Four stages of James Comey grief and warning: Echo opinion

James Comey:  "Comey also slammed the president for his policies, claiming that Trump is jeopardizing the USA.

Sputnik News - This is a Russia Today news site publishing the James Comey critical opinion about Donald Trump first printed in The Washington Post.  In my opinion, the fact that Russia Today is publishing anti-Trump opinions is proof that Donald Trump cannot read; otherwise, he would never be having chatty phone calls with Vladimir Putin.  

Former FBI Director James Comey said Trump has become a “shrunken, withered figure,” and urged Americans to challenge his actions.

....“shrunken, withered figure,”- Donald Trump, described by James Comey

Sputnik News link.

James Comey vowed to devote the next year to removing Trump from power. After that, he admits he’d love to move on to something else.

“I’ve probably now had dozens — and maybe dozens isn’t enough — of encounters with uniformed military, intelligence community people and FBI people in grocery stores, in airports, in hardware stores,” Comey said. “They’ll just come up and touch my arm and say, ‘Please keep speaking. Please keep speaking.’”

The former FBI Director who led an investigation into a Hillary Clinton email server controversy in 2016 and later into allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election, said in an interview he can’t wait until he can finally delete his Twitter feed and move on to something else.

He admitted in the interview that while he doesn’t think he is “that important in the great sweep of American history,” he believes his firsthand insight into the president’s psyche will be beneficial to the anti-Trump movement.

The Washington Post

What it's like to be personally and publicly attacked by Donald Trump.  

Like many others in and out of government, I have some experience. I have also watched friends and former colleagues deal with vicious repeated assaults.  The attacks have interferred with their ability to find work after government service, as even employers who see through th elies fear hiring a "controbersial" person or being attacked themselves.  It can mean reassuring concerned friends and family, who can't imagine themselves the target of presidential wrath, that you're doing just fine.

And, it also means avoiding much of social media, because every presidential assault unleashes truly disturbed Trump supporters on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. 

So, it's hard on good people, especially those who don't have savings to fall back on.  But the truth is that, in many ways, it is not as hard as you might think, especially as it continues endlessly, leaking power, shrinking its source.  

At first, the attack is stunning and rocks your world. Waking up to find Donald Trump has tweetd that you are guilty of treason or committed assorted oher crimes and are a (insert any one of the epithets by IMpotus here) is jarring and disorienting. That's the first state, but it doesn't last. 

So, the second state is a kind of numbness where it doesn't seem quite real that the so-called leader of the free world is assailing you by tweet and voice.  It is still unsettling, but it is harder to recapture the vertigo of the first assault.  

But, the longer it goes on, the less it means.  In the third stage, the impact diminishes, the power of it shrinks. It no longer feels as though the most powerful human on the planet is after you. It feels as though a strange and slightly sad old guy is yelling at you to get off his lawn, echoed by younger but no less sad people in red hats shouting, "Yeah, get off his lawn!"

In this stage, Donald Trump seems diminished, much as he has diminished the presidency itself.  Foreign leaders laugh at him and throw his letters in the trash.  American leaders clap back at him, offering condescending prayers for his personal well-being.  Indeed, the #IMpotus "trusted" advisers all appear to talk about him behind his back and treat him like a child.  Principled public servants defy his orders not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.  His record in the court is similar to the Washington Red Skins on the field.

Even his secret weapon has lost power.  Engagement with @realdonaldtrump #IMpotus Twitter account - the company's measure of how often people read share and comment on a tweet, has steadily declined.  Americans are tired of the show. They are channel-surfing on him.  It is appraent that the exhausted middle has arrived at a collective stage three.

I don't mean to sugges tthat Trump is not dangerous.  Indeed, the horrific betrayal of allies in northern Syria demonstrates that an impetuous and amoral leader can do great harm, even in a shrunken from.  Moreover, if he succeeds in redefining our nation's core values so that extorting foreign governments to aid in one's election is consistent with the oath  of office, he will have done lasting damage to this nation- the harm our founders worried about most.

For the fourth, and final, stage, we need to fight through our fatigue and contempt for this shrunken, withered figure.  Spurred by the danger he poses to our nation and to its values, we have to overcome the shock and numbness of earlier stages.  We must not look away.  We must summon the effort necessary to protect this republic from Alexander Hamilton's great fear, that when an unprincipled person, "is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity- to join in the cry of danger to liberty- to take every opportunity  of embarrassing the general Government and bringing it under suspicion - to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the realities of the day - it may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind'."

Yes, we are headed into the storm our founders feared.  Getting safely to the other side will require all of us to resist complacency and cynicism. Yes, the final stage is a test of the founders' design, but it is also an opportunity to demonstrate American character.  This democracy, made up of citizens and their institutions, is strong enough to weather the storm.