Kelly Consolidates Power

Another high-level nutcase is out at the White House, a further indication that General Kelly might be able to establish order short of the instability and incompetence of the president himself. This only distracts from the main point, that Republicans have sabotaged and gerrymandered the government out of existence. It exists and it doesn't, being an illegal version of itself and so in some ways worse than whatever the result of an outright coup or overthrow might be.

Then the old ideals would probably be intact and the lines of disagreement would be clear. Now it is all confusion as Republicans market a bogus, illegitimate and ersatz version of Americanism to a susceptible, lazy and less than well-informed public. Failures and shortcomings are inevitable and it's no news to anyone that Americans have never lived up to their ideals or even the terms of their own laws and founding documents. But this is something different.

The ideals themselves are largely gone, lost in a torrent of Republican lies. Kelly's legitimization of Trumpism is the worst thing that can happen, Trump representing not just a challenge but the complete inversion of the American ethos. Democrats are fighting the transgender wars--maybe the final, ignominious battle in their complete defeat, alienating even true believers in the party with the incredible strategic stupidity of the effort. Trump is baiting them along.