Season’s slugging

Last week, I mentioned an interesting new concept, sadopopulism, which appears to be the governing philosophy that comes naturally to jerks like Trump, Bannon, Gorka, Pence, etc. Sadopopulism, which inflicts pain upon its subjects, with the favored subjects receiving less pain than the unfavored. Of course, there’s a strata of society that isn’t pained at all by the current sadopopulist “tax reform”—the ultra-wealthy. For proof, one need look no further than this latest factoid. The top one tenth of one percent of Americans now own as much wealth as the lower 90 percent. I know us columnists say “let that sink in” way too much these days—but seriously, let that sink in. In total assets, 0.1=90%. This would appear to be somewhat less than ideal).

It just feels as though only a sadopopulist regime would dare to tell its Centers for Disease Control that its future reports can’t contain certain words that it finds troublesome (including the outlandishly liberal “science-based.”) This story points out why I’ve morphed This Space over the last 18 months into a weekly screech of Trumpophobia. It shows very clearly how Dum Dum has, in less than a year, eclipsed Dubya as, hands down, without a doubt, the most horrible president in the history of this now reeling country. Sure, Dub was a disaster. Dum Dum is another level of disaster altogether. (As Dub giggles to Darth on the phone, “Jesus, Dick, remember when you were America’s asshole?”)

All this speculation about the possibility of Dum Dum firing special counsel Mueller, or Retrumplican invertebrates somehow shutting down Mueller, forces me to grab at some low hanging fruit—if Trump fires Mueller, doesn’t he instantly declare himself guilty? Doesn’t he pretty much confess to a flaming conspiracy with Russia? Isn’t this the lasting lesson from Nixon? And aren’t Refuglican efforts in Congress to discredit Mueller brazen reminders that these guys much prefer health of party to health of country?

Speaking of Trumpophobia, a gold medal in this field is hereby awarded to the editorial staff of USA Today, which stepped up nicely in a recent column when it declared that Dum Dum “wasn’t fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or shine the shoes of George W. Bush.” Now that’s a spiffy little bile blast, made with confident knowledge that it would not only get noticed in the White House, it would most definitely get Vlad’s No. 1 Bitch Boy nicely steamed. Maybe even apoplectic. Totally sweet. Merry Indictmas!