Trump’s greatest strength ― his brash, attention-seeking rhetoric ― has now become his biggest weakness as it places undue focus on him and his government, while pushing the ruling party into increased division and gridlock.

Everything is Fine A work of art depicting the Trump Presidency

This is not going to be a “At least the ratings are good!” or “Trump is great for late night comedy!” piece ― I acknowledge that things are pretty awful. But, while I’m an incredibly cynical person, I thought I’d be able to find something positive to be hopeful for.

I’ve been searching for an accurate analogy to describe the Trump presidency thus far to start off this piece. A massive highway pile up? A burning orphanage? A tornado of laser guided missile sharks? Words can’t describe how expediently Trump has worked to undo Barack Obama’s 8 years of global diplomacy, or what Republicans like to call, “The Apology Tour.”

So I guess that’s what I’ll be talking about today - the silver lining of the Trump presidency.

Now, the willingness of other nations to go along with the US operating as a de facto global police force is starting to wane. This might be a good thing, if it wasn’t happening because of a narcissistic, possibly dementia-ridden nationalist demagogue. It’s also doubly not all that great though since:

We’re still mass deporting and incarcerating, racism is totally acceptable to do in public and our foreign policy is more vicious than ever as Trump continues to be as drone prone as Obama, along with authorizing additional troops to Afghanistan and loosening the rules of engagement while we continue to fund the war in Yemen and threaten to rip up an effective Iran nuclear deal that took a decade to put together.

Yeah maybe US imperialism is not going away anytime soon, neither is institutional racism.

But if we’re desperately searching for a silver lining, I have more than a few. For example, the world hasn’t ended…

Yet.

Which means that Trump has shown us that America can indeed run on auto-pilot, at least for a while, despite a Republican-controlled Congress and White House, even when - or maybe because - they’re all woefully incompetent.

But while they’re incapable of passing any serious legislation - at least we now know that the government still runs. Plus, the Republican Party’s ineptitude is absolutely a good thing.

And while Trump does his best to feed his weird, demented ego by hurling racial epithets from the bully pulpit, which probably isn’t great for uniting this nation, Trump’s big stupid mouth has inspired a widespread movement of citizens operating as government watchdogs.

So at the moment, activism is thriving in the US, even from unlikely allies. Our #Resistance is largely a coalition united against the rude and awful Trump presidency, from Antifa Juggalos to war criminals like George Bush, David Frum, or my personal favorite, Elliot Cohen, who might be the last person on earth still claiming the Iraq War was good, and says even crazier things like “Perhaps Al Gore would’ve also invaded Iraq.” These men are now hailed as liberal darlings just because they’ve taken a mild-tempered stance against the most outwardly racist president in modern day US history. But i’ll take the support wherever I can get it.

The NFL protests are one example of such unification. Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem more than a year ago to raise awareness about police discrimination and brutality. He was promptly blackballed, and the conversation faded out. That is, until Trump took personal offense, and decided to call these peaceful protesters exercising their 1st amendment rights “sons of bitches who needed to be fired.” All of a sudden the movement reignited, and we witnessed NFL owners who gave money to the Trump campaign like Jerry Jones kneeling with players. Even though some of those who linked arms or knelt weren’t protesting against racism, there was solidarity - strength in numbers. Trump inadvertently brought awareness to the issue.

So as a result of the “Anti-Trump Movement”, people are more aware than ever of the racist legacy of our institutions and the systemic corruption that exists in DC, the turnstile between Wall Street, K Street and the Hill. This I’ll chalk up as a W.

Politics might be the art of the possible, but in the US oligarchy what’s “possible” is dictated by those who write legislation - our corporate benefactors. Now that we’ve woken up to that reality, we are actively fighting against legislation that hurts Americans, or even appointees we deem unfit to hold office.

People talk about how insane it was that a health care repeal polling at 17 percent almost passed the supposedly sane Senate and try to minimize that victory - but those cruel, nefariously written bills hit these record low approval ratings due to the media actually doing its job and amazing work from activists.

So while Trump’s inability to comport himself in a remotely presidential manner proved an asset on the campaign trail, today it’s actually hurting him because it places undue attention on the dealings of the White House. As the media and Americans focus on how he’s saying things, they inadvertently end up actually pick up on “ what he’s saying ” and “ why he’s saying it ”. This is not useful for policy making, especially when the policies you’re pursuing are widely unpopular. So while reporting on “Palace Intrigue” might be beneath some journalists *cough* Glenn Greenwald *cough*, the ripple effect is that a lot more people in the margins have become interested in what’s actually going on in our government, so yes there’s something to be hopeful about.

The opposite of this happened with coverage throughout the Obama presidency. While he was a historic, once-in-a-lifetime president, Obama wasn’t without fault, especially when it came to dealing with Wall Street. His appointee Preet Bharara, the now-famous hero of the #Resistance, absolutely failed (refused), to prosecute Wall St. executives in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis. The lack punitive measures was a crime in and of itself.

This largely went unnoticed in the public eye, despite our overwhelming coverage on the matter. Because Obama’s greatest optics issue was his tan suit, or his dad jeans. Optics can be incredibly powerful, and Trump brought the Republican party to heel with his mastery of reality TV distractions, but winning an election is very different than governing, as Trump’s greatest strength has now become his biggest weakness.

Another thing Trump’s thin-skinned idiocy isn’t helping is the growing divide within the GOP, which now consists of:

Establishment Republican Cuckservatives like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell

Tea Party nutjobs and the Freedom Caucus

Nationalist Bannonite racists

Supposedly “moderate” sane people - a.k.a women of the party along with retiring and/or dying members like Mccain and Corker.

And finally;

The one true maverick - spaghetti-haired libertarian Rand Paul.

This infighting is absolutely gridlocking Congress, which is a concern for the GOP donor class looking for a return on their investment in the form of tax cuts.

And there’s nothing wealthy GOP megadonors care about more than grifting the poor, so anything that gets in the way of their precious tax cuts is seen as a problem that needs to be eliminated. So the Republican Party fighting amongst itself is another silver lining.

Overall, things are still very, very bad, but I guess what I’m saying is, at least we’re united and more aware of the problems of our institutions than we’ve ever been, and the ruling party is failing to whip itself into shape while an absolute incompetent asshat makes that infinitely harder to achieve with his childish squabbles. So there is reason for hope. Until Trump tweets us into a nuclear holocaust, that is.

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