. 

But then why the continuing rub and agitation?  The sense that something extra-dangerous is happening? The very things I was feeing most satisfied about--the ways in which retribution was wicking out--after reading the Post article felt as if the very devolution of that reckoning has been contributing to the danger.

How, I wondered, would pushing Trump over the edge, watching, gleefully or not, as he approached the edge of his own capacity to survive, why was it feeling as if these facts themselves were contributing to making things worse, more dangerous?

His decline into pure madness increased the likelihood of Trump doing additional harm. Back to that.

By 2:00 AM Sunday morning I came to feel we should be focusing on how to help Trump no longer be president.

I use the passive voice intentionally. To suggest that it no longer primarily should be about seeking to remove him from office, from invoking the 25th Amendment to pressing for impeachment. Since the Republicans control Congress all of these strategies are likely to fail. It is thus urgent to find other strategies that lead to not having Trump any longer serving as our president. A subtle distinction.

About this I have not as yet formulated many things to suggest to contribute to this. But, I am coming to feel that the ceaseless attacking may no longer be effective. Perhaps it is having the opposite effect. He is digging in deeper, doubling down.

I sense we are not any longer helping by spending hours each day eager to pounce on, comment about, or make mocking reference to his every unhinged tweet ("Alec," not "Alex" Baldwin). 

No matter how satisfying it feels, inciting him will only contribute to his further unravelling and the likelihood that as he is further isolated and cornered he will, as General McCaffrey warns, do more actual harm.

Let things topple under their own weight. They already are and they will continue to do so.

And so we should encourage "Alex," as much as he tickles us, to put aside his version of Donald Trump and let things run their current course. 

In many ways the Trump presidency is already over. Where it isn't, however, where as commander-in-chief he can act unilaterally, dangers lurk. Thus we should seek ways to not inadvertently contribute to unleashing them.