Well, how have things gone in the year since I started this thread. I expected Trump to be even more greedy than than in his first term and grift at every opportunity, to vindictively attack all those that he felt had slighted him, and to display even more egotism than normal. There would be a number of questionable actions and some tantrums from Trump himself which would lead to some instability, and there would undoubtedly be changes to the balance of society, but the basic government functions would continue as before and there would be a chance of recovery. Changes there would be, and not to the general good, but we would get through.
I referred to it in satirical vein as ‘insanity’, but this is what it has turned out to be. Who, even in their worst cheese-induced nightmare, would have thought that Trump would be threatening to invade a part of NATO? The changes that I expected to take place behind the scenes have barely been hidden: the only reason that they aren’t so obvious is that there are so many things happening that no one can keep up with them.
My feeling is that what has changed everything is the decline in Trump’s health, particularly in the last few months. On top of all his other idiosyncrasies, he appears to be losing track of reality. As he is ruled by his ego he now does things that previously his cunning would have held him back from. His advisors seem to be an even more unscrupulous bunch than usual and I do wonder exactly who some of them are working for.
As far as this country is concerned, we are probably close to the point where we must make a decisive stand against Trump. It will cause massive problems, but we cannot go on appeasing someone who has, in effect, become a dictator. If we did, we would just find ourself in an even worse state when we finally had to make that stand.
And what now? We can expect that Trump will finally tip over the edge soon, probably in months. Hopefully he will either quietly die or be removed screaming, rather than doing something utterly catastrophic. So we get Vance, who I think is an even nastier character. For a while it may seem a relief to have someone in the Whitehouse who will think rationally, but I suspect that the changes that have happened under Trump will allow Vance to do some extremely unpleasant things and normality will not return.