The Trumpian Chronicles — week 6— where normal was trumped by unhinged in a bipolar week
A pessimist-realist’s take on our changing world
Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 -Special edition -Week 4 -Week 5
Week 6 of the Trumpian presidency is a tale of two impulses: one is the “normal” Trump we caught a glimpse of as he was sitting in a small room in the Capitol a few minutes after his inaugural address and having a good time with Congressional leaders, including Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Schumer. The other is the unhinged cartoon/tabloid character he has become in the public’s mind, thanks to bombastic speeches and tweets like this one:
The 2 main events of this bipolar week are:
- Trump’s first State of the Union
- AG Sessions caught in a lie re his contacts with Russia
Let’s break both events down in detail:
- Trump’s first State of the Union:
Trump’s teleprompter performances have always been wooden and almost shockingly bad for the consummate performer he is at the core. Tuesday’s address had him bathed in a glimmer of normalcy and the media trotted out headlines that finally this President had become “normal”. Even Van Jones declared that because Trump had shown human emotion referencing the widow of the slain US soldier in the botched Yemen raid that we had all seen “One of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics, period”. Trump being Trump, his first address to Congress had to be aggressively fact checked by the “dishonest media”.
my take: The DC ecosystem is overtired by the first 6 weeks of the Trumpian era and they collectively wished that “normal” Trump we all saw for a little over an hour would now prevail. This is what triggered the mostly positive press and public opinion the day after. Chuck Todd, always an astute observer penned that this SOTU was actually Bannon’s agenda but delivered with a Priebus-style tone. As many commentators repeat ad nauseam, any hope for Trump to change is naught: he is a 70 year old man entrenched in his biases and quirks, who thinks, rightly so, he pulled off the greatest political upset in decades and can outthink them all.
2. AG Sessions caught in a lie re his contacts with Russia
The Russia links to Trump just won’t go away and Trump was reportedly aghast at AG Sessions recusing himself from the investigation, allegedly without consulting him. AG Sessions in essence lied under oath in his testimony to Sen Al Franken about meeting Russian Ambassador Kislyak and he had to be challenged on FoxNews, during a Tucker Carlson interview. The Russian connections are so dense&complex, Politico has a helpful timeline here. The added troubling fact on how the Trump campaign handled contacts with Russian officials is this meeting.
TPM’s Josh Marshall has the most sober and complete outline&analysis of the Trump Russian links, a must-read. Ever the hothead, Trump is said to have erupted against his staff for letting Sessions remove himself from the fray.
my take: Trump is an inexperienced politician, elected by voters who claim to be fed up with DC and who sent a giant “F YOU” to the “elites”. He knows his support base is narrow and that his election was a fluke at best. His cadre (to use Mika Brzezinski’s great expression) of sycophants are equally unqualified and inexperienced and are faking it a bit too much, everyone is noticing. The silver lining here is that the imperial Presidency which had become inefficient and bloated is showing its limits and as I’ve written in my special edition of these chronicles, the US political system needs to come to grips that the hyperpresidency needs to be mothballed. Jon Lovett had penned a prescient 2015 Trump presidency parody in The Atlantic. The key quote:
Jon Lovett you were right and this is not parody anymore and must become fact !
PS: Trump is the ultimate deflector and ever the weekend tweeter, he accused President Obama of “tapping his wires” at Trump Tower, apparently reading a Breitbart article, itself referring to Louise Mensch’s reporting.
LINKS:
Voices to listen to/follow:
