I don't remember who it was exactly, but someone mentioned over the weekend that the president*'s perception of his political invulnerability seems to have evolved from "I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue" to "Yeah, I shot at somebody on Fifth Avenue, but I missed him, so there's no crime here." Any weekend is remarkable when the president* admits being in cahoots with a foreign government full of kleptocratic thugs, thereby contradicting almost three years of official prevarication, and tosses his eldest son under the wheels as a bonus. Of all the tweets in all the gin joints in all the word, this one is the all-timer.

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Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere. I did not know about it! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018

This isn't a government any more. It's an elaborate game of Truth or Dare and, so far, the president* is winning. Contrary to god alone knows how many previous public statements, he now admits the following: that the brain trust of his campaign did indeed take a meeting with Russian ratfckers for the purpose of gaining access to materials stolen from his political opposition; using this material, the rats were successfully fcked during the campaign, and, when the meeting with the ratfckers came to light, it was the president* who concocted the cover story and sent his wonderful son out to peddle the bullshit. One odd thing about the Oval Office—given the right circumstances, you can find yourself cornered there.

That's the truth. The president* is running the dare. He has admitted lying to the country on a profound issue of national security. He is doing next to nothing to prevent a similar attack this fall, and in 2020. He is clearly in league with—or, more likely, in hock to—an authoritarian goon presiding over an economic basket case complete with its own huge and threadbare nuclear arsenal. He is daring the institutions of democracy to do something about him. He is daring the system to work the way it's supposed to work. Waiting until after the midterms is not the way the system is supposed to work. Waiting for the special counsel to do the job for you is not the way the system is supposed to work. God knows, the supine behavior of the Republican congressional majorities is not the way the system is supposed to work.

The process of dealing with a lawless president* who admits to his own lawlessness should be easy, if the system works the way it's supposed to work. Instead, everybody along Fifth Avenue hears gunfire and hides behind a cab. But Robert Mueller, with no expression on his face, reaches across his desk for another file.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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