You have to wonder how long the charade can continue.
Is there anybody left — besides Trump himself — who still thinks that he’s a mastermind, a genius whose tweets mean anything beyond demonstrating that this is a guy with a big ego, a big mouth and not much going on upstairs? Anyone left who thinks that “Trumpism” is a coherent set of policy positions and not a cult of personality? Anybody left who thinks we have a functioning president?
It’s been a year since I wrote that Trump’s defining characteristic, beyond his toxic egotism, was his declining mental acuity, and the signs have only gotten stronger since. While psychoanalysts spent months parsing whether he was a paranoid narcissist or just a skeevy perv, and political pundits tried to establish the underlying philosophy for his policies, those around him had a simpler but more important task — to establish and keep up a pretense that, beyond the ceremonial aspect, Trump is able to perform the basic functions of his job.
Two things happened yesterday that should make this game obsolete. First, Sen. Diane Feinstein released the testimony of the GPS Fusion execs about “the dossier,” the one that included the rumors about Russian hookers. Throughout the investigation of the Trump-Russia connections, starting before the election, top senators and representatives on the intelligence committees have known lots of details the public didn’t. Because Democrats were still maintaining traditions of decorum, they did not release what they knew to the public, but they dropped millions of hints that amounted to “if people knew what we do, they’d be concerned.”
Republicans used the cover Democrats provided to straight-up lie about “the dossier,” who compiled it and why, and what was done with the information it gathered. They complained that it’s a “political” opposition research document, as if opposition research normally involved making stuff up. (They know, and you should too, that oppo research is useless if it can be discredited, which is why we spent a week arguing about Roy Moore and an old yearbook.) Trump, of course, took news of the FBI’s involvement as evidence people were plotting against him, rather than a warning sign that people were on to his money-laundering game. (People who lie their way through life always think they can get away with another one.) Feinstein’s move revealed the Republican claims about the dossier and the British spy who compiled it were lies. Will the Republicans keep up this pretense now that the truth is revealed? They might. They’re either that dumb or they think the public is.
More worrisome for those propping up Trump had to be the photo-op White House meeting about immigration. Trump invited both Democrats and Republicans, supposedly to try to forge some compromise. Instead, he babbled semi-coherently, agreeing with both Democrats and Republicans on mutually opposing positions before throwing the mess back at the assembled Congresscritters and telling them he’ll sign whatever they come up with.
It’s been widely noted in recent weeks that Trump is not exactly busting his fat ass with work, and this meeting shows why: He can’t focus long enough to do any. Given his performance yesterday, which the White House tried to cover for by fudging the official transcript, every Republican in Washington must be having nightmares about what he might do during the State of the Union address.
Republicans have to be even more worried about Trump’s responses to all this. First he had his personal lawyer file a lawsuit against Buzzfeed for publishing the dossier a year ago — yeah, that sad old trick again. Then he tweeted that Feinstein’s release of the testimony was “possibly illegal,” which it’s not.
Trump’s impregnable resolve was on display, too. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, like many governors of coastal states, squealed like a stuck pig when Trump announced the entire U.S. coast is open to oil exploration. Scott made his plea based on the state’s tourism industry, and it probably helped his cause that Mar a Lago also depends on that industry, because the administration announced yesterday that Florida is exempt from the order.
Ultimately, this is why Republicans eventually will have no choice but to remove Trump from office: He can’t hold a position long enough to get through a meeting. As the immigration confab yesterday showed, he is faking his way through his dementia basically by agreeing with whatever the last person he talked to told him. I’m sure some Republicans gagged on their tongues when he said during that meeting that he was in favor of tying the DACA cases to the budget bill, and that they weren’t totally calmed down by his quick reversal.
One GOP strategist said over the weekend that the party might move to remove Trump — but only if and after it gets wiped out in the midterm elections. I think he’s right, but events of the past week make me wonder whether Trump’s brain will hold out that long.
Another unqualified candidate for a government job wouldn’t normally make my list, but this one’s so bad it roused Tom Carper from his perpetual torpor to comment.