Trump senses opportunity the way a hyena senses a wounded animal. And there are the Democrats. And there is Trump, of the gilded touch, smiling his white-stripped smile at them and offering a gladhand of little fingers. Keep an eye on the little fingers on his other hand, and the teeth.

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The media has played its assigned, abased role of getting excited about a new story, and has been spinning out all sorts of fanciful scenarios, except the one that will come to pass. And that’s that any cooperation with Trump will end badly. Any short-term gains will be swamped (the undrained kind) by his complete lack of principle and his hard-wired need to humiliate and sell out his non-family allies. To say nothing of spreading his poison ever wider and deeper into the American democracy.

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And what have the Democrats gained so far in their deal with this devil? Some procedural advantages, maybe. Now let’s look at what the nation actually needs to do, and the likelihood that Democrats will get any of that from working with Trump. Reducing off-the charts wealth inequality? Nope. Trump is squirming with desire to shovel more tax cuts to the already hideously wealthy. Health-care coverage for all Americans? Nope. He will sign ANY piece of garbage that wrecks what coverage there is that Congress is able to send him. Saving the climate? Nope. In the face of 185-mile-an-hour evidence of the destruction that his environmental policies are leading to, he still won’t accept the science, and his administration is now busy ruining, hiding or terminating what science it actually produces. Fair elections? Nope. Clean government? Don’t make me laugh. Constructive race relations? Don’t make me cry.

Letting Trump get into a position of being able to play Democrats and Republicans off against each other will do nothing for anyone except Trump. Everyone else will suffer, and the nation will come to regret it bitterly. There is one and only one wise course of action with regard to Trump. Avoid him, isolate him and remove him from office. He is always looking for a new mark. And amazingly is still apparently able to find one.