The Country Is in a Very Dangerous Place Now, and It's Time for the GOP to Act

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | January 5, 2018 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | January 5, 2018 |

Instead of reacting to the insane news cycle at the moment, let’s stop for a second, step back, and take a look at the big picture here.

Michael Wolff’s book came out today. Yes, I have a copy. No, I haven’t been able to read it yet (I had a foot of snow to clear this morning), but there are a few observations I can make based on what I do know about the book: Michael Wolff took a lot of liberties. He’s a shitty reporter. There will no doubt be exaggerations in the book, and maybe some fabrications, and the White House will probably pounce on the small lies to discredit the bigger truths, and those truths are that Donald Trump is not a smart man. He is not a curious man. He is not qualified to be the President of the United States, and he isn’t interested in being qualified to be the President of the United States. He governs with his gut, and to steal a line from Nick Hornby, Trump’s guts have shit for brains.

He’s an erratic man. He’s an irrational man. He may be suffering from dementia. His staff doesn’t like him, and according to Wolff, 100 percent of the people around Trump question his fitness for office. But they don’t check his powers so much as they try to guide his incoherent, blathering thought process into making decisions that benefit their agendas. Trump has already lost a lot of staff members. He’s going to lose a lot more. He’s going to find fewer and fewer people who know how to manage him, and that is going to be dangerous for the country.

But no one needed to read Michael Wolff’s book to know that. The details in his book may be more sensational, and there may be a lot of lurid gossip we can laugh or fume about, but the gist of whatever is in the book has already been reported by the Times or WashPo or Politico or Axios. There’s nothing new here. The President of the United States is an unwell man, and it is imperative for the good of the country that a bipartisan effort is made to remove him from office.

But it’s also ironic that this particular crisis point in the Trump Presidency is being propagated by a book that is essentially tabloid journalism. This is the environment that Trump has created. This is the fake news era. Here’s a President that not only buys into theories promoted by The National Enquirer, but has actually given the National Enquirer fake scoops. Donald Trump lies, and in a way, he’s being hoisted by his own petard. That’s not to say that everything in the book is lies; I’m sure much of, if not most of it is true. But it’s not journalism.

The other thing is, it’s kind of distracting at the moment. Never mind the heinous shit that Trump has pulled just this week — allowing oil to be drilled off of American coastlines, and lifting the Obama provision on marijuana — but if reporting from the Times (confirmed by WashPo and the AP) is to be believed, we should be more focused on Jeff Sessions and Don McGahn right now. Jeff Sessions should be fired. He tried to smear James Comey in the media in order to cover his own ass. He engaged in politics, and that’s something that the Attorney General should never do. He’s undoubtedly lost the trust of many in the DOJ. Sessions also committed obstruction of justice. Don McGahn also attempted to commit obstruction of justice on behalf of the President. He should be fired. Both guys should be flipped as witnesses against the President.

But just step back and look at what we have here: An unfit, delusional, potentially dementia-riddled babbling President and a readily made excuse to get rid of him in an obstruction of justice charge. The Republicans get Mike Pence, the Democrats get to take back Congress in the mid-terms, and the World is saved from nuclear annihilation. It’s not going to get better for the President. He is not going to save himself. He doesn’t have Bannon anymore. All he has left is an ever-shrinking base. He’s going to dig himself in deeper, and he’s going to take the Republicans down with him if they do not act.

The path seems clear, doesn’t it?