He was a joke candidate who didn’t know enough to answer anything intelligently or without insults in the Republican debates. Yet onward he trod.

He was a buffoon who everyone knew could never actually win the GOP nomination, as the party elites were all arrayed solidly against him. Yet onward he trod.

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He was a conflict-ridden charlatan who could never live down his past behavior and statements in the harsh light of the general-election campaign. Yet onward he trod.

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He was a dangerous maniac who could not possibly win the presidency, as every poll showed, right up until election night itself, where he actually did lose, by some 2.8 million votes, yet somehow there he stood, president-elect. And onward he trod.

And then? And then did he act like president of all Americans, as he promised on alternate days during the campaign? No, he has doubled and tripled down on far-right personnel to fill his administration. He has now so blurred the lines of conflict that no one can even discuss them intelligently anymore. He has cozied up to Vlad the Impaler Putin of all people, because he believes that it doesn’t matter what they say about you as long as you have a nice piece of assassin on your arm.

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So, will Trump complete his first term? All we know is this: That the Republican Party caved in to him across the board, that the anti-Trump voting public came up short against him, that the opposition party is flat on its back in minority status in Congress, that we will soon have a Trump Supreme Court and that Trump is flexing his authoritarianism blatantly and unashamedly.

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Oh, and what’s left of serious journalism is flailing and swatting at the growing swarms of fake facts, and flummoxed by the legions of people all too ready to believe them. And all this before the Trump presidency’s propaganda and media-intimidation apparatus is in place and deployed.

So the more relevant question is: What will Trump’s third term look like?