Full Of Sound And Fury And Signifying Nothing

 There's an interesting idea embedded in this post that a lot of what the Trumpists are doing is just creating the illusion of doing. Apparently Trump signed another one of his Executive Orders to close the Department of Education, but it stands almost zero chance of passing even the most cursory of judicial scrutiny, and even most Republicans in Congress are going to be reluctant to tank that much spending in their home states and districts. The point is not that they are playing twelve-dimensional chess, but that they are basically "playing government on the TeeVee."

These are malevolent people, and the bloated orange carcass at the head of the organizational chart is as malevolent as any of them, but they have energy and he is old and feeble. The minions know though that Trump gets 99% of his information from the TeeVee, because he can't or won't read. He's monumentally uncurious about being accurate, he just wants his prejudices to be comforted. His lack of interest in actual facts makes Dubya Bush look like Archimedes by comparison. His economic "policies" - for instance - are supported by arguments that should not be taken serious as economic arguments. 

If you want to stay in the good graces of the Mad King, then you do stuff on the TeeVee that will look good to him. If NewsMax and Faux say we are eliminating the Department of Education via Executive Order, that THAT'S what important - even more so than actually closing it down. In fact, when the Courts rule that, no, the President cannot eliminate a Congressionally created department, that just gives Trump someone else to fulminate against. 

Richardson lays out the newest babbling nonsense on Faux News about impeaching judges that disagree with Trump. Her point is that Trump's lawyers at the DOJ are basically arguing that Trump is a King who can determine who to deport without a hearing. This contradicts the law. Again, as Bouie described it, this is not unconstitutional, it is anti-constitutional. This is obviously incredibly disturbing on its face, but it's also, ya know, bullshit. Even John Roberts is pushing back in the press, which is a very rare thing for a Chief Justice to do.

However, the argument that Trump is a King is not really intended to be legally correct; it obviously isn't. It will, however, play very well with on Trump's TeeVee, as he gobble down hamburdlers and falls asleep in the blue light of Faux and NewsMax's endless stream of gibbering rage monkeys.

Here's the catch: If this is all for the TeeVee, then we actually aren't in as much danger as we think. Trump's anti-constitutional power grab will fail, because it has all the heft and intellectual power of a 4Chan post. We cannot, however, assume that it will fail. We have to act as if these really are serious people making serious arguments, because if we are wrong about it being just MacBeth's "sound and fury" then we are talking about the end of the United States as we know it.