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With near unanimity, my Never Trump friends confess a sense of relief. It could have been worse. They thought it would be worse. A deep apprehension still endures but the international order remains intact, the republic still stands, and no “enemy of the people” has (yet) been arrested.Admittedly, this is a low bar. And this is not to deny the insanity, incoherence, and sheer weirdness emanating daily from the White House, for which we’ve all come up with our own coping technique. Here’s mine: I simply view President Trump as the Wizard of Oz.Loud and bombastic. A charlatan. Nothing behind the screen — other than the institutional chaos that defines his White House and the psychic chaos that governs his ever-changing mind. What to do? Ignore what’s behind the curtain. Deal with what comes out in front: the policy, the pronouncements, the actions.And so far they hang together enough — Neil Gorsuch, Keystone XL, NATO reassurances, Syria strike, cabinet appointments — that one can begin to talk plausibly about the normalization of this presidency.Hence the relief. But there are limitations to the Wizard of Oz approach. Some things do extrude from behind the curtain that are hard to ignore . . . . . . The South Korean blunder reinforces lingering fears about Trump. Especially because it was an unforced error. What happens in an externally caused crisis? Then, there is no hiding, no guardrails, no cushioning. It’s the wisdom and understanding of one man versus whatever the world has thrown up against us. However normalized this presidency may be day to day, in such a moment all bets are off.What happens when the red phone rings at three in the morning?I’d say: Let it ring. Let the wizard sleep. Forward the call to Defense Secretary Mattis.
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Topic: Trump: ‘Normalized’ but Still Scary (Read 339 times)
