THE FORK IN THE ROAD

Really, it’s down to just two choices: take the road on the left or take the road on the right.

The road on the left leads here:

Donald Trump is a master manipulator and is drawing everyone’s fire toward him, while quiet zealots like Paul Ryan and Mike Pence, methodically undo the social contract and create a two tiered America of Rich and white vs. minority and poor. That Trump made a grand bargain with the grand old party to create the most amazing distraction while the true leaders set about creating massive tax cuts for the wealthy and completely undoing Roosevelt’s New Deal, Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, Nixon’s Environmental Protection and Obama’s Healthcare.

Or,

The road on the right takes us to a place where all is exactly as it appears. The President of the United States is the same Donald Trump we’ve all come to know over the years. A huckster, a lazy, incurious, un-read, schemer who’s desperation to be loved and admired is only surpassed by his infantile need to be seen as great and powerful. He is without question, the least qualified person in history to become a national leader.

There is no third path. The path, we all thought might be true, that he would be a poor president but at least not an historic grease fire, is no longer operational.

It can only be one of these two options.

Yes, if I were handicapping this, I’d say there is a 99% likelihood that option 2 is the truth. To believe in the first option, one would have to also believe that Trump is a world-class actor and a true master of personality subterfuge. One would have to literally accept that Trump is some swirling combination of James Bond, Keyser Soze and Voldemort.

I’m unprepared to believe that. However….

I leave one percent chance open to hedge my bets. And - probably because I’ve read too much science fiction and seen to many plot-twisting movies - I can’t shake this feeling that Trump’s incompetence and ineptitude are almost too perfect. During every single crisis and right after every single mind-numbing interview and every single ridiculous tweet I roll my eyes and ask myself: “can anyone really be that stupid!?” Further there is this tine corner of my brain that lives in isolated terror that the orange-haired commander-in-chief is playing us all for fools.

What’s worse, I think to myself. Seeing Trump wreck the country due to his corrupt and stupid ways, or finding out that we were all played for suckers by the brilliant Mr. Trump? I guess it doesn’t matter. Either way leads to pain and mayhem.

A sign at the fork in the road we all find before us should have arrows pointing at both paths and should read: “madness that way lies!”

ON TRUMP AND RUSSIA AND THE STOMACH-CHURNING, PULSE-POUNDING STRESS OF IT ALL

Right now, if you had to bet $1,000 on which option is more likely to happen, which would you choose?

1. Aliens land on earth next Monday

2.  A thorough, fair and independent investigation into the Trump/Russia affair finds no collusion or wrongdoing.

It’s a toughie isn’t it?

I mean, I really, really feel confident that little green men are not going to show up in five days somewhere on the planet, but…….?

Seriously. The absolute biggest and most blockbuster story in the world over the next year would be that Trump and his administration were completely innocent of working with Russia to throw the election. The second biggest story would be proof that he and they did. 

That is where we are right now. The smoke is so think and powerful right now that a conflagration threatening to outstrip Watergate is building and building. We are all in at this point. It really is the political embodiment of the transitive property of math – If A equals B and B equals C, than A equals C.

A Trump needed help to win because god knows he’s not smart enough to do it alone

B Russia wanted a stooge in the White House;

C November 9^th brought us the previously unthinkable.

And it’s only been a little over 100 days!!!! Seriously republican defenders of the president…do you really have the stamina for another 3 and 2/3 years of this?!

One of my favorite football quotes comes from defensive guru Wade Philips who once said about playing football: “it’s an incredibly hard game because every play is a crisis.” And that’s fine for a contest that lasts about three hours. Then everyone can take a break until next Sunday.

Can we really handle a presidency where every day is a crisis – a self-made crisis?  My god! He hasn’t even been tested yet. No terrorist attacks, no economic shocks, no killer storms, no incursions abroad…relatively speaking, nothing.

Others have said this, but it bears repeating: we are at the point where we fear picking up our smartphones and checking social media platforms for the latest news on the administration. Every buzz of a twitter alert, illumination from an RSS feed or jingle of a text sends us all into panic.

“What now!?”we all reflexively think, “What has he done now!!!!”

Yes, I held lofty dreams of Clinton presidency, a democratically controlled congress and a 5-4 liberal tilt in the Supreme Court – only to have those velvety aspirations slapped down like a fly on one’s shoulder.

So yes, my wondrous visions of fairness, equality, environmental stewardship and economic justice have been bludgeoned to death.  But at this point, I’d just settle for a stretch of days where I didn’t actually fear Trump calling a nuclear strike against some third-rate state senator from Minnesota daring to tweet critically about healthcare premiums.

In the famous words of every A through D list actor over 50 in far too many movies to even count: “I’m too old for this shit.”