Thursday's decision by Jim Mattis to leave the stifling, rapidly collapsing confines of Donald Trump’s insane clown posse administration was always inevitable, but that hardly makes the psychological impact of his departure any less traumatic.

In a week with an endless series of body blows to Trump, this one is going to leave a mark. Even with a crashing stock market, the Mueller investigation closing in on Trump’s allies with brutal, inexorable efficiency, his family “charity” exposed as a particularly slimy slush fund, a looming government shutdown, and his failure to deliver his infamous wall to his marks, the Mattis resignation is the Quivering Palm Death Touch.

His extraordinary departure in protest of Trump’s policies and personality is absolutely unprecedented. Mattis naturally objects to the reckless Syria pullout plan, but also to the president’s wholesale abandonment of our traditional allies who have made not only the U.S. but the world safer. As I write this, Washington and the world are reeling, and in deep shock. Even usually Trump-compliant Stockholm Syndrome Republicans in the House and Senate are issuing statements bordering on panic, all while the Trump noise machine warms up to attack Mattis as a Soros shill, a closeted liberal, and a traitor to the Maximum Leader.

Jim Mattis was a talisman for the Washington and international foreign-policy communities, a point of smarts and stability, a ground-wire to short out Trump’s capricious impulses before they could damage America’s interests and values. While never straying from the chain of command, Mattis knew how to work the process, fight back behind closed doors, and maintain relationships with allies and friends around the world.

Even the Trump White House, a hive of the most morally vacant and cowardly bootlicks ever assembled, found themselves relying on Mattis, even if they never trusted him. If Trump ever realizes how much his own White House staff counted on the Marine general turned SECDEF to control his impulsive defense and foreign-policy decisions, he’ll have a Twitter stroke.

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