Krugman: Trump Makes Caligula Look Pretty Good
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/trump-caligula-republican-congress.html
Even before the media obsession with Hillary Clintons email server put The Worst President Ever in the White House, historians were comparing Donald Trump to Caligula, the cruel, depraved Roman emperor who delighted in humiliating others, especially members of the empires elite. But seven months into the Trump administration, we can see that this comparison was unfair.
For one thing, Caligula did not, as far as we know, foment ethnic violence within the empire. For another, again as far as we know, Romes government continued to function reasonably well despite his antics: Provincial governors continued to maintain order, the army continued to defend the borders, there were no economic crises.
Finally, when his behavior became truly intolerable, Romes elite did what the party now controlling Congress seems unable even to contemplate: It found a way to get rid of him.
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For heres the situation: Everyone in Washington now knows that we have a president who never meant it when he swore to defend the Constitution. He violates that oath just about every day and is never going to get any better.
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The fact is that white supremacists have long been a key if unacknowledged part of the G.O.P. coalition, and Republicans need those votes to win general elections. Given the profiles in cowardice theyve presented so far, its hard to imagine anything up to and including evidence of collusion with a foreign power that would make them risk losing those voters support.
So the odds are that were stuck with a malevolent, incompetent president whom nobody knowledgeable respects, and many consider illegitimate. If so, we have to hope that our country somehow stumbles through the next year and a half without catastrophe, and that the midterm elections transform the political calculus and make the Constitution great again.
If that doesnt happen, all one can say is God save America. Because all indications are that the Republicans wont.