America is nothing but an economy - Donald Trump is driving it into recession

Unless the president has forever banished business cycles -- if he has, his modesty would not have prevented him from mentioning it -- the next recession will begin with gargantuan deficits, which will be instructive.- George Will

WASHINGTON, DC -- Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic* presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse.

If the country's condition is calibrated simply by economic data -- if, that is, America is nothing but an economy -- then the state of the union is good. Except that after two years of unified government under the party that formerly claimed to care about fiscal facts and rectitude, the nation faces a $1 trillion deficit during brisk growth and full employment. Unless the president has forever banished business cycles -- if he has, his modesty would not have prevented him from mentioning it -- the next recession will begin with gargantuan deficits, which will be instructive.

The president has kept his promise not to address the unsustainable trajectory of the entitlement state (about the coming unpleasant reckoning, he says: "Yeah, but I won't be here"), and his party's congressional caucuses have elevated subservience to him into a political philosophy. 

Moreover, the Republican-controlled Senate -- the world's most overrated deliberative body -- will not deliberate about, much less pass, legislation the president does not favor. The evident theory is that it would be lese-majeste for the Senate to express independent judgments.

And that senatorial dignity is too brittle to survive the disapproval of a president not famous for familiarity with actual policies. Congressional Republicans have their ears to the ground -- never mind Churchill's observation that it is difficult to look up to anyone in that position.

The president's most consequential exercise of power has been the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, opening the way for China to fill the void of U.S. involvement. His protectionism -- government telling Americans what they can consume, in what quantities and at what prices -- completes his extinguishing of the limited-government pretenses of the GOP, which needs an entirely new vocabulary. Pending that, the party is resorting to crybaby conservatism: We are being victimized by "elites," markets, Wall Street, foreigners, etc.

After 30 years of U.S. diplomatic futility regarding North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the artist of the deal spent a few hours in Singapore with Kim Jong Un, then tweeted: "There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea." What price will the president pay -- easing sanctions? ending joint military exercises with South Korea? -- in attempts to make his tweet seem less dotty?

By his comportment, the president benefits his media detractors with serial vindications of their disparagements. They, however, have sunk to his level of insufferable self-satisfaction by preening about their superiority to someone they consider morally horrifying and intellectually cretinous. For most Americans, President Trump's expostulations are audible wallpaper, always there but not really noticed. Still, the ubiquity of his outpourings in the media's outpourings gives American life its current claustrophobic feel. This results from many journalists considering him an excuse for a four-year sabbatical from thinking about anything other than the shiny thing that mesmerizes them by dangling himself in front them.

Dislike of him should be tempered by this consideration: He is an almost inexpressibly sad specimen. It must be misery to awaken to another day of being Donald Trump. He seems to have as many friends as his pluperfect self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life. His historical ignorance deprives him of the satisfaction of working in a house where much magnificent history has been made. His childlike ignorance -- preserved by a lifetime of single-minded self-promotion -- concerning governance and economics guarantees that whenever he must interact with experienced and accomplished people he is as bewildered as a kindergartener at a seminar on string theory.

Which is why this fountain of self-refuting boasts ("I have a very good brain") lies so much. He does so less to deceive anyone than to reassure himself. And as balm for his base, which remains oblivious to his likely contempt for them as sheep who can be effortlessly gulled by preposterous fictions. The tungsten strength of his supporters' loyalty is as impressive as his indifference to expanding their numbers.

Either the electorate, bored with a menu of faintly variant servings of boorishness, or the 22nd Amendment will end this, our shabbiest but not our first shabby presidency. As Mark Twain and fellow novelist William Dean Howells stepped outside together one morning, a downpour began and Howells asked, "Do you think it will stop?" Twain replied, "It always has."

Every time I read a George Will opinion, I keep a dictionary link on "favorites":  *splenetic - "ill-tempered" 

George F. Will is a columnist for The Washington Post.

Dire warnings continue to create uncertainty & Trump chaos

"....ditch his bomb throwing and change course..."- By VTGenie

Unfortunately, Donald Trump continues to project blame for his political and exeucitve incompetence on others. Nevertheless, facts are evident,  his dangerous whining are smokescreens for his own inadequencies. His executive ordres are  causing the world to loose patience with his bombastic rhetoric. Obviously, Donald Trump has no idea what he is doing because, otherwise, one would hope his realization would stop him from upsetting everybody. But, now dire warnings are being issued.

The Economist editors take aim at Trump and issue dire warnings for America and the world 
There is no mincing words: this is a radical cover for a magazine that is not exactly known for its radicalism.
WASHINGTON- DC: A city in the grip of a revolution. 

The bleak cadence of January 2017's inauguration was still in the air when Donald Trump lobbed the first Molotov cocktail of policies and executive orders against the capital’s brilliant-white porticos. He has not stopped. Quitting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, demanding a renegotiation of NAFTA and a wall with Mexico, overhauling immigration, warming to Brexit-bound Britain and Russia, cooling to the European Union, defending torture, attacking the press: onward he and his people charged, leaving the wreckage of received opinion smouldering in their wake.

They also astutely describe the transition of Trump the candidate to Trump the Pr*sident, particularly his use of outrage to both inflame and inspire his supporters.

His grenade-chuckers-in-chief, Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, have now carried that logic into government... Every time demonstrators and the media rail against Mr Trump, it is proof that he must be doing something right. (Breitbart_barfcart news in the White House!).

If the outpourings of the West Wing are chaotic, it only goes to show that Mr Trump is a man of action (alternative facts) just as he promised. The secrecy and confusion of the immigration ban are a sign not of failure, but of how his people shun the self-serving experts who habitually subvert the popular will.

Trump’s politics of conflict extends, of course, to foreign policy, and that is where they see serious problems looming.

Americans who reject Mr Trump will, naturally, fear most for what he could do (is already doing) to their (our!) own country. They are (yes, we are!) right to worry ..., but they gain some protection from their institutions and the law. In the world at large, however, checks on Mr Trump are few. The consequences could be grave.

Without active American support and participation, the machinery of global co-operation could well fail.

Because habits of co-operation that were decades in the making cannot easily be put back together again, the harm would be lasting. In the spiral of distrust and recrimination, countries that are dissatisfied with the world will be tempted to change it—if necessary by force.

A web of bilateralism and a jerry-rigged regionalism are palpably worse for America than the world Mr Trump inherited. It is not too late for him to conclude how much worse, to ditch his bomb-throwers and switch course. The world should hope for that outcome. But it must prepare for trouble.

Okay American press. Now it's your turn. (Well, don't count on it. In a competitive world where the American news media are ratings hungry, it's not likely the people will have access to objective news. Unfortunately, we'll more than likely rely on The Economnist and BBCNews for objective accuracy and dire warnings. Thank you very much.) Until American Trump cult followers wake up to the danger, we will continue to live in uncertainty.  As an American, I have a dire sense of deja-vu, like we're living in 1930s Germany.  #Mayday!