No sooner did I speculate that trump was paving his merry way to a dictatorship than he went all the way and beat the time I said it would take to achieve this nefarious record. Now it is just a matter of days until pusillanimous rationalizations turn into portentous realizations. The folk who need to realize are the GOP leaders. They must see the writing on the wall. They must take action immediately.

I said Trump would be gone by the end of October. We cannot wait that long.

Setting the scene

Arpaio is the 86 year old sheriff Trump pardoned just last night. He was convicted of violating the Constitution and trampling the rights of American citizens.

A presidential pardon of this magnitude opens a Pandora's box. From now on any law officer who commits crimes against Americans can act with impunity. But the scene is much worse.

1 big thing: The message behind the pardon https://t.co/VZrKcAUm9D #axiosam — Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) August 26, 2017

We are in the hands of an expert dissembler named Donald Trump, a man of many faces. Actions tell, however. Trump's actions have been mainline cruel, excluding and contrary to the spirit and letter of our Constitution and its Bill of Rights. His positions on health and environment and protection from disease defy elementary decency.

The plot thickens

In the last week, we have seen both Bannon and Gorka removed from the White House.

This has all the appearance of a shift to the center by Trump. Do not believe it for a nanosecond. This is a sign of war. The war is between Trump and Mueller. The issue is the president's actual deeds over time. The battle is between Trump's shrinking base and the majority of Americans who are bored sick by being jerked around by a tin-pot narcissist with dictatorial leanings.

A trail of lies

Trump has lied his way to where he is and now he is in the battle of his life and it is presently at its climactic moment. If it turns out to be a yawn, then we will have lost the battle against dictatorship. Trump will be beyond the law. It will remain to continue the fight knowing that we have had two betrayers, Trump, and the GOP that lacked the spine to stand up to him when he insulted the very foundation of our democracy.

We shall overcome

We are going to overcome. We will do it as the first democracy to have seen democracy destroyed and then revived by the majority of Americans who have finally exercised and won the legal right to have leadership that is committed to democracy, justice and an American way that looks forward, not back.

The battle now will move to the mano y mano between Trump and Mueller