The singular liturgy of this presidency is about sinking to the bottom. All of these "we've crossed a new line," "This isn't normal," "He's reached a new low" (whether literally in polls or figuratively). If there's a reason so many seem so depressed and so anxious, surely it's the rampant negativity around charting just How Bad This Is and How Much Worse Can It Possibly Get.
As someone who's certainly right there as well - at best my "oh god, he's still president" thoughts have gone from every morning, to oh, about every other - I have to say, I think it's past time we think about something other than the depth of despair or the lowering of whatever bar we're using. By which I mean that it's getting to the point where we need, I think, to just accept that this is the President we have and the fact that he's terrible is just a fact to be lied with, not a constant search for how much more terrible he could possibly get.
Because, let's be honest, he's already clearly dead last.
The past couple of days - with their startling, even for him, revelations of callous indifference to the suffering of the families of soldiers killed in action - have surely defined a "new low"... but what really is new? Trump has shown no particular capacity to show empathy or understanding of the suffering of others, whether it's hurricane victims, the casualties of mass shootings, or military deaths since the start of his presidency, if not before. While I'm hesitant to get all psychological about it, It's clear Trump's main thinking is about himself and his needs and his desire to be sen as successful and well liked. The needs of other, even those closest to him, never mind strangers, have never seemed especially paramount.
Similarly, bemoaning Trump's failures to understand the policies he's dealing with, in any and every area of government, seems to miss the point. His fans elected a blowhard who's main feature was mouthing off, incoherently, about the things he didn't like without offering much in the way of actual, practical solutions. The3 comedy of errors around his "Build That Wall" promise are not just indicative of his unseriousness, they are the prime example of it. And it's why, often, hand wringing about the possible outcomes of worst case scenarios Trump could create is misplaced... he's so incompetent and ineffective, he can't even succeed at ruining things, except those of his own making.
To be sure, there's a lot of bad things happening and plenty about which to be concerned. Those concerns, I'd argue, ultimately have less to do with Trump personally, than they do with the awfulness of say, his appointees, or the broken down, ineffective nature of Congressional leadership within the GOP. DACA's demise, or CHIP expiration are really about a failure of Congress to step in. Scott Pruitt's destructive path through EPA or Jefferson Sessions' reductive approach to Justice are more a function of their agendas, more than Trump's. By taking Trump out of some of these equations, and focusing on the real threats, it's possible to figure out when and where to take action.
As it stands, this relentless focus on charting Trump as a downward spiral is a distraction with no endpoint and no real point at all. He is, simply, that bad. He is capable, it seems, of near limitless depths. But so what? Outside of impeachment (or a fanciful, if not impossible, hope for the execution of the 25th amendment), he is where he is and he is what we've got. As weary as I am of the "Trump hits new low" dynamic, my sense is the public soured on this at least over the summer. This narrative is obvious, and old. And we need to get on with figuring out how to move past it. Impeachment requires, most likely, a fundamental shift in the composition of the House. At the very least, harnessing the energy around hating Trump to wards progress in Congressional races is a practical step. And we could stand to make some of those, rather than raging, impotently, at How Bad This Has All Become.
When we get around to charting the - hopefully brief - history of this presidency, there's little doubt about how this failure will be seen, in all it's contours, horrific events, callous words, and thoughtless acts. Practicing a measure of acceptance about Trump, who he is, how he behaves, how inappropriate and unacceptable all of this is, doesn't take a near daily exploration of what depth he's sunk to now. Yup, he literally insulted the wife of a dead Army Ranger to the point of tears. That's what he's capable of. Shouldn't we figure out what we're capable of, instead?
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