The Craziness That Keeps on Giving

Donald Trump undoubtedly is the crazy who just keeps on giving - as his latest lunatic ramblings confirm.  This time he's claiming that the triumphal arch he wants to erect in his own honour in Washington DC will actually be some kind of military defence installation, housing drones, sniper positions and lots of sniper ammunition.  The obvious question, obviously, is just who or what this installation is meant to be defending DC against?  Is Trump expecting Canada to invade some time soon?  (Actually, with so much of the US military tied up in his vanity war in Iran, that might not be a bad idea - Mark Carney really needs to give the idea of seizing the US Eastern seaboard serious consideration).  Or maybe he's expecting an attack from further afield - perhaps he's somehow pissed off some aliens who are now poised to land their flying saucers in DC.  But, in truth, we all know what this is really about: let's face it, snipers and drones aren't going to repel any kind of invading army, but they could be deployed against large scale civilian protests.  And that's what Trump is afraid of - a popular uprising against him.  Probably when he refuses to leave office in 2028.  This time, of course, it wouldn't be a case of refusing to accept an election result, as he can't stand again, but of refusing to accept the Constitution.  Which he already has form for.

Sure, we also know that this nonsense about drones and snipers is pure fantasy - at best, another spurious attempt to justify the expense of building that monstrous edifice to his vanity - but it provides a valuable insight into the workings of his fevered mind.  He's running scared - the end of his presidency and the power and protection it gives him is in sight, with the likelihood that Congress will soon be controlled by his opponents even sooner. All of which makes him far more dangerous, more likely to start not just saying, but actually doing, even crazier stuff than he already is.  Let's face it, he's just itching to declare a state of emergency within the US and impose martial law and by all accounts is obsessed with the idea of deploying a nuclear against one of the US' enemies, (with Iran being the most likely target right now).  The recent poll which suggests that the majority of Americans would support his removal from office via either impeachment or the 25th Amendment, (they were slightly less keen on a military coup but pretty ambivalent about him dying in office of natural causes), probably isn't going to help Trump's mindset much, either.  (Interestingly, despite the number of alleged attempts against him, assassination wasn't an option, so we just don't know how Americans feel about the idea of a modern day Lee Harvey Oswald offing the fat bastard).  Heartening though it is to see US citizens finally grasping what the rest of us have known for years - that they have elected a dangerous madman to the highest office in the land - the trouble with all of these scenarios (including assassination), barring, possibly, the military coup - is that they would simply deliver a J D Vance presidency.  Which isn't necessarily an improvement - at least with Trump you know he's simply a demented and dangerous old man, but a snide, two-faced, slippery God-botherer like Vance is a potentially far more difficult prospect to deal with.