Words Matter

Mainstream media have been hesitant to use plain language to report on Donald Trump. We need them to start calling things by their right names. Three words in particular have been notably tip-toed around: "Lies" when discussing the statements from Trump and his propaganda machine, "treason" when talking about the collusion around Russian meddling in the election, and "senile" when talking about Trump's deteriorating mental condition.

Let's call a spade a spade. Donald Trump is a traitorous liar who is rapidly going senile.

New York Times Lets Trump Babble

Donald Trump gave an unscheduled interview to the New York Times, a newspaper he has been referring to as "failing" and "fake news" (neither of which is true). During the interview, Trump obsessed, unprovoked, over the Russia investigation and repeated the words "no collusion" dozens of times, before he hilariously tried to pin the collusion on the Democrats and Hillary Clinton. No kidding. The rest of the interview was equally disturbing and exposed Trump for the kind of man he is: a lying malignant narcissist with severe and worsening cognitive problems, low intelligence and very little education.

The man is crazy, plain and simple, and he can't be allowed to run the country.

Bad Faith

There is a tradition among Republicans to claim a Christian faith and sprinkle "God bless" and "thank God" into their speeches, to the extent that a secular European like myself finds it distracting. I would still be OK with it if they didn't do ungodly things in private and then disparage others for doing far lesser sins.
Their false image of godliness is now cracking. Adultery, pedophilia, grifting and treason against your country are incompatible with "Christian values" no matter how badly you read the Bible, and it runs contrary to basic human decency.
Behind a thin paint job aimed at fooling the most gullible voters, many Republicans are very far from good Christians, and some are in fact truly despicable people.

Just A Reminder

25th Amendment to the US Constitution, Section 4:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Now, "Acting President Mike Pence" is not a happy thought, but there will be indictments against him, and he will not get much of a chance to push his faux-Christian agenda on the country.

Throwing In The Towel

Previous efforts from Trump's handlers to rein him in and try to prevent his most rabid and crazy moments from affecting his public image are now history. Nobody around him seems to care any longer, as most of them are busy blaming each other, and trying but failing to abandon the sinking ship.
If this had been a boxing match, now would be the time to throw in the towel as an act of mercy. Instead, we get to watch a delusional, senile lunatic illegally occupying the Oval Office take random swings at thin air while his opponent carefully moves into position for the knockout punch. It's going to be ugly and humiliating, and it's probably going to take a while longer, but the game is over. Whatever remains is just for show.

Angry Old White Men

The Trump voter base, roughly 15 to 20 percent of the US population, consists largely of disgruntled white men of somewhat advanced age and comparably little education. These people are easily swayed by arguments of white supremacy, will more readily believe outright lies, and often trust a single source for their news, without questioning its integrity or accuracy. This is the kind of people who would vote for Donald Trump again, if given the chance.

Everybody else is now seeing the truth: Donald Trump is a fraud, a person who is completely unable to perform the duties of a US President, and on top of that he is also  a traitor who stole the election with help from Russia, plus a long time common criminal who has been using ill-gotten Russian money to extend the time required for running his inherited family business into the ground.

Fortunately, there are not enough angry old white men in the US to prop up the bad joke that is "President" Trump.  The Republican party will suffer woefully, and rightfully, for standing behind a fraudulent, racist criminal moron.

"The Best People"

Remember how Donald Trump bragged during his campaign that he was going to hire "the best people" for his administration? As it turned out, he hired the worst. Almost every person he hand picked for a cabinet position, as his advisor or as the director of some government agency has turned out to be not only pathetically unqualified and unfit for the job, but also stupid, evil and outright criminal. Much like Trump himself.

The presidency of Donald Trump will go down in history as a freak accident. Fortunately, his attempt at hijacking the democratic system with help from Russia is failing on all fronts, and Trump and his entire team of traitors are very likely going to prison. Shame that he should drag an entire nation in the dirt before anything could be done about him.

Cringeworthy

Mike Pence and Paul Ryan both embarrassed themselves in public by praising Donald Trump to appease him. Perhaps he requires this kind if treatment not to throw a tantrum or do something even more rash and stupid than usual, but doing it in public makes the United States look like a banana republic under a stupid dictator.

Mike Pence gave a two minute speech on the theme "I feel truly blessed to be allowed to serve under Your Highness", to the visible discomfort of bystanders who were caught unprepared in a moment of groundless worship of a Supreme Leader.

Paul Ryan praised Trump's "exquisite leadership", when in fact he has failed to lead whenever the opportunity has presented itself. Donald Trump is not a leader - he is a bumbling moron who cheated his way to the Oval Office.

Cringeworthy. Truly. Yuck.

Lies, Damn Lies And The White House

Since Donald Trump's inauguration, we have been fed constant lies from the president and both of his press secretaries. It has now come to the point where everybody simply assumes that anything that comes from the mouth of Donald Trump or Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a lie. Most of the lies are even bad: sloppy, weird and easily exposed.

