You're Out Of Your Depth, Donnie

Yesterday's surreal press availability with Trump, Pelosi and Schumer in the Oval Office was a master class in just what a simpering dumbfuck the President of the United States is.

First, let's enjoy the spectacle of a man whose understanding of Congress never extended beyond Schoolhouse Rock trying to lecture Nancy Freaking Pelosi on counting votes.  No Speaker in my lifetime has been a better vote whip than Nancy Freaking Pelosi.  Mansplaining?  Mansplaining. 

Second, if reports are accurate (and they usually are), Trump left the meeting in a huff, threw his little notecards from his tiny little hands, threatened to call another press conference and then backed down.  I've been saying for years that the modern GOP is a sustained tantrum against the 21st century.  Trump is the Toddler in Chief throwing hissy fits whenever he gets challenged and has to eat his carrots before he gets pudding.

Third, Trump has been attacked at a remove for the past two years.  Protests, the White House Press Corps, talking heads on CNN...all of these have been a little bit removed or buffered by the respect we accord the President as Head of State.  Foreign leaders have not called Trump out on his dumbassedness, because they realize that on some fundamental level, they have to work with him.  Like it or not, they have to find a way to appease the man-baby.  Pelosi and Schumer are under no such obligation.  They have demonstrated what the next two years will be like for Trump.

We know that Trump is a raging narcissist and that narcissists are fundamentally fragile egos who build lies around themselves to hide from the howling wound inside them.  As a "reality TV" star, Trump has never really been exposed to actual reality.  That was the subtext of the Access Hollywood tape, that he can "get away with anything." The Presidency is stripping every layer of lie that bare.  But it is going to get exponentially worse when Democrats get the gavels in January.  This was only a taste of what can be expected. 

Of course, you have the typical display of abject craven surrender from GOP "leaders" in the Congress, so much of this will degenerate into a partisan feud, when it should be seen as an effort to preserve American rule of law and democracy.  (Though it's an open question whether the Republican Party cares about that anymore.)  As Trump accumulates psychic wounds, how will that manifest in actions? 

That's profoundly scary to contemplate.