Sick of it, sick of him

David Brooks -- the New York Times's resident conservative columnist -- has had enough.  He can't read -- let alone write -- another word about the President's latest bizarre tweets or actions.

For the past two years Trump has taken up an amazing amount of my brain space. My brain has apparently decided that it’s not interested in devoting more neurons to that guy. There’s nothing more to be learned about Trump’s mixture of ignorance, insecurity and narcissism. Every second spent on his bluster is more degrading than informative.

Instead, Brooks proposes to conjecture and discuss in writing about what comes after Trump, what America of the future will look like, now that we apparently have exhausted the "moral capital of the past."

I fully sympathize.

This blog of mine used to be a beehive of political comment and speculation.  Jeering and sneering at Bush the Younger.  Analyzing the conflicting merits of Hillary and Obama in 2008.  Cheering Obama on for eight years.  Gasping with amazement at the moral collapse of the Republican establishment in the last political campaign.

But after nearly seven months of the Trump presidency, like Brooks, I'm exhausted.   I'd be happy to debate Republican versus Democratic proposed policies, but that's no longer the issue.  The issue is that we have an ignorant, incurious, crude, barbaric, and self-centered habitual liar roaming about the White House -- when he isn't residing at one of his own many properties, at government expense. 

But it goes even beyond that.  We now have a sizable minority -- at times approaching a majority -- of the American public who profess to love Mr. Trump.  Trump bragged during the campaign that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people, and that his "Base" would still love him.  He has come close to fully testing that hypothesis.  Although his Base does want him to push his "program" through Congress -- whatever that program may be at any given moment -- they mainly just love him.

They love him apparently because he is tearing down everything that we thought all Americans supported -- representative democracy, judicial independence, courtesy, tradition, a spirit of compromise, acceptance of diversity, a welcome to immigrants.  Some of them may support "white supremacy," but most of them just want to shout down and eliminate all the "elitists" -- meaning educated and/or experienced officials -- who have managed the country for generations. 

This populist urge doesn't lend itself to debate.  It's more a food fight, a rumble, a storming of the Bastille.  When I write, I can slug it out on a gut level for a while, but I've about had it.  Until something comes along that invites a little intelligent discussion, I'll turn my attention to more satisfying topics.

Like the fact that it's getting mighty hard to find a good Sears store anywhere near my neighborhood.