Notable how many of these were apparent long before Trump (or are apparent in other countries that should know better).
We are probably pretty lucky that Trump is such a dimwit. Essentially, the fascism gun went off, but the bullet was a dud, so to speak. When the next "outsider" Republican comes along, someone with even average levels of aptitude and work ethic, we might not be so fortunate. Fascism has long been latent in the United States. Just wait until the QE asset bubble pops.
Trump, meanwhile, seems to have effectively abdicated any real responsibility or authority - so long as he gets to keep having temper tantrums on the internet.
This Chris Hayes interview has been making the rounds, and it seems plausible:
"I don't think the president wants to be in charge. I think he wants to sit on his couch and yell at his TV screen and tweet things, but he's almost happy to be able to kind of get it out of his system and not have anyone listen to him. I think his optimal equilibrium is hectoring Jeff Sessions but Jeff Sessions not quitting, or tweeting out the thing about transgender service members and the military ignoring him, or tweeting out threats to North Korea and not actually changing American posture.
I think that that we have arrived at a new equilibrium in which both the interior members of his staff, the actual federal bureaucracy, the US Congress, the US public, the global public, and global leaders all basically understand the president is fundamentally a bullsh*t artist and you just shouldn't listen to what he says."
And really, this is what the Republican Party and the legendary "Deep State" had hoped for all along - like a reverse Wizard of Oz, where here, the frightened and confused old man is in front of the curtain, distracting from something much more sinister.
Far from the B-movie conspiracy rhapsodies which Trumplings and Fellow Travelers so ecstatically conjure, the
actual Deep State (ie: the security forces, which Trump voters worship -
not his idiot family and cartoon appointees leaking to advance their hissy-fit vendettas) is getting everything it wants from the vacuum.
The only authoritative people in the cabinet are now all Goldman Sachs bankers or generals - weird fringe generals, mind, save McMaster - and with Kelly now asserting control of all communications to and from Trump, the generals hold the strongest claim to the throne.
And sure enough, they get to play Cowboys and Indians in Afghanistan once again, and this time with none of the "politically correct" niceties against the
wholesale slaughter of
civilians which so triggered Muslim communist snowflake Obama.
