All bread, no meat

When I heard that Trump was going on air during prime time to lie about the desperate need for a border wall or fence or whatever, the anticipation was that he would use the manufactured crisis to declare a state of emergency so as to expand his powers to a proper dictatorial level. This was to be his own personal Reichstadt fire.

It’s almost a let-down that he limited himself to fomenting violence against immigrants with salacious and factually inaccurate stories about the horrors of brown people. By normal standards, this is still horrific, but by the super-low standards of Trump’s new normal, it’s nothing. Clearly, the normalization of corruption and incompetence has continued unabated.

On the one hand, his failure to grab power leaves me with much less to write about. On the other, democracy gets another reprieve. So, on the whole, it’s something of a wash. Stll, instead of something meaty to chew on, all we have are crumbs.

One crumb: Occasio-Cortez appeared on Maddow, sharply contrasting her populist, anti-intellectual approach to politics with the host’s detail-oriented wonkishness. I wasn’t impressed by her performance, and I get the impression that this is true for Maddow as well. AOC is what you get when a low-information voter becomes a politician.

Another crumb: The ongoing revelations about Manafort’s treasonous interaction with Russia — this time, it’s about sharing polling data — combined with the announcement that Rosenstein is leaving soon both point to the Mueller investigation coming to a close. The real story is in the impact of his conclusions, and the worst thing that could happen is nothing.

So, in conclusion, it was a crumby day.