Apparently, the president* was up early on Wednesday, tweeting out dangerous nonsense. First, he retweeted some noxious sewage from the deputy leader of Britain First, a virulently Islamophobic organization. Then, in the wake of the firing of Matt Lauer by NBC, the president* went after NBC and MSNBC, even alluding to an unfortunate episode in Joe Scarborough’s past that has been grist for conspiratorial speculation for two decades. This was not just the president* running off at the fingertips again. This was an incitement to violence. This was a president* calling out for the destruction of a news organization that has criticized him. This was out-and-out fascism.

The morning’s frenzy has to be seen in the light of what is now a steady drumbeat of stories from inside the White House that, taken together, paint a portrait of a president* completely detached from the reality of his circumstances. In recent days, thanks to White House sources who are plainly terrified, we have learned that the president* still thinks his predecessor may have been born in Kenya, still thinks millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote in 2016, and, strangest of all, that he thinks the infamous Access Hollywood tape may have been faked. This latter business is new and bizarre but, as to birtherism and the hijacking of the ballot, his adherence to those fantastical conspiracies makes him virtually no different from most of the Republicans who voted for him. Which, by the way, is on the people in my business as much as it is on anyone else.

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I have resisted for a long while commenting at length on the president*’s possible mental state, in large part because long-distance psychological speculation always revolted me. (Remember Charles Krauthammer, a trained psychiatrist, speculating about Al Gore’s mental health? I do.) But the fact that these stories are leaking out now is a pretty good indicator that the people in and around this president* are worried about him. From The New York Times:

One senator who listened as the president revived his doubts about Mr. Obama’s birth certificate chuckled on Tuesday as he recalled the conversation. The president, he said, has had a hard time letting go of his claim that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States. The senator asked not to be named to discuss private conversations. Mr. Trump’s journeys into the realm of manufactured facts have been frequent enough that his own staff has sought to nudge friendly lawmakers to ask questions of Mr. Trump in meetings that will steer him toward safer terrain.

“Journeys into the realm of manufactured facts”?

Jesus, take the wheel.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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