How thin is the ice?

By now, everyone, with the possible exception of his loyal base, knows that Trump can simply not be trusted to respond appropriately to any particular crisis, whether it be North Korea, Israel, Syria, Yemen, or something else we don’t yet know about. We just can’t predict for sure how he will react, what he will do. The problem is, any one of these crises could develop into a full blown catastrophe. And not knowing how Trump will react makes it harder to be prepared. America is on thin ice, but we don’t know how thin.
Howard F. Sosbee 1400 Weston Ridge Road Scotts Valley CA, 95066 831, 335, 8401 hfs@sosbee.com <mailto:hfs@sosbee.com>

Where did it come from?

Trump’s base is reported to hover around 30 to 35% of registered Republicans. He didn’t assemble this base. He simply descended the escalator and took his place as the candidate many Republicans had been the looking for all of their political lives. What made him such a good fit? It’s almost as though the media (which Trump takes such delight in excoriating) held a giant mirror up for Republicans to see themselves in, warts and all. What did they see in that proverbial mirror? They saw Trump. No human on earth encapsulates so many of the Republican Party’s worst attributes: bigotry, mendacity, misogyny, narcissism, you name it. Trump has them all, some in the extreme. And because he is so Republican in his own right, physically, mentally, philosophically and in every other way, he will always be “their guy”, the consummate Republican. And he can count on that base to have his back in any situation. There is no more reliable GOP cohort than the Trump base.
Howard F. Sosbee 1400 Weston Ridge Road Scotts Valley CA, 95066 831, 335, 8401 hfs@sosbee.com <mailto:hfs@sosbee.com>

Help from the Republicans

We knew all along that Trump could never be trusted to do what was best for anyone other than himself. His every utterance, from day one when he declared his candidacy, throughout the campaign and his presidency, we have “clucked and tut-tutted” at every painfully obvious small and even some monstrous “corkers” uttered with a straight face as only Trump can do. We could do this because, even though the GOP was in total control of everything, we knew that there were bound to be some Republicans intelligent enough to form a backstop against this con man. We thought we could trust the Republicans to do the right thing.
Obviously, we were wrong.

Howard F. Sosbee 1400 Weston Ridge Road Scotts Valley CA, 95066 831, 335, 8401 hfs@sosbee.com <mailto:hfs@sosbee.com>

Third World Customs

In a typical military coup, the first thing the new dictator does is raid the treasury. In our case, it has taken the Republicans almost a year but they have finally started their raid on the U S Treasury. They are doing it in the form of a huge tax cut for the wealthiest among us; and, taking their cue from the Ronald Reagan playbook, are making no provision to pay for this tax cut. They can get away with these shenanigans because they are in complete control of everything, and there does not appear to be enough Republicans who put country ahead of party to stop them.

Howard F. Sosbee 1400 Weston Ridge Road Scotts Valley CA, 95066 831, 335, 8401 hfs@sosbee.com <mailto:hfs@sosbee.com>