monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

He’s finally too nutso even for Pat Robertson.

Robertson says Trump lives in alternate reality; Biden won

Trump has a real "Brain Trust of wackos" who are feeding him **** that is gonna do nothing but make Pence stiffen and have Trump just removed from office by Constitutional means.

Hes Nuts. Even Kushner is out of his circle now. The poor man needs hospitalzation and his "base" is just acting as his enablers . What the hell is he doing about covid? hes only out for himself

This seems to be your newest diversion eh? Are you in favor of Trump declaring MARTIAL LAW??? use of armed troops?? You think this is going to happen without a hitch??

Remember what a population of suitably motivated Vietnamese civilians did to the best military in the world??

TRUMP WAS BEATEN BY NOV. 4.

Trump is not beaten yet, and never has been in the last four years.

why has he given up any pretense of governing?

Presidents simply preside.

Definition of preside

intransitive verb
1 : to exercise guidance, direction, or control
2a : to occupy the place of authority : act as president, chairman, or moderator
b : to occupy a position similar to that of a president or chairman
3 : to occupy a position of featured instrumental performer —usually used with at - presided at the organ

Definition of govern

intransitive verb
1 : to prevail or have decisive influence : control - In all situations allow reason to govern.
2 : to exercise authority

Duties of the office

The Constitution succinctly defines presidential functions, powers, and responsibilities. The president’s chief duty is to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed, and this duty is performed through an elaborate system of executive agencies that includes cabinet-level departments. Presidents appoint all cabinet heads and most other high-ranking officials of the executive branch of the federal government. They also nominate all judges of the federal judiciary, including the members of the Supreme Court. Their appointments to executive and judicial posts must be approved by a majority of the Senate (one of the two chambers of Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government, the other being the House of Representatives). The Senate usually confirms these appointments, though it occasionally rejects a nominee to whom a majority of members have strong objections. The president is also the commander in chief of the country’s military and has unlimited authority to direct the movements of land, sea, and air forces. The president has the power to make treaties with foreign governments, though the Senate must approve such treaties by a two-thirds majority. Finally, the president has the power to approve or reject (veto) bills passed by Congress, though Congress can override the president’s veto by summoning a two-thirds majority in favour of the measure.

Governors do the governing, Walter.

Presidents simply preside.

The President is both the head of state and head of government of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Under Article II of the Constitution, the President is responsible for the execution and enforcement of the laws created by Congress.

Governors, all of whom are popularly elected, serve as the chief executive officers of the fifty states and five commonwealths and territories.
As state managers, governors are responsible for implementing state laws and overseeing the operation of the state executive branch.

If Trump declares martial law it is alright with me. I would love to see him put people in jail and seize their assets.

Republican officials who have indulged or assisted in President Trump’s effort to nullify the 2020 election have many motivations: partisanship, conviction, delusion, cynicism, ambition, paranoia, fear. But all these reasons for participation in an antidemocratic power grab point to a single truth: For many, Mr. Trump is all that binds the Republican Party together.

No other Republican or conservative leader personalized his leadership in this way. In 1960, Barry Goldwater told a student group lobbying him to run for president: “The man is not important. The principles you espouse are.” In 1976, Ronald Reagan told “60 Minutes” that the Republican Party would be “dead” unless it “stands up and erects a set of principles around which people can rally.” The “Contract With America” wasn’t between the country and Representative Newt Gingrich. It was with the Republican Party.

But that is ancient history. Since 2015, Mr. Trump has added the Republican Party to his collection of brands. He began his political career as an outsider. He registered with and sent donations to both Republicans and Democrats. In August 2015, at the first Republican presidential debate, he refused to promise to support the party’s nominee and to not run an independent campaign. But the next month, he reversed himself, famously and ostentatiously signing a Republican National Committee “Loyalty Pledge.”

By November 2016, Mr. Trump had attracted a devout following that crossed ideological and party lines. His most committed supporters identified the New York businessman as a historic figure who alone could save the nation from decline. The bulk of the conservative movement and the Republican Party agonized over Mr. Trump’s conduct, rhetoric and character, but voted for him anyway. The alternative of President Hillary Clinton seemed worse.

This fretful ambivalence turned into enthusiastic commitment over the next four years. Mr. Trump was far better on policy for conservatives than skeptics had imagined. His judicial selections, tax and regulatory moves, and toughness toward China and Iran earned their favor. He and the conservatives also shared enemies — a biased media, an entrenched bureaucracy, liberal Democrats. And because many of the attacks on the president seemed to conservatives to be partisan, silly or false, it became easy to pass over those criticisms that were objective, serious and true.

Many Republican officials who had voiced concerns over Mr. Trump’s style and agenda retired or died. The NeverTrump faction of Republican and conservative elites broke off from the movement to found alternative media platforms and institutions. Most of the central institutions of the American right — the activist think tanks, the single-issue groups, talk radio, blogs, cable news — aligned themselves with Mr. Trump’s program, if not always with his persona.

