The Disposable President

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari Goldstein)

When this Hindenburg of an administration crashes and burns, and it surely will one way or the other, Donald Trump may well be the one to write the world's first amorality play. His administration, at this time, is exactly 120 hours old and we're seeing the emergence of true fascism erupting in our nation with a speed and industry that would've made Hitler call his top aides into the Reichstag to yell at them and ask them, "Why can't we be as efficient as Trump?!"

     Yesterday alone in the United States of Gotham was a Russian red letter day for this new administration that's making heads spin. The formally lazy, sloppy, self indulgent campaign and transition has suddenly turned into the kind of nightmare we've only recently read about in science fiction and alternate history novels like the one Philip Roth wrote in 2004. As with Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, Roth's The Plot Against America concerns itself with the unseating of Franklin D. Roosevelt (who at least in the latter got to serve two terms).

     In Roth's treatment, Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt and institutes a government that would've made Prescott Bush and his right wing industrialist buddies cum in their pants. Patterned after Hitler's own, Lindbergh sets up an antisemitic fascist state. Its effects are seen through a fictionalized version of Mr. Roth's own family. It may be historical revisionism through fiction, a nightmarish Bildungsroman that, in Roth's mind, could've easily come true under Bush. (In fact, because of the novel, the New Yorker recently asked the retired novelist what his impressions are of Trump and his pungent observations can be found here.)

     Of course, the obvious difference here is that it's not the Jews who are being targeted. In keeping with every administration since Truman, Trump swears undying loyalty to Israel in this sick prosemitic fetishism since its state was founded in 1948. But that doesn't mean Trump can't find other victims in his midst. There's still the Mexicans and Muslims. And non-alternative truth tellers.

     But back to yesterday. In rapid succession, we saw Trump and his junta do this:

Herr Harry Potter

     Trump had actually proposed an Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens. This is easily the most vicious and hostile act toward "illegal aliens" since Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It'll come with a weekly list of crimes committed by "illegals" against proper white, Christian people. No word, yet, if Trump will ever form an Office for Random and Targeted Victims of Crimes Committed by Nonremovable Trump Voters and Other Sundry and Assorted, Antigovernment Fox-Watching Right Wing Nut Cases.

Just Another Prick and a Wall

     Trump had ordered his much-ballyhooed wall separating Mexican rapists from our rapists to be built. Which Mexico will pay for... some time... if only Trump can reanimate the corpse of RasPutin to hypnotize them long enough into forking over the pesos.

I Know What You Are But What Are We?

     After Trump sent Sean Spicer out again to do his masturbating monkey act to force us to believe that his boss would've won the popular vote were it not for massive voter fraud, Trump decided to propel this ridiculous right wing conspiracy theory into a higher gear. The problem? The only evidence of voter fraud which has been proven is that of Trump's Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin and even Trump's own daughter, Tiffany. All three were registered to vote in two states. What are the odds they were ensnared in the Crosscheck system? About as good as Trump unzipping himself and JFK stepping out, announcing it was all a joke.

Anti-Alien Invasion

     Yesterday, the President* of the United States called undocumented workers, "removable aliens." Oh no, that doesn't bring to mind trains and chains in them chugging through the landscape in the dead of night. Oh, and that goes for little brown brats, too.

MAGA. The Rest of You Can Go Fuck Yourselves

     Trump also announced another Harry Potteresque-sounding hare-brained scheme: The Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations. This is just a slightly less blunt tool of Trump's promise to divest ourselves from any involvement in the UN, culminating in our withdrawal from it. I wonder what will happen to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley when she shows up for work one day and is told she no longer works there? In that same vein, he also instituted the Moratorium on New Multilateral Treaties. Among the casualties of this moratorium? Treaties dealing with Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Metaphorical Wall's Already Up

     Trump has already stiffened up immigration policies, which is no doubt one of the few things his pork rind-crunching supporters can get behind in this fever dream first week. And once the wall is built on credit or no, it'll keep America safe from terrorists in places such as Oklahoma City, Newtown, Connecticut, Charleston, South Carolina, Aurora and Littleton, Colorado, and Ferguson, Missouri.

We Don't Torture... Yet

     Oh, and Trump thinks that bringing back torture and banned black sites is a good idea, too.

     So what does all this mean for the more reasonable or at least less insane Trump staffers and careerists? Well, that remains to be seen. But if you want a hint of the rebellion that will surely come, it just broke less than an hour ago that the entire senior State Department staff just resigned in protest. Which just means Trump can install more of his Oompa Loompa Mini Mes at Foggy Bottom.

     No, the center cannot hold, especially if that center is actually an extremist far right. Before we know it, Trump's Cabinet and/or Congress is going to have to 25th Amendment his fat, pasty ass even if it means having a Savonarola wannabe in Mike Pence as Acting President.

*As of January 20, 2017, Anglo-Saxon word for "Chancellor"