The news comes in waves.

Mitch McConnell—is he alive, or at least conscious? Is Putin as evil and crazy as he wants to make us think? Is Trump going to blow up NATO? Did Trump interfere in the process of getting Mr. Balogun back for the Belgium match? That worked out, well, about as expected. Balogun’s presence didn’t matter. In fact, it may have messed with the U.S. players’ mojo, and all Trump really did was to hand Belgium additional motivational fodder and confirm us to be the bad guys the world already suspects us to be.

Did the latest news about Graham Platner’s checkered past hit of its own accord, or was this a calculated, well-timed Republican ploy to drag a potential challenger to Susan Collins even deeper into the mud? If so, how much did the woman who came forward with the allegation get paid?

Politics is indeed a slimy, cutthroat business, and humans can so readily indulge the enterprise. To add to the mess, Donald Trump is so damned inspirational in this regard.

In an old post from July 5, 2020, I was doing a post-mortem on Donald and Melania’s appearance at Mt. Rushmore the previous day, where he gave one of his screeds dressed as a speech in front of 7500 maskless disciples who thumbed their noses at the pandemic in order to come and listen to their fearless leader spend who knows how long spewing more Milleresque poison.

I added at the end that Gutzon Borglum, the brainchild of the landmark, was associated with the KKK. This has gotten me thinking about the messiness of our history and how we grow up learning only parts of stories about places like Mt. Rushmore, often excluding how the local native American tribes, for example, didn’t want a gigantic monument to Manifest Destiny and four white guys, two of whom were slave holders, emblazoned on the side of a mountain on what they considered sacred land.

That whole scene from six years ago was surreal, and now Trump is back, elected to office for a second time, and still dropping hints about wanting to have his face added to the four who are already there.

Sure, why not? It’s not even ridiculous anymore. It actually makes sense, if one understands such a thing to be just the latest attempt at distraction, another tactic that he hopes will get us off the Epstein scent.

Or maybe he’s finally going off the deep end.

It will be interesting to see how deep they can go. Maybe they’ll get past Belgium and move on to the quarter finals. Their star scorer will be ineligible because of a red card he received in the Bosnia-Herzegovina match, so they’ll need a plan to compensate for that.

Belgium is tough, but one might dare think Destiny, aided by a home field advantage. In any event and no matter the outcome, it’s nice to see the U.S. have a team that seems legitimately competitive and scrappy, with a manager who seems like he’s all in.

I just hope Donald Trump doesn’t hijack the proceedings and make it all about him, which somehow feels inevitable. He best stay away, because if he shows up, it’ll be the usual kiss of death.

This isn’t a mere difference of opinion, nor is it a manageable give-and-take between liberal and conservative or whatever labels can be slapped on someone’s political stance.

It is, rather, blatant awfulness on full display. It is abject failure and incompetence in need of being called out. This is about naming intentional evil, ignorance, deceit, neglect, self-interest, power grabs, delusions of grandeur, and deprived childhoods that have mushroomed into skewed worldviews and irrational hate.

We’re watching as this all plays out before us. And as abhorrent as many say it is, it just keeps happening. It’s a cancer, a toxic ooze that’s finding its way into cracks in the foundation.

Imagine the balls it takes to step into an administrative role with little to no experience and then behave as if everyone should bow in your presence. Every day the dynamic is one of bruised egos and kids in candy stores. In Donald Trump’s case, add bull in a China closet.

The folks at MS Now are apoplectic on a daily basis, taken aback by the bald-faced lying, the unabashed attempts at sabotage and destruction of long-held norms and Constitutional provisions. Meanwhile, the crew at Fox News is seemingly luxuriating in the afterglow of jobs well done, still wondering what all the fuss is about among “Dumbocrats,” yelling and swearing at Haitian immigrants to get the fuck out of America and return to a homeland that’s on fire with gang violence and rampant poverty.

No, this is nowhere close to a mere difference of opinion. This is more like watching the shining city on the hill being taken to the cleaners, being reduced to a smoldering pile of shattered dreams and empty promises, and not wanting that to happen.

Maybe, though, our dreams need to be made of sterner stuff than a chicken in every pot and some shallow, endless pursuit of… happiness?