Liars usually step back a bit if you call out their lies. The current White House administration, however, seem not to care that they are being found out, double down on the disproven statements and continue with their lies unabashed. Now, here's the part I really don't understand:

If everybody, including yourself, knows that you are telling a lie and pays no real attention to what you are saying, what is the point of even speaking?

Newspeak

Fortunately, Donald Trump is failing at everything, but today we saw a glimpse of what kind of governing he would have liked to engage in if he had been given free reign. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, was instructed not to use certain words in their budget preparation documents for 2019. Forbidden words include "evidence-based”, “science-based", “transgender”, “fetus”, "diversity”, “vulnerable", and “entitlement".

Yes, seriously. Those words and phrases are not allowed in CDC documents.

Forbidding the use of certain words is a thought police thing: suppressing ideas by preventing their discussion. No democracy should ever engage in that kind of authoritarian exercises. Donald Trump's illegitimate presidency needs to be terminated now.

Infernal Machines

With each small revelation about aberrations in the 2016 US election, it is becoming more plausible that the voting totals were changed in Republicans' favor by Russian hacking. No wonder, because the system is wide open to exploit. The reason? Voting machines.

Almost every other country in the world manages perfectly well with paper ballots and manual counting, and still has a vote count ready during the night after election day. This includes India with a population of more than a billion people. Paper ballots are incredibly secure compared to the cheap and outdated equipment used by most states for electronic voting. Reports on security tests by white hat hackers tell horror stories of laughably insecure machines that can be hacked in seconds and reprogrammed to yield any desired result. It's time for the US to realize that voting machines are nothing but a huge security risk and a threat to democracy.

If paper ballots are used for the 2018 and 2020 elections, we can at least be reasonably certain that the vote count actually reflects the opinion of the voters.

Suicide By Twitter

I wouldn't be surprised if Donald Trump is literally found dead by his own hand one morning because he is too much of a coward to face justice, but I'm not talking about that kind of suicide here. Rather, what the grotesque and disgusting Trump has been tweeting lately amounts to political suicide and a character self-assassination, not to mention a ticket to jail. The things he now chooses to type with his stubby fingers in his Twitter feed are disgraceful, pathetic, sad, appalling and just a short step away from bat-shit crazy.
He might get marched out of the White House in a straitjacket.

Mask Off

As his aides are giving up on trying to rein him in, we are seeing the unmasked Donald Trump tweeting his way to jail. What was passed off as a presidential candidate is obviously a caveman: a racist and serial sex offender who can't control his impulses to lash out at black people and say digustingly sexist things about women. The person occupying the White House is not a president. At best, he is a couch potato, but lately he has become something that isn't even a proper human being. Crazy, stupid, evil, senile and delusional are, sadly, traits of his which we have been accustomed to. Now, add "angry" and "scared shitless" on top of that, and you get the shivering orange blob of fat that is Donald Trump.

Anyone still backing this stinking pile of garbage as president deserves to be thrown out of politics for the rest of their career. An actual pile of garbage would do a better job. The same amount of work would get done, i.e. nothing, but there would at least be less embarrassment, and no risk of setting the world on fire to distract from personal crimes and scandals.

Lights Out

Donald Trump's mental state has been described with the klichė "the lights are on, but nobody's home". I think the situation would be better described by the opposite: the occupant is home, but all lights are out and he is fumbling in the dark, completely lost. This has been going on since day one of his presidency, but right now it is very quickly getting worse.

Missing In Inaction

Donald Trump has stayed off Twitter for several days straight. That hasn't happened before. He also stays hidden. Has he finally realized that he is screwed, and rolled up into a sad little shivering ball under his desk?
In any case: enjoy the silence.

Dry Mouth

Donald Trump's announcenent of his asinine intention to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was supposed to be a big moment for him, pandering to his supporters and making a bold (but stupid) move in international politics. However, his performance ended up being a monotone, indifferent reading from a script. What's more, he started slurring so badly halfway through it that people spent more effort speculating whether he suffered a minor stroke, or if his dentures came loose. Either way, the speech was an epic fail, and the explanation given by the White House was that "he had a dry mouth".

When Trump had a dry mouth on TV a couple of weeks ago, he had a cringeworthy   awkward moment looking for a water bottle that was right in front of him, and laboriously using both hands to take a sip from it. A dry mouth does not make a person say  "God blesh the United Shesh", which was what Trump's closing words sounded like.

Something is physically wrong with Trump, and his people are not even trying to make up plausible explanations any more.

Guilty

Today, Michael Flynn cut a deal with Robert Mueller and pleaded guilty. Pretty soon now, Donald Trump and most of his administration will be forced to give up and quit.