It was a tricky play. The Trump program is subject to change at the whim of the Trump persona. The party more often catered to the president’s obsessions, tastes, moods and inclinations than it stood against them. Even as it became clear that what really thrilled the crowds at MAGA rallies was Mr. Trump’s unpredictability, brashness, crudity, dark comedy and unapologetic fighting spirit, some on the right began an effort to backfill ideological content into the vessel of “Trumpism.”

What they forgot was that for Mr. Trump, everything is a transaction. Deals can be modified until the last moment and then litigated after the contract has been signed. It’s true that the broad outlines of Mr. Trump’s worldview — immigration restriction, trade protection, reluctance to enter into foreign entanglements, opposition to entitlement reform — have been more or less consistent for decades. What is equally true is that Mr. Trump has no hesitation in dropping a proposal, person or principle if he believes it will suit him. The programmatic details of Trumpism are fungible. The attitude behind it is not.

And Mr. Trump’s attitude is what came to define the conservative movement and the Republican Party. In 2017, Kellyanne Conway said that Mr. Trump’s presence at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) would rechristen the gathering as TPAC. She has not been proved wrong. Discussions of policy and the political horse race gave way to figuring out the best way to “own the libs” — a Trump specialty — and whatever controversy engaged Mr. Trump’s attention at the moment. For much of the right, unplacable and vocal resistance to cultural progressivism mattered more than experience, credentials or know-how.

A lot of policy was actually happening behind the scenes of the culture war (like the new Nafta and efforts to lower prescription drug prices). But policy was not what interested most people. They wanted the fight against the deep state, RINOs (Republicans in name only) and the Squad. They said that the game was rigged against them and that only Mr. Trump had the audacity to throw out the rule book.

This devotion to the politics of confrontation had limits. When Mr. Trump ran for re-election, he found himself unable to articulate a second-term agenda. For the first time since 1856, the Republican Party did not issue a platform. Delegates to the Republican National Convention rereleased the 2016 document, with a brief prefatory note. It pledged to “enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” As if there was any doubt.

Untangling the party from Mr. Trump will require Republican officials to follow the lead of conservative jurists and the growing number of lawmakers who acknowledge the reality of Joe Biden’s victory. It will require a delicate recalibration of the relationship between party elites and the grass-roots populism that fuels the Trump phenomenon.

It will require a depersonalization of the right, with leaders focusing less on individual candidates and more on the principles that have guided the movement for more than half a century: anti-statism, constitutionalism, patriotism and anti-socialism. And it will take a willingness to look ahead to the next election, rather than dwell on the last one.

None of this will be easy. Mr. Trump’s power over the right waxes even as his institutional strength wanes because much of the Republican Party judges his presidency to have been a success. He infused the party with new voters, with a new set of issue positions and with a devil-may-care brio. He fulfilled his side of the bargain with conservative interest groups. His Tweets deflect attention from a lack of internal consensus on health care, technology and foreign policy.

The Republican Party has embraced reality-TV authoritarianism not out of strength but weakness. Mr. Trump is all it has.

(CNN)Joe Biden will be president in 30 days. Until then, the question is how much damage can be done by a vengeful, delusional soon-to-be ex-President swilling conspiracy theories, whose wild anti-democratic instincts are being encouraged by fringe political opportunists.

Donald Trump will retain the awesome powers of the presidency until noon on January 20, and there's never been a time when he has been subject to as few restraining influences or has had a bigger incentive to cause disruption.

The President is spending day after day in his White House bunker, entertaining crackpot theories about imposing martial law, seizing voting machines and staging an intervention in Congress on January 6 to steal the election from Biden.

Surrounded by the last dead-end loyalists, Trump is flinging lies and political venom like King Lear in a crumbling Twitter kingdom, alarming some staffers about what he will do next.

Quote:

(CNN)Joe Biden will be president in 30 days. Until then, the question is how much damage can be done by a vengeful, delusional soon-to-be ex-President swilling conspiracy theories, whose wild anti-democratic instincts are being encouraged by fringe political opportunists.

Donald Trump will retain the awesome powers of the presidency until noon on January 20, and there's never been a time when he has been subject to as few restraining influences or has had a bigger incentive to cause disruption.

The President is spending day after day in his White House bunker, entertaining crackpot theories about imposing martial law, seizing voting machines and staging an intervention in Congress on January 6 to steal the election from Biden.

Surrounded by the last dead-end loyalists, Trump is flinging lies and political venom like King Lear in a crumbling Twitter kingdom, alarming some staffers about what he will do next.

CNN

We're well on our way toward seeing Republican Kristalnacht,

Apropos of nothing in particular, I just want to point out that...
Only 4 presidents have been impeached or resigned. Only 5 presidents failed to win the popular vote. Only 13 presidents failed to get re-elected. Only 1 has done all 3. Only one more month until we’re rid of his sorry ass.

Trump is a has-been already. He used to be a wanna-be.

At some point in the future (not too distant future) even the jackasses continuing to support and enable him will be asking themselves, "What was I thinking?"

The answer to that is: YOU WERE NOT THINKING.