Morning Reading - Trump And The Republicans

As the slow- rolling disaster that is the regime of neo- fascist nitwit Donald "Rump" Trump picks up speed as it heads toward its ultimate fate, some thoughts on where we are right now (our emphasis throughout):

Conservative Paul Wehner on the Crackpot- in- Chief:

“We have as president a man who is erratic, vindictive, volatile, obsessive, a chronic liar, and prone to believe in conspiracy theories,” said conservative commentator Peter Wehner, who was the top policy strategist in George W. Bush’s White House. “And you can count on the fact that there will be more to come, since when people like Donald Trump gain power they become less, not more, restrained.” 

Who or what's feeding the lunacy?

Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist who once ran Breitbart, has spoken with Trump at length about his view that the “deep state” is a direct threat to his presidency. 

Advisers pointed to Bannon’s frequent closed-door guidance on the topic and Trump’s agreement as a fundamental way of understanding the president’s behavior and his willingness to confront the intelligence community — and said that when Bannon spoke recently about the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” he was also alluding to his aim of rupturing the intelligence community and its influence on the U.S. national security and ­foreign policy consensus.

But, it's not just Rump. Paul Krugman on a party unfit to govern:

"[T]he broader Republican quagmire — the party’s failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises — isn’t just about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders’ rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they’ve never bothered to understand how anything important works." 

David Letterman offers his thoughts:

“We don’t need more confirmation that there’s something wrong with Donald Trump,” he said. “Let’s instead find ways to rebuild what is rational. And the Democrats, goddamn it, get a little backbone, get a little spine.” 

It will take courage -- heretofore unseen -- in our political leadership to move this process through to its conclusion. We can do our part as citizens to bolster the resolve of our elected officials to "do your job," to save our country from the darkness that's unfolding around us. But, remember, in the end it's about organizing, registering and voting. The problem goes beyond Rump; the problem is that power has been vested in a political party that has no plan except to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable -- and so far, fortunately, they can't even figure out how to do that efficiently.

(Image: The General Chaos goes down.)