Distraction In Chief
The 45th precedent is an extremist, but not in the way the term is usually meant, as this implies idealism of some kind. He has taken to the extreme the cynical position that the President need not be interested or even relevant in any of the ways usually associated with presidency - care for constituents, policy success, coordination of allies, leadership, inspiration, vision, etc. The #DistractionInChief has only one real purpose, unrelated to delivering on any promises made to members of the public that supported him. By his fruits ye shall know him, and there ain't been none beyond #RazzleDazzle. He is a child in a break-away adult suit who isn't enough in contact with reality to realize he is incompetent, especially at the things he thinks are his unique gifts. As a result, he spins on whatever axis he finds himself, desperately in need of and spouting superlatives about himself, and desperately determined to externalize and prop up his internal monologue, because there is nothing else there.(1)
As long as 45 can #KeepEmSpinning, the individuals around the world who worked to put him in place are well served by his service to increase their private power and wealth. The cycle is: bluster cynically/incoherently (it only takes 140 characters or less), vacation/golf and spend, threaten something sacred/essential to those who need government to function in some way, fail publicly and egregiously so that The Opposition will at least try to continue holding things together and the pattern can continue, shift target so the abused will treat themselves briefly to a sense of relief, repeat.
His every tweet points at the sky and screams "#LOOKTheHindenburg!" We throw our hands in the air, and then onto our keyboards; we waste the life energy we could be using to work together for our children. Every time we follow the media into the serial orgy of hot-air disasters the bar is lowered and the real work behind the scenes is successfully submerged. Legislation is being passed without consultation, and often without any attention at all beyond a small circle of wonks, democratically essential institutions are being gutted as skilled staff are being jettisoned or replaced by unqualified partisans, and ecocidal projects are being pushed through without review or oversight. We help to make this the new normal because it is a culture-making ritual, each repetition of which re-writes a part of our brains, resetting expectations so that we will expect the process of government to be corrupt, exploitative, and worthy of ridicule, a loss, in short, and not worth protecting from those who are inconvenienced by the needs of the individually less powerful.
This is death, literally. Thousands of cuts to government protections make even more vulnerable those who must work to satisfy the needs they share with all humans. The "middle class" many people believed they were in is gone, if it ever truly existed. We pay life blood into a system which fails to regulate bottom(line)-feeders who scoop up public resources for private enrichment without return on our civic investment. Where is the humane concern for fellow creatures without which public service is a lethal fantasy?
We are expected to die from lack of adequate/preventative health care. We are expected to die from indirect conscription ("given the system, it's really my best/only chance for a better life") into wars for political control of other nations. We are expected to die from lack of education, which provides the tools for critical thinking and an imagination which can recognize how a system of stories works. We are expected to die early from polluted air and water force fed by The Way Things Are to each next generation, children whose only fault was to be born into families who have been raised to believe that abundance is something that only a Few can have. The truth that 45 brings is this: we are expected to die. A president doesn't even have to pretend to be a public servant anymore. All he has to do is #KeepEmSpinning.