It seems the Trumpanzees are divided into three camps at the moment. Beware them all. [View all]

[DFW]

Those who fear he might be losing it and those who fear he has already lost it altogether. There is already the dwindling, but solid faction that is convinced that Trump can say no wrong, even if he starts speaking exclusively in Navajo.

This is as opposed to us, who were pretty sure he never had it to begin with.

It is sort of a less drastic scenario than what appears to be going on right now in North Korea. Keep your loyalty to a man who might be a vegetable for the rest of his life (however long that might be), and risk getting killed by his successor, or risk tossing your loyalty in with his successor, only to be killed when he wakes up.

If Trump continues deteriorating mentally at the pace he is now, the Republicans will find they are NOT in the same place they were at in 2008. Well before 2008, it was clear that the next president would be a Democrat, so the Republicans quietly made plans to sabotage the upcoming Democratic presidency with Citizens United, which was ready to go even before Obama's inauguration.

I am convinced that before the Corona Crisis, the Republicans figured there was enough electoral fraud in place to give Trump a second term, no matter how poorly he fared in the popular vote. After all, if they could pull it off after losing the popular vote by three million, they had their strategy down. Locked and loaded. They had their majority on the Supreme Court ready to come down on their side in case it came to that. Roberts may have thrown the country the occasional bone on a social issue or two, but he isn't about to rock the very boat that made him Chief Justice in the first place.

But two chinks have appeared in the previously impregnable armor of the Republican electoral Goliath. First is Trump's fading ability to convince his own fanatics that he can do and say no wrong. If people drink Clorox because he says it's a good idea, they don't get eight months to disassociate themselves from the harmful effects. They are immediate, and if the family breadwinner suddenly dies in front of you four minutes after doing what Trump recommended, it's enough for a big headline nationally.

Which brings me to chink number two: Fox "News." Remember during the Vietnam war, when LBJ said, "if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America?" Fox does its level best 24/7 to convince the country that Republicans can do no wrong, and Democrats can do no right. Just like during the Soviet era, the daily newspaper "Pravda" displayed on page one every day "Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR." Fox "News" is an organ of the Republican Party. Not the figureheads, but the background people who profit immensely when government decisions go their way. These are the people who were sitting pretty in January when the Dow was peaking, and the statistics they were presenting to their shareholders justified their immense compensation.

Well, now, the Dow has suffered a serious double digit drop, and unemployment, which was proudly claimed to be under 5%, is now at five times that. Depression era levels. The budget deficit, already through the roof, is heading for the next planet. Currency devaluation, the screen behind which countries like Italy and Greece used to hide before the Euro, is not really an option. We can't devalue the dollar against the dollar, although we could theoretically devalue against a newly adopted gold standard. But the price of gold would then jump to $5000 or $10,000 and ounce, and people would be held up at gunpoint for their wedding rings.

Fox USED to be a deficit hawk. They are slowly allowing not just criticism of Trump, but serious trashing of him (better late than never, I hear from the ranks). This is his last bastion. If Sean Insanity finally admits on the air his pal is ripe for the loony bin, then Trump will have his Cronkite moment, even if he has no clue who Walter Cronkite was. Trump wouldn't care about losing Middle America, of course. He would only care about whether or not he would soon be liable for prosecution.

So, the biggest political spectator sport, now that Joe Biden is our candidate, is watching how far Trump's antics have to go off the deep end before the powers (both foreign and domestic, as the saying goes) that support him pull the plug.

Again, this is not 2008. Six weeks ago, no Republican mover and/or shaker envisioned this scenario. In 2006, they knew a Democrat was going to be inaugurated in 2009. This time, their timetable is all upset. Panic time in Republicanland. Like wounded jackals, they won't give up easily, and will be meaner than ever, but I think deep down, more of them than ever know that they go down in November if things don't reverse dramatically and quickly (they won't).

As for us Democrats, I recommend taking a page from their book, for once. Strike at every weakness, because they are now at their most dangerous. They will be back to spread their poison every opportunity they get from here on in. Watch for it. It's coming.