I feel the need for a palate cleanser right now, but to ignore what’s happening in the country seems somehow irresponsible. Bad feelings abound, regarding our near future. Patel was confirmed, the rest are up to who knows what, our foreign policy is in the hands of isolationists and children and unwitting warmongers, we’re alienating our allies, and a foreigner, an immigrant and non-citizen—a poster child for the height of irony and hypocrisy—is in charge of “trimming” budgets.

Everything is being so blatantly mishandled that one can’t be blamed for feeling overwhelmed and really angry, like soon the states will be on their own because there will be no rational, responsible federal governance left to turn to. Congress is being marginalized, seemingly on the verge of irrelevance; the judiciary will hand down decisions, and Trump and the rest will likely ignore them.

Holy shit. We’re moving beyond just circling the drain. Is the dust ever gonna settle? Is all of this purely in the name of saving money?

This is advanced bridge burning, in progress. Chaos, just the way Bannon and Vought and the rest drew it up.

It’s probably time we all worked together. The name calling on both sides needs to cease. The focus must become Donald Trump and the cast of disciples and punks who think they’re running the show. Deception, delusion, lying, selfish intent, conflicts of interest, a frightening vision, and grave incompetence are our common enemies now.

We’re gonna get no help from an entrenched or paralyzed Congress.

Some, hopefully many more at this point, are understanding who Donald Trump is and what he’s always wanted: power, attention, self-enrichment, and revenge. Not exactly the aspirations one might have in mind for the Leader of the Free World.

He’s not here to tend to capable governance or address real issues affecting us all. It has become painfully clear that The Donald is merely an inept puppet, and that in decline. He’s an unserious man, motivated by greed and winning at all costs, surrounded by impostors and flunkies and evil masterminds. He’s an artist who dabbles in chaos and bullshit, a pathetic bully who’s never been qualified for the high office he now holds for the second time.

Imagine someone so bereft of compassion and a sense of humor and humility. Someone so willing to compromise the ideals of this great and unique American experiment. Someone so fully empty.

It’s not difficult to imagine, when one daily gets an eye- and earful of a person for whom everything has a price tag, and is reduced to a transaction.

We have seen the enemy, and it is not us. This is our kairos moment, our moment in time when it would behoove us all to realize that enough is enough. Donald Trump is no one’s savior. He’s just a scared little man who thinks Vlad is an upstanding guy.

And there it is. Once again, a reminder that the Trump machine depended on the gullibility of the base to propel him to the White House.

Trump was gonna work on lowering prices and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country… This is what prompted voters to put their eggs in the Trump basket again. Trouble is, this tact was pure vapor, pure sham, pure deception. The bastard even hinted as much before the election, when he admitted that bringing prices down was harder than he thought.

But now he’s back, having been successful once again at pulling the wool over millions of Americans, who, for some indecipherable reason, thought having Trump and all his baggage back in office would be a great thing.

They likely ignored all the coverage of Project 2025, because Fox News soft-peddled it and chalked it up to being just more hokum from the reactionary, bleeding heart, pants-on-fire Democrats.

Maybe it’s time we all come together and offer up a gigantic NO! to this maniac, and King Elon.

They really do need to go.

I hate that I have to keep writing about this stuff, but it warrants our attention until it goes away.

With each passing day, a certain animosity builds. We watch as scary people and young punks are handed the reins, and institutions take one hit after another. What may be the most infuriating thing is that it has been so easy. Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” stratagem is unfolding before our eyes, and so far, we seem powerless to stop it.

Sure, there will be protests and raised voices, people weakly shouting, “You can’t do that.” But they’re doing it, and with what they consider a “mandate,” as if there is a groundswell of support (it’s never mattered whether or not there’s an actual mandate– all Trump and Co. have to do is talk it up, carry on as if there is one, and that’s always seemed to have been good enough).

Many who voted for Trump probably didn’t vote for this. Oh, some did, because they’re so far gone that they believe Trump is on a mission from God and what the country needs is a strongman who can seal our borders and fill the pews with Bible-thumping Christian white people who can be led like sheep. Trump has neither the desire nor comprehension nor the stamina to do any of that, for very long.

It’s the cast of misfits and bottom dwellers around him who have dreamed of finding the right sucker who could deliver the levers of power to them. Trump is their man, their mouthpiece, their ticket. He’s almost incidental, though needy enough to demand the lion’s share of limelight, and savvy enough to contribute his own brand of bullshit to the cause.

I’m rambling, I guess, but what’s happening now, beyond the flooded zone and glaring incompetence, is an attempt to consolidate power for the purpose of destruction, with no regard for who gets hurt. These are cold people. There is no life in their eyes. Somewhere along the way, they were taken over by anger and disenchantment, and they succumbed to the same old Siren song of selfishness and lust for power for power’s sake. Their vision is narrow and skewed. They’re lazy, they have a dim view of humankind, and they view compassion and fairness as weakness, or just too hard.

They best be careful, though, lest people start viewing them as cold-hearted monsters.

Amateurs. Incompetent dabblers. Maybe feeling pretty smug, or possibly just trying to keep a stiff upper lip, project strength despite shaking in their boots, knowing that they’re operating in rarified air, loitering in places and situations that are too complicated and way out of their league.

Vance and Hegseth and the rest have their marching orders, though, all tucked under the umbrella of isolationism and America First and “saving democracy.” I’m surprised people still ascribe to such a time-tested failure.

A navel-gazing America, closing in on itself, is like an elephant trying to hide in a broom closet. We are in too deep all over the world to withdraw, to turn our backs, to shut down programs, to say, “You’re on your own.”

Mr. Lavrov is probably licking his chops over the opportunity to meet with Marco and company, while Mr. Zelenskyy wonders what has to happen to get heard, wonders where the salvation and real peace is going to come from if he can’t have a seat at the table.

The longer we go down this road of “flooding the zone” and absence of forethought, and cold-heartedness, and doing end runs around actual understanding and competence, the easier it becomes to draw conclusions about Trump and the whole lot of ass-kissers and out-of-touch rich kids: they don’t give a shit about real governance, or America. It’s not in their best interest, and it’s just too hard.