Heavy is the Double Weave That Wears the Crown

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari Goldstein)

"Now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant's robes upon a dwarfish thief."
    -Shakespeare, Macbeth Act V, scene 2

Perhaps we've taken this, "In America, anyone can grow up to become President" thing we say to our kids a bit too far. Of course, in order to be an effective President, one must first actually grow up.

     Many conservative voters, we'll charitably call the walking brain stems who thought Trump would actually have their back, still identify themselves with the Party of Personal Responsibility. But I would like to ask these people to name one time that Trump has ever actually taken personal responsibility for any lie he's told, any misgovernance, any fuckup whatsoever.
     I guarantee in every case, it will result in a deer in the headlights look to be hastily followed up by an angry denunciation somehow involving the word "leftard" or "libtard" or some iteration or permutation thereof. But the point I'm making is that enough people in enough red states voted for this buffoon so that, even though he did not carry the majority of votes in what's supposed to be a democratic society, we nonetheless shoved into the Oval Office the world's oldest toddler.
     Toddlers and children in general famously do not have a sense of personal responsibility for the simple reason that they fear comeuppance from the authority figures in their lives. Personal responsibility means being no longer able to test boundaries and doing what comes natural to them, which is a propensity for chaos, the natural state of the juvenile.
     This is what comes to mind whenever I hear Donald Trump blame someone else for some fire that some unlucky staffer has to put out or at least downplay by telling us to ignore the smoke, that smoke doesn't mean there's a fire and if there is a fire, it's because of those damned "fake news" reporters who simply have it in for Trump.

     This inability for Trump to take any responsibility for anything reached its most sinister phase when the Trump-controlled National Enquirer, that bastion of fair and factual reporting that gave us Hillary/Alien hybrid love children and statues of Elvis on Mars recently reported that Trump and Trump alone caught the Russian spy in our midst.
     Joe McCarthy would be so proud.
     The "spy", of course, was one of the major players in his campaign, transition team and, for a brief time as National Security Advisor, his administration and that spy's name was Michael Flynn. Trump has the capacity to think of a hundred different reasons for throwing Flynn under the wheels of his semi, and pinning the entire Russia connection on him. But here's the likeliest reason.

From Russia, Without Love

The Trump-trumpeted scandal sheet would have you believe that the head of our government undertook a dangerous mission a la Mr. Phelps and turned up a dangerous double agent all on his own. But the plain fact is that Flynn could very well be volunteering everything he knows to the FBI in exchange for immunity for his testimony. (Think of John Schindler's famous observation that those who turn state's evidence first get the lightest sentences).
     The problem with this strategy of Trump's is that literally dozens of members of Trump's Cabinet and his administration have verifiable connections to Putin's Russia, starting with Trump himself and his Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Then it goes down the line with Paul Manafort, about whom we're not hearing so much these days, Trump's onetime campaign manager and who absolutely brokered very lucrative deals to hatch schemes that would benefit Putin's government while being detrimental to Ukranian interests. Blaming just Flynn for Trump's Russia connection is like blaming the carnage at Pamplona on the guy who just opened the bullpen gate.
     If anything brings down Trump, it'll be this because it's looking increasingly clear it compromised our very electoral process and put the wrong candidate in the Oval Office. Leading Republican hardliners such as John McCain and his vestigial twin Lindsey Graham haven't been very shy about mentioning Trump and Russia in the same sentence as well as hinting at harsh sentences for those involved. Which is only fair- The Russia connection and Trump's surrogates obviously were meeting with a certain Russian ambassador (If by ambassador you mean recruitment spy) named Kislyak.
     Nowadays, every Republican who ever met him, and there have been many, now snap their fingers and wear puzzled expressions when they hear Comrade Kislyak's name.
     The time will come either just before or after the midterms which will be a bloodbath for Republicans, if they don't get their act together and denounce Trump and his Russian connection soon, when they, too, will be snapping their fingers and wearing puzzled expressions when accused of meeting with Trump. And if they suffer the fallout from voters they so richly deserve, there will come a time when Republicans who are hip deep in this quagmire (starting with Devin Nunes) will be questioned by Democratic-led committees, "Are you now or have you ever been involved with ex President Donald J. Trump?"