Any pretense that the president could be president of the whole country, not just His Base, is long gone. The country was divided before Donald Trump came on the scene. But he kicked off his political career by suggesting the first black president was illegitimate, then announced his campaign by demonizing Mexican immigrants and Muslims, then proceeded to ruthlessly attack anyone who disagreed with him on his demagoguery or anything else. He spread propaganda about black-on-white crime. He has lately recited a kind of blood libel about women and doctors who perform abortions. He has made false claims in public 10,000 times since taking office.

Even as he inherited a strong economy that has continued to strengthen—we're now at the lowest unemployment since 1969—the situation has not changed. While any president gets too much credit for the current state of the economy (rather than attributing it to, say, a vast, interconnected web of global factors beyond his control), a normal president could claim credit and use the healthy state of things to take a step forward on addressing the nation's other problems. But because Trump's entire political identity was founded around displays of performative cruelty and pitting people against each other, the traditional Presidential Behavior of consensus-building is beyond him. With the notable exception of the modest criminal-justice reform bill that passed along bipartisan lines, he has mostly attempted to use force—relentless lying is a way to shape outcomes through force of will—to achieve the goals of his Movement.

So it was particularly tickling to see the Presidential Tweet Machine Feed light up last night with a stirring call for bipartisan cooperation now that Our Long National Nightmare Is Over. (It's not.) In a mini-thread that may or may not have been ghostwritten—in which case there was an homage to presidential punctuation—the guy who calls the free press "the Enemy of the People" even after one of his supporters sent bombs to CNN tried to usher in a new era.

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OK, so after two years of hard work and each party trying their best to make the other party look as bad as possible, it’s time to get back to business. The Mueller Report strongly stated that there was No Collusion with Russia (of course) and, in fact, they were rebuffed..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019

We can't go on here without pointing out a few things. Once again, The Mueller Report did not find there was "No Collusion." As we put it yesterday:

[Collusion] is not a legal term. [The report] assessed there was insufficient evidence to charge members of the Trump campaign with conspiring with the Russian government in its influence operation. This is a narrow assessment with a high threshold, and meanwhile, there were extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians—including when Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort shared internal campaign polling data on key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Michigan with Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate linked to Russian intelligence and Putin crony Oleg Deripaska. This does not need to rise to criminal conspiracy for it to constitute entirely unacceptable—and previously unthinkable—behavior from a United States presidential campaign.

Unfortunately, it's necessary to keep pointing out the same things because the president shoots off many of the same lies over and over.

But there was a new one here as well: Trump and his campaign did not "rebuff" the Russian outreach "at every turn." (He finished the thought in his next tweet.) There were dozens and dozens of contacts! They were passing polling data about key states! We still don't know what longtime Trump political adviser Roger Stone's role was in the Wikileaks distribution of the hacked emails! Trump's doofus son, Junior, was told a Russian lawyer was offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government's efforts to help his dad win and his response was, "If it's what you say, I love it!" Then he and Trump's campaign manager and Trump's son-in-law took the meeting!

Anyway, then it was time to Unify.

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...at every turn in attempts to gain access. But now Republicans and Democrats must come together for the good of the American people. No more costly & time consuming investigations. Lets do Immigration (Border), Infrastructure, much lower drug prices & much more - and do it now! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019

This is all well and good, but the ship has sailed.

Well, maybe not on infrastructure: Democrats seemed willing to work with Trump on a $2 trillion bill this week, though it was essentially dismissed out of hand by Republicans in Congress. But Trump already rejected a bipartisan immigration deal that would have given him funding for The Big Beautiful Wall in exchange for permanent protection for the DREAMers. He rejected it under pressure from the far right, because that is the only constituency he actually feels beholden to. Oh, and Trump has spoken repeatedly about lowering drug prices. It sounds good, but it lacks a little punch when you consider his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, came to the job from pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly—which jacked up the prices of its two insulin drugs by 800 and 1,000 percent. Maybe it's just a coincidence and he's being sincere.

Meanwhile, the Democrats in the House have a constitutional obligation to provide oversight of the Executive Branch as a co-equal branch of government. The "investigations" can't stop because Trump wants Bipartisan Compromise, particularly because there's plenty to look into during The Great American Heist. There are 14 spinoff investigations from The Mueller Report digging into Trump's conduct in private business and public life. Those aren't going away either, though his pet toad of an attorney general, William Barr, will surely do his best.

And at essentially the same time Trump is calling for an end to investigations, his lawyer is publicly calling to investigate Joe Biden:

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https://t.co/FNVj16Hf10 via ⁦@nytimes⁩. Biden conflicts are too apparent to be ignored and should be investigated quickly and expeditiously. But the more important question is how deep and how high did the alleged Ukraine conspiracy go? — Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) May 2, 2019

This matches up with Trump's behavior. When Kamala Harris cross-examined Barr on Wednesday, he was unable to deny that the White House had suggested he launch investigations into people. And then The New York Times reported that Trump has indeed suggested Barr initiate probes of his political opponents.

It is a farce. The most divisive president of the modern era calls for unity without changing his own behavior. We must all come together as I demand investigations of my political opponents, he offers. Democrats must cease exercising their oversight powers outlined in the Constitution...so I can accuse them of crimes and have my pet toad launch criminal probes into them. The president is fundamentally a dishonest broker, above all else. That is not a quality that makes for consensus-building. His biggest legislative achievement—the Tax Bill—was passed in the middle of the night with the least possible transparency, debate, and accountability, because Republicans in Congress are fully on board with his tactics. He cannot lead in the context of actual democracy, and he doesn't intend to. He means to rule by force.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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