Bone Chilling

I really want you to read Jon Chait's summation of the reporting on the John Bolton hire.  Go past the fear that Bolton has justifiably instilled in the foreign policy community (on both sides of the aisle).  Go into Trump's relationship with HR McMaster.  McMaster was one of the few appointments that Trump made that impressed me.  It came, you might recall, after the Michael Flynn fiasco, when Trump probably had to listen to some grown ups who advocated a sterling military figure with a top-notch intellect.

McMaster was almost immediately a square peg in the White House's assortment of holes.  He was organized, thoughtful, disciplined and a realist.  He spoke in paragraphs rather than sound bites.  He expected the president* to take both their jobs seriously.  Trump responded to the "boring" national security briefings by avoiding McMaster the way my students avoid me when they have to make up a test.

Perhaps the scariest nugget is that the only thing that prevented Trump from making this move earlier was his disdain for Bolton's moustache.

Let's let that sink in for a moment.  John Bolton is an unapologetic war-monger.  He refuses to admit mistakes, like the Iraq debacle.  He bullies subordinates.  Even Republicans hate and fear him.

But Trump just didn't like the moustache.

Bolton represents the series of decisions that manifests a frightening turn in the Trump Adminstration.  To this point, Trump has largely been shackled by his own incompetence and the "moderating" influence - however weak - of figures like Cohn, McMaster, Tillerson and even Kelly.  Three of those four are gone and the fourth won't last to Memorial Day.  Instead, as the Mueller probe gets closer to Trump Tower, as the weather gets Stormy, as the poll numbers sink, as the special elections go against the GOP, Trump will do what Trump does best: distract and change the subject.

What could change the subject more than a war?  All Bolton would have to do is point to George W. Bush's declining approval ratings from December 2001 to March 2003.  Once we invaded Iraq, Bush got a "war bounce."  However, Trump is very unlikely to get a "war bounce" because most people really, truly hate and fear him.  There is no 9/11 to galvanize national opinion. The bloody lessons of Iraq are still very near to memory.  Leading a divided nation into war is a truly bad idea, and we are nothing if not divided.

At the moment, the best hope for America would be for Congress to repeal the AUMF.  I bet we could get it rescinded in the Senate pretty easily.  Paul and McCain would probably vote to repeal.  The House, as always, is trickier.  Congress has ceded so much of its war powers to the Presidency, that it will be hard to claw them back.  They have to try.

Because the Republicans in the White House just gave the keys to the drones and the tanks and the aircraft carriers and the lives of thousands of soldiers to John Fucking Bolton, and the only person left to restrain him is a Marine nicknamed "Mad Dog."

We haven't reached the bottom yet, folks.  That's maybe the scariest thing of all.