Of. course he won’t resign, but the calls for resignation will shift the narrative.

The Trump administration has been a three year repeated telling of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Day after day our “Emperor” parades stark naked down our media boulevard, baring his abject incompetence, ignorance, racism, malice and sociopathy.

On one side of the street are the Emperor’s subjects — Fox Nation --- having no trouble seeing him as clothed in competence and just power, reveling in his bigotry and ignorance, as he gets away with what they wish they could.

On the other side are those who, like the little boy in the story, see clearly his perverse, narcissistic display in its vainglorious nakedness and cry out in any social media space they can find.

And overlooking this is the mainstream media. Unlike the Fox subjects, they see the nakedness, but feel compelled to present him to their audience as clothed — in normality, in both siderism, in blue collar diner-ism, in endless empty podiums, in a “changed tone,” in “clouds lifted,” in empty military ventures, in representation of charlatans on TV panels, and in many other subtle and blatant guises.

Last August, long before Coronavirus, even before Ukraine and impeachment, Eric Boehlert wrote here, What will it finally take for newspapers to demand Trump resign—the way they did Bill Clinton?Back in 1998, at least 115 newspapers called for Bill Clinton’s resignation over a blowjob , oh sorry, lying about a blowjob. Boehlert wrote:

the same newspaper editorial boards that today refuse to call for Trump's resignation were loudly demanding Clinton resign back during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the late 1990s. Convinced that the Democrat was no longer "fit" to serve in the Oval Office, newspapers lowered the boom on Clinton.

Let’s compare that to Trump’s fatal conduct and words this year in what KeithDB correctly called the Greatest Scandal In American History: The Trump Cover Up Of A Looming Public Health Crisis. The President’s actions and inaction have already cost thousands of lives — from rejecting available tests, to denying the threat, to ignoring isolation. His continued presence in office will cost additional lives. This will happen no matter how “sober” or “somber” his “tone.”

Just today, we learned he:

won’t open Obamacare enrollment, threatening the uninsured,

is putting roadblocks to seniors trying to get payments, and

is allowing equipment to go overseas while hospitals here practice triage.

How can there be complacency when every day shows his grotesque unfitness?

Will even any of the MSNBC hosts or guests call for resignation?

Last August I wrote:

He is unfit. He should resign. Can we just hear those simple words by anyone on TV? Can any pundit or Democrat go on a Sunday Show or any show and simply say, “He is unfit. He should resign.” Every week, we keep saying, “This week Trump reached a peak of insanity and racism. “ And yet the next week he reaches another peak. Today alone I felt like I was getting hit over the head every hour with a bat saying, “He’s a racist nut. He’s a racist nut.” He’s a grotesque. He’s a Horse in a Hospital. (h/t/ John Mullaney)

Again — that was long before the Coronavirus.

The idea of his re-election is insante.

The only appropriate question to any administration member is “Why isn’t he resigning?”

The only appropriate question to him is “Why aren’t you resigning?”