If nothing else, the first 100 days of the Trump administration have been a gigantic effort to eradicate all preexisting standards of measurement or judgment about a presidency. And to a certain degree, he can count this as a success. Now you hear people who know full well how unacceptable President Trump is in his job reporting various levels of relief that it could be even worse.

This works out well for Trump, since he uses this exhaustion of dismay to further spread his web of horridness. When you are looking in this direction and find something less than the worst-case scenario, you can be sure he is moving that other way to extend his network of malfeasance.

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Gee, he hasn’t ruined heath care yet! Whew! Meanwhile, he is annexing the Tidal Basin to extend the Washington swamp he promised to drain.

What could Trump possibly have meant when he blared his self-righteous pledge to do this draining? Between his unreleased tax returns and his family business practices, you will find nothing but more compromising activity. Even his poorly attended inauguration was used to contaminate more than the English language and the Capitol steps. Actual people may not have showed up, but he was right to insist that it was the biggest — in terms of special-interest money.

We are engaged in an oil-wrestling match with a petroleum monarch. We are not normalizing him — he is slathering us in his own oleaginousness.