Among the sad and disgusting aspects of the Trump era is the loathsome disregard he seems to have for recognizing any sense of obligation to being a role model.

I suppose toddlers and younger children don’t really notice or care how Donald Trump and those around him behave, but at some point, in the cognition and awareness process, people of a certain age start paying attention. I wonder what they see, what they make of their President.

Trump obviously doesn’t care, or if he does it’s all about presenting himself as an example of wealth and success. Impressionable youngsters might take note and for some reason want to be like Donald, though I might give POTUS the benefit of the doubt and choose to believe that he has just enough self-awareness to offer up a cautionary tale about himself.

Nah, probably not.

According to a recent YouTube post from Jamelle Bouie, the lurking elephant in the room is a seemingly deep-seated opinion—belief?—that all politicians are liars. Two-faced, self-interested, more often subscribed to CYA than being honest with the people who have voted them into office.

Talk about being caught between a rock and hard place.

If this is indeed the way many of us feel, then we can’t hold out much hope for reaching or returning to a place where we feel confident about anything being done to address legitimate concerns.

Of course, another way of looking at things is that most of us can smell a rat when there’s one around. We are realistic and clear-eyed and perceptive enough to tell the difference between a scoundrel and someone who has a good heart and takes their job seriously. As Bouie asserts, we know that Presidents and Senators and Representatives and mayors and governors and school board members and solicitors may offer up shades of the truth from time to time. But we pin our hopes on most of those who we elect to be decent people who aren’t on some mission to line their own pockets and burn the place down. At least that’s what I’d like to believe.

Still, if distrust and suspicion are as deep-seated as some say they are, then it’s no wonder we’ve ended up with the cast of characters currently running rough-shod all over D.C. and the rest of the country. To enough of us, it’s a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Apparently, enough of us are OK with a steady diet of lies and excuses and deterioration, because they perceive the opposition as somehow being worse.

What if, all along, he’s never wanted the job? This is a theme in one of Paula Poundstone’s recent YouTube spots. I guess it makes sense, in a way, since the look on Trump’s face when he learned he had won in 2016 might have given one the impression he was asking himself, “What have I done?!”

This might explain the cascade of misspeaking and off-handed remarks, the closed eyes at meetings and funerals, the long litany of rash decisions and threats, along with the generally flippant and disinterested attitude he’s brought to what up until him was considered an important office to hold.

It’s almost as if he’s begging to be fired.

He thinks the office is important, too, but only as it serves him and satisfies his need for feeling powerful. We’ll all see how important as the midterms approach. Rumor has it he’ll be clawing and scratching and claiming “rigged” and, who knows, calling in the troops to monitor polling places. So, at least on the surface, he wants to stay put in the Oval Office…

… even if, down deep, it’s only ever been just another notch on his gun. Another opportunity for payback to all the suckers and losers who made fun of him, the country be damned.

There is no other way to parse this. Try as you might, all you Republican, MAGA, disaffected sycophants with blinders on, you can’t weasel out of this one. Please stop with, “He’s only kidding.” Or “He’s just owning the libs.” Just stop.

Cries of “25^th Amendment” are well-founded. Again. Because you can’t let a thin-skinned juvenile fling the verbal feces and expect no one to notice, or take offense, or be rightfully furious.

Donald Trump has run fast and loose, pissed on guard rails and taken liberties since day one, sometimes saying stunningly stupid things but often with some sly expectation or hope that someone is listening and picking up on the innuendo or the inference or the hint. “Hear that, Russia? Hear that, Iran? You can bomb Los Angeles or San Diego if you want. No skin off my teeth.”

It’s a small price to pay for… what? What does that even mean? Is he talking about oil prices or the loss of an American urban area or two?

It may all be off-handed to his thunderstruck supporters (how can he still have any?), but when you run your mouth and offer up language that infers annihilation of American cities– or a whole civilization of 90 million people– you’ve crossed a line. There have to be lines. Trump needs to understand this, and it appears he never will. Or maybe he does but just doesn’t care.

So take a deep breath, Republicans, and nip this in the bud before something happens that even you would regret. Stop lying to yourselves, forget about the midterms, recognize throw-away promises when you hear them, and do your part to salvage this nation that you hopefully love more deeply than you let on.

Haven’t you seen enough? America needs a few good nights’ sleep.

Does Russell Vought go home at night, satisfied that he’s put in a good day’s work for the people of this country? Or is it more that he knows he’s doing his part to make a mess of things?

I may never fully understand the prevalent mindset of resentment and hate that this latest presidential administration exhibits on a daily basis. In broad terms, it has something to do with burning bridges, controlling the purse strings, concentrated executive power, oppressive views on women’s rights, a misguided and convenient reading of primarily Old Testament scripture, devaluation and resentment of any race except Caucasian, a thoroughly irrational dismembering of healthcare and environmental concerns, an attack on higher education, a seemingly intentional emasculation of military readiness under the guise of creating a “warrior ethos”—all of which may seem right and proper to Vought and Vance and Miller and Hegseth, and others in the Heritage Foundation orbit, but which flies in the face of what was once thought an acceptable and longstanding interpretation of what the founders had in mind. Well, apart from the endemic slavery.

It seems that the goal of this current nightmare gathering of incompetent stooges and moustache-twirling villains is a tenacious effort to sow chaos and bring a constitutional federal republic to its knees. It’s difficult to believe that all 77 million people knowingly voted for this in 2024, since many likely voted myopically, with their stomachs and their pocketbooks and narrow world views, and the empty promise of some equivalent of a chicken in every pot dancing around in their heads.

Many believed that Donald Trump would actually deliver.

Does it bother anyone else that the U.S. is moving B-1 bombers from a base in England because of a vague threat from Iran? Trump says it’s because of intelligence pointing to Iran, but there are few specifics.

Why should we believe him?

This couldn’t have anything to do with being in Putin’s pocket and compromising our capabilities in light of Putin’s constant threats to test NATO?  Who knows what gets said behind closed doors when these two get together or talk on the phone?