One-Hundred Days of Mirth

Why is this man smiling?



"It's hard to believe that Donald Trump has only been in office for 100 days. I swear, I think 2017 is happening in dog years."

 

Elizabeth Warren

 

Okay, I know what you're thinking and I will happily concede the point: The very existence of this psychopathic lamebrain's administration is not a laughing matter - I get the point. But one cannot deny that there is a mountain of laughter that can be mined from the Age of Donald Trump. Although there is no joy when one wakes up in the wee, small hours of the morning to be reminded at the moment of consciousness that one is still an inmate of Idiot Nation, it can be quite amusing, too. And when one's vocation is to call attention to the American train wreck, the Donald is the gift that keeps giving....and giving and giving and giving. Samantha Bee is a very happy woman. I'm pretty happy, too.

 

One-hundred days ago Donald Trump was inaugurated as the forty-fifth president of the United States, and things are now about three times as bad as the most pessimistic of us would have dared predict. In all that time the president who, as candidate, promised so much "beautiful" legislation in his first hundred days in office that the people would be "sick" of all his successes - has not been able to deliver a single thing. As I was reminded this morning by a TV talking head: William Henry Harrison was able to accomplish much more - and he died thirty-one days into his presidency. Trump, it would seem, is trying to establish some sort of record. If that is indeed the case, he is succeeding beyond anyone's wildest and weirdest dreams.

Did you ever think we would fall this hard? Strange days indeed.

Now Trump is trying to tell us that the "First Hundred Days" expectation put on incoming presidents in modern times is "ridiculous". He makes an excellent point - although I'm quite sure this was an accident on his part. Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day, as they say.

Darwin was wrong

As was noted in the previous piece on this site, the "First Hundred Days" of any presidency were never noted until the dawn of the Roosevelt administration in 1933. In his first three months and one week in office, FDR was able to get a truckload of legislation passed for the simple reason that, at that point in history, the United States was in the midst of an economic crisis of catastrophic perportions. It is unreasonable to expect that any president (even a genius like Trump - GUFFAW!) would be able to replicate that kind of precedent. It isn't remotely possible.

I was just thinking, using the names of Roosevelt and Trump in the same sentence is a bit surreal. How we devolved from the Frankster to the Donald would make a dandy subject for a book.

Out like Flynn

From the Muslim travel ban, to the wall on the Mexican border, to the failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, to the accusation of wiretapping by President Obama, to their disastrous foreign policies, to the resignation-in-disgrace of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, to the utter incompetence of damned-near everyone associated with Donald Trump....I could go on for hours....this administration has been a rolling constitutional crisis.

Let me state for the record that in most cases, the Trump administration's lack of success has been a very good thing for the country. The only thing they have been successful at is keeping the public's attention diverted from what is gradually evolving into the worst political scandal in the history of this country; I am referring, of course, to the covert collusion with a hostile foreign power during the 2016 presidential campaign. That affair is metastasizing by the day. The problem is that we'll have to wait until the GOP no longer controls both houses of congress in 2019 for this maniac to be removed from office via the impeachment process - that's assuming they'll be defeated on Election Day 2018. You never know.

Like I said: Idiot Nation.

Tonight is the annual White House Press Correspondents Dinner. I wasn't the least surprised to learn that the prez will not be gracing the affair with his presence. In order to make those events fun, a president needs to have a self-deprecating sense of humor. That's why Jack Kennedy was so successful in that kind of setting; he could laugh easily at himself. This is a trait that Donald Trump is completely lacking. The only conceivable thing I can imagine him giggling at would be the sight of a wheelchair-bound paraplegic tumbling down the escalator of Trump Tower. Yeah, it's hopeless to expect him to appear at something like that. Here's what we can expect, though: an unhinged Twitter tirade first thing tomorrow morning. Wait for it.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READING:

What's the Matter with Kansas
by Thomas Frank

How a nation with roots so firm in progressivism could possibly take such a drastic turn to the extreme right. An excellent read.