I’ve watched every episode of House of Cards since the beginning. It is the reason I signed up for Netflix years ago, and the story line is completely addictive. Up until last year, I didn’t believe that utter corruption could take over the White House, yet here we are six months deep into the Trump administration dumpster fire.



In the series, the twists and turns usually take a long time to work themselves into a full-blown scandal. A character would be pursued by journalists and eventually crack, an occurrence that has happened in many real presidential administrations. Their misdeeds would finally be dragged out into the light, a resignation would be tendered, and our government would grind on.





Unlike the plot of House of Cards, which I will avoid giving too much away to those of you who haven’t watched it yet, the Trump administration is like the show, if nearly everyone involved was a complete fucking idiot. President Underwood and his cronies, however corrupt, still managed to keep a lid on things.

“House of Cards,” based on a British series, is at heart a fantasy of competence and omnipotence. Frank pulls the levers of power as easily as he pushed poor Zoe Barnes in front of a subway train. He plays four-dimensional chess while his current analogue often seems to play Whac-a-Mole. He’s cold and deliberative, not hotheaded and impetuous. He confides his plans in Shakespearean asides while President Trump spills to 31 million Twitter followers. (New York Times)

The same thing can’t be said for the Trump White House. During the last six months, he’s accomplished nothing other than tanking his own poll numbers, isolating fellow Republicans, and the rest of the world. In comparison, Francis Underwood in House of Cards would be a far better president than Trump, despite all of his flaws.

Trump is not only corrupt to a degree that makes President Underwood look like a choir boy, but he also has zero testicular fortitude when it comes to Russia. Underwood puts up some firm resistance to Moscow, while Trump is a coward who has done everything except literally practice fellatio on Putin on national TV.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the logic Reagan Republicans use to justify Trump’s BFF relationship with Vladimir Putin. Their hero was an adversary of Russia and their oppressive regime. Even though communism fell, the Putin era is also totalitarian and aggressive towards Western values.

Then again, stupid and bumbling leaders are elected by even dumber and gullible people. The Trump administration is brought to us by Russia manipulating both the left and the right, and electorate unable to see that they were duped, bigly.

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