So history is trying to make the best of a bad situation and back up. It will be messy. Horns are already blaring.

The outlines of the Trump presidency didn’t take long to reveal themselves. Let’s sketch the outline. Arrogance, incompetence, lying, divisiveness, autocratic proclivities, malevolence and vindictiveness are just a few of the dotted chalk marks on the pavement outlining where the dead body of American democracy will be lying if we proceed any farther down this road. So back up we must, horns notwithstanding.

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It’s not that we didn’t have warnings. The words had been clear, “WRONG EXIT! DO NOT TAKE!” on every sign we passed last year mentioning Trumpville. We saw them and thought we got the message. But then FBI Director James Comey came on the radio at the last minute with that horrible old song about Hillary’s Emails, and it got stuck in our head, and we got distracted, and the rest is regret.

And the warnings were soon enough confirmed. The pavement has potholes the size of a former Soviet socialist republic, with sulfur fires burning around the Steve Bannon building on the right and Kellyanne Conway directing traffic.

We’ve seen more than enough of what this road looks like, and we don’t want to travel the whole route.