As always, I’ve been catching up on my New Yorker reading. I just finished an article called “Trump's Last General” that focuses primarily on the travails of General Mark Milley, Trump’s final chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It’s a great article, and I recommend it. Reading it reminded me just how often Trump strained and then snapped credulity for many of us. The sheer quantity of bad stuff astounds and then numbs. Much of the article describes previously undisclosed crises or reactions to crises. At first, I read it with a borderline salacious appetite. But the badness mounts so steadily that, before long, historically unthinkable actions and statements just gloss by.
Why was Nixon impeached? Watergate. Why was Clinton impeached? The Lewinsky affair. The article refers at one point to Trump's first impeachment. Do you remember why Trump was impeached the first time? Perhaps, you do, but it might take you a few seconds to call it to mind. Trump's presidency and its aftermath have been so full of badness that I would predict that a large majority of Americans couldn't easily say why he was impeached the first time. Is it a greater negative accomplishment to be impeached twice, or to be impeached twice and not have people remember what the first one was about?
The administration of Donald Trump was a shit show. As the article makes clear, the White House was the shit show’s epicenter, and Donald Trump was the show’s creator, star, and executive shit producer. The question at hand is what do you do if you are cast in such a show.
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