If, someday, we get to speak of the Trump era in the past tense, will we harbor any regrets, or anger? Or will we be in a rush to move on, as if it never happened—like people who have experienced some level of trauma?

Personally, I have done enough handwringing and reflecting and verbal lashing out to fill what feels like several lifetimes, but it somehow hasn’t been enough to scuttle the nagging feeling that this nation and much of the rest of the world have been grievously wronged and deceived, mishandled and ignored, and led down a path strewn with the grievances of a deprived nitwit, a lightweight, out-of-his-element numskull with anger issues who somehow got elected twice to the office of President of the United States.

Donald Trump is the most visible target of our disdain, but of course there are many others: the ones who enable him and perpetuate the lies, the fellow impostors and sycophants he’s nominated for high-profile jobs, the people at the Heritage Foundation who are probably only too happy to have such a needy narcissist in place to mold and shape and feed off the bottom for them.

At numerous points along the way, we should have seen and heard enough to discount any hint of seriousness he might have been able to muster. It’s not like there weren’t signs of trouble from the beginning, when he made his grand, over-the-top entrance. That in itself should have been a tip-off. Maybe even enough to dissuade.

Instead, then came making fun of a disabled reporter, the “shithole countries” commentary, along with the misogynistic pablum about how celebrities can get away with all sorts of stuff. And he somehow still managed to achieve sainthood among his loyal base.

It’s been all downhill ever since, not unlike the direction of that f*#!ing escalator.

I saw this statement in print the other day. It might have been from a Democratic Congressperson or some pundit on one of the news shows. Anyhow, there will be no limit when it comes to how low Donald Trump will go, when it comes to holding onto power.

I’m beginning to think that one of the worst things about Trump and the time we’ve lost laboring amidst his endless self-promotion and ineptitude is the compromising of values and lowering of standards we’ve been forced to consider.

This becomes most glaring in the degradation and coarseness of our language, and especially of late in matters of electoral maps and voting blocks, as state legislatures try to match what Republicans have been able to get away with in Texas and Florida and now a growing list of other places– especially since the Supreme Court eighty-sixed yet another provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The redistricting and outright gerrymandering has forced the Democrats’ hand and resulted in places like California and other Democratic strongholds resorting to the same tactics.

It’s sickening on the face of it—that Trump and the Heritage Foundation flunkies have forced Democrats to follow suit, to trudge through the mud of foul play and cheap tricks and cheating. Taking the high road is pie-in-the-sky thinking anymore.

Intentions may be different, but the look is one of being muddied and bloodied and rendered no different than the Republican lemmings who apparently prefer a dangerously skewed, selective scriptural stranglehold on religion, maintaining white privilege, and relegating women and black and brown people to the margins.

You know—back to a time when things and people were simpler somehow, more manageable and predictable and the way they should be.

Yikes. Lazy, frightened snakes slithering on their bellies, pining for their good ol’ days. And they’d love nothing more than for the Dems to follow them into the swamp that Trump once promised to drain.

So, what is it? Thirty-eight thousand times or one million times? For a while, the “fake news” folks and some Democrats were claiming, repeatedly, that Trump’s name appeared a million times in the Epstein files, but now I see a significantly lower number being bandied about—38,000 times. It’s still a lot, the most besides Epstein himself, but a long way from one million.

How could such an apparently exaggerated number get so much airtime? Was it intentional from the start, sort of a goose and gander thing, turnabout is fair play? Regardless, it seems no less irresponsible than the manufactured sludge and fear mongering that Fox News and the rest regularly offer the public.

Shame on MS Now and the rest for emulating the dregs of so-called “journalism.” For engaging in their own brand of sensationalism.

Epstein.

I suppose, in some universe far away, one might argue that the Trump administration meets unreasonable resistance at every turn, so how can anyone expect him and the rest to have a real chance to implement their vision, such as it is, for America?

Let me be clear: I do not consider myself to be in this camp, I do not subscribe to this argument or point of view. And of course, a no-longer-silent majority across the country doesn’t, either. Trump and his spineless suck-ups have long lost our trust. When most of what exits his and their pie holes is a Swiss-cheese defense or outright lie, there is little he can expect in the way of confidence or agreement.

It’s a terrible place to be— for a nation’s people to have to entertain the possibility that some enemy is more believable than its own leadership. This is what appears to be happening in the ongoing back and forth between the U.S. and Iran. Trump claims one thing, Iran’s leadership says he’s lying, and we tend to believe Iran’s leadership over our own President. Trump of course has laid the groundwork for this crisis of trust. It’s his own damn fault.

It is unlikely that many of us can anticipate what will be coming next, other than more misdirection, empty promises, off-the-cuff dumbness, and Karoline Leavitt’s perpetually puppy dog, brown-nosed defense of the indefensible.

What’s that? Someone else will be shoveling the BS while she’s off on maternity leave?

Epstein.

There is no change of heart in the offing. Trump and the clown car of ass kissers are going to keep after it, going to pile on the distractions and the insane requests for funding. They will not stop, because that’s the whole plan—keeping everyone guessing and off balance, coming close on occasion to appearing coherent and capable but never quite able to pull that off.

We are so far into the weeds now that we need a beacon, we need someone who can stay on the scent, who can anticipate next moves and not just sit in with the next panel of pundits and offer commentary and conjecture after the fact.

Job 1 at this point is to ensure that the November elections come off without a hitch, that there is nothing based in reality that approaches “National Emergency” status and generates the next stultifying Executive Order.