Trump, Year 2: Digging a Deeper Hole

The following post contains strong language. 

President Donald Trump has been declared fit and healthy by a doctor who's fortunate enough to still have a medical license as he enters his second year in the White House.  Never mind that the President eats too much junk food, plays lots of golf at courses he owns, and considers himself a "very stable genius" whenever questions are raised about his mental health from reporters and anyone who's read the book "Fire and Fury".

Instead, Trump has made the rest of America wonder about the country's mental health under his watch.  Sure, the economy is booming.  But there is enough unrest and divisiveness going on in and out of Washington to make anyone less than sane.

Right now, there's a dispute over whether or not Trump actually referred to certain places in Africa and the Caribbean as "shithole countries" that send their refugees to this country, while at the same time wondering why they couldn't be hardworking white people like those in Norway,  This was allegedly uttered during negotiations with both Democratic and Republican party leaders on what to do with DACA, the program designed to help those born to undocumented parents in this country to stay here.  Since there is no recorded evidence of what the President actually said, we have to go on the word of those who were in the room with him.

No matter if what Trump said was accurate, it just confirms what we've known all along:  The President is a race-baiting isolationist who can't seem to get out of his own way.  And America's reputation suffers because of it.

There's also Trump's ongoing war of words with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, in which the two have resorted to boasting about the size of their respective buttons used to launch a nuclear war.  All this penis-swinging has resulted in somebody hitting the wrong button to warn Hawaiians of a missile attack, leading to the kind of panic not seen in America since Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast in 1938.  Next time, it might not be a drill.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, already on thin ice with Trump, has started his own war on states who have legalized the sale of medical and recreational marijuana.  It's still against federal law, but considering how much people have changed their minds about the benefits of weed, this is like closing the barn door after the animals have escaped.

Did we forget to mention the Russian election-hacking investigation?  Steve Bannon, who left his Breitbart job soon after he dared to criticize Trump and his family in "Fire and Fury", is now telling as much as possible to special prosecutor Richard Mueller--whose own status is being discredited by the GOP and the White House.

All this comes under the threat of a government shutdown, which would be quite a feat since the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the presidency.  You might be wondering why the GOP doesn't lift a finger when it comes to Trump's occasional abuses of power, even at the risk of losing their seats come November.  Because he's family.  And families have to stick together through thick and thin.

Barring nuclear war or impeachment, Trump will keep trying to make America great again for the next three years.  What he might end up doing is to turn a once-proud nation into a . . . really big hole.