In the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar recounts a dream of a “tree of great height in the midst of the earth.” The tree is so vast that it stretches all the way up to heaven. It is full of fruit.

Beneath it the beasts of the field found shade

And the birds of the sky dwelt on its branches;

All creatures fed on it.

But then a “holy Watcher”—an angelic messenger of God, the “Most High”—tells the dreaming king to strip the branches and chop down the tree, leaving only its stump, scattering its fruit and all the beasts that dwell in its shade, after which the king himself will be

drenched with the dew of heaven,

And share earth’s verdure with the beasts.

Let his mind be altered from that of a man,

And let him be given the mind of a beast[.]

What, the king asks Daniel, does it all mean?

Well, Daniel tells him, it means you’re going to go nuts for seven years and think that you’re a cow. Which is precisely what happens.

Donald Trump has not yet gone out to graze on the South Lawn, so far as we know, but there is nevertheless a vague sense, already, that the administration, which at first terrified us with the dictatorial swiftness of its mean, vindictive travel ban, is out to pasture. That Trump hasn’t so far succeeded in doing very much with his presidency beyond reviving the heretofore flagging fortunes of the perennial unfunny but utterly unkillable Saturday Night Live is a comfort, but the comfort is somewhat tempered by the fact that the guy appears to be quite mad.