The Trump Eclipse

English: Total Solar eclipse 1999 in France. * Additional noise reduction performed by Diliff. Original image by Luc Viatour. Français : L'éclipse totale de soleil en 1999 faite en France. * Réduction du bruit réalisée par Diliff. Image d'origine Luc Viatour. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Monday was the day when the moon merged with the sun over the continental United States, creating a minute or two of midday darkness for the first time since 1979.

Big deal.  President Donald Trump has been blotting out the political and media sunlight with his words, actions and tweets for the past eight months.  He even took off his protective eyewear during the solar eclipse, just to prove he could.  No, the sun, moon and stars doesn't revolve around the President.  It just seems that way.

In the past week alone, Trump used his news conference to make himself the best friend neo-Nazis, the KKK and other hate groups ever had in insisting that "both sides" were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia that left one dead and nineteen injured.  He used Twitter to bemoan the removal of statues of Confederate generals (which is what started the disturbance in the first place), as if the War Between The States was a noble cause reflecting the values of all the rednecks who voted for him.

The day after his Trump Tower meltdown, the President disbanded his economic councils after several CEOs who were horrified by his comments quit in disgust.  Later, the arts commission made a similar decision.  In response, Trump decides not to participate in the Kennedy Center Honors.

On Friday, chief strategist Steve Bannon was let go.  A role model for the alt-right, Bannon was believed to be the mastermind behind many of Trump's most controversial actions.  But then the President must have decided he could do racism all by himself, thank you.  So Bannon returned to the Breitbart website from whence he came, where he will presumably rip into his former boss whenever possible.

On the day of the solar eclipse, Trump went on what he likes to call the "fake news" TV channels to talk about Afghanistan--a 17-year old conflict most Americans had forgotten about.  He said something about doubling down on the commitment to America's longest war, but mentioned nothing about increasing troop levels to take on those hated Taliban or when they were coming home.  He also managed to alienate Pakistan by trying to get India involved, even though both U.S. allies could annihilate each other with nuclear weapons within minutes.  (Speaking of nukes, whatever happened to North Korea?)  This reverses years of Trump's complaining about how the Afghan war was a losing proposition that should have ended a long time ago.  Your perspective does change once you step into that Oval Office.

Congressional Republicans seem to be blinded by the light when it comes to figuring out what to do about Trump.  Several GOP luminaries have denounced him by name over Charlottesville, which is something they wouldn't have done before for fear of a Trump tweet-lashing.  But others look at the popularity of Trump among voters in their home states and say nothing.  Despite all the options available to remove a President (impeachment, resignation, censure, implementation of the 25th Amendment, etc.), the most likely course of action for the GOP is a familiar one--which is sitting on their hands and doing nothing, then hope the voters won't notice in 2018.

The next solar eclipse to pass through the United States won't be until 2024.  By then, the Trump Eclipse will either be nearing the end of its second term, or will have fizzled out long before.  Until then, the future's so cloudy that you're gonna need those protective sunglasses.