Thursday, May 11, 2017                                          4:56 PM

Repeated cries of ‘This is not normal’ inhabited media-space on Tuesday. That is always the first reaction to Trump’s mental dekes—i.e., ‘normal people would never be this irresponsible’—which opens the door to the question ‘Who’s normal?’—and a morass ensues (point to the other team). So they say ‘This’ is not normal—and they can’t be contradicted—Trump makes history every day (though it seems unpleasant history to be making—but that’s just me perhaps).

Here is my takeaway from the week so far: Comey asks for more resources for the Trump/Russia investigation—Sessions sends a letter to Trump about firing that head investigator of the case Sessions has ‘recused’ himself from—Trump fires Comey with a letter that says “You said I’m clear three times, so it must be true—you’re fired.” Then Trump bars American press from a meeting with the Russians, with the Russian press present, and says they were ‘tricked’ by those pesky Russians when Tass releases photos from the meeting.

I think the trouble with the phrase ‘This is not normal’is that you can only repeat it so many times. I think a more honest phrase might be: ‘This is disruptive—in a way so criminal that, if it is not illegal, it should be made so.’ But then we have to address the elephant in the room—people voted for this guy—and many of them still support him.

How this happened will be answered, in part, by a thorough investigation into Russia’s social-meddling techniques. Some of the wildest disinformation on the web last year, against Hillary and supporting Trump, came from teams of Russian hacktivists—and we still aren’t sure the Trump voters understand that they were ‘hacked’—in some ways, worse than we were.

But it hurts us all the same—threatens all of us the same—that a seventy-year-old with no experience had such a swollen self-regard that he thought he’d try running our country, just for the bragging rights. He doesn’t know what he’s doing—like someone who’d never before been in office—it’s all new to him. Ordinarily, someone thrust into that position would rely heavily on their staff—the experienced staff of the experienced predecessor—but Trump has gutted not just the West Wing and the NSC, but the State Dept, the DOJ, the EPA,—now the FBI—virtually gutting the machinery of government. And by jettisoning all those old hands, the lifers who knew how it all worked, Trump has lobotomized the Federal government, as well.

Many of his own picks have been turned away or fired—other picks seem designed to destroy the agencies they oversee. Most of his executive orders and legislative motives are: undoing Obama policies—whatever they are, so long as however much of Obama’s legacy can be erased, no other consideration need be added. It’s rabidly racist—but I’m sure Kellyanne Cop-out could explain why it’s actually the very picture of inclusion.

We can only hope that more Republicans awaken from their poppy-sleep long enough to see Trump flying them towards that mountain-face. The grounds for impeachment are there—have been for a while—it just takes the GOP to stop stepping over that pile of dog-poo, pretending they don’t see it.