Trump is not normal. Nothing he does is normal. Yesterday at a campaign rally, he boasted that he could be the most presidential president since Lincoln. That is, if he wanted to. He likes to compare himself to Lincoln.
E.J. Dionne warns that we are headed into unchartered territory, and the norms of government are collapsing.
Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes. Trump’s ignorant, self-involved contempt for his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” ought to inspire patriots of every ideological disposition to a robust and fearless defiance.
But where are the leaders of the Republican Party in the face of the dangers Trump poses? They’re trying to sneak through a health-care bill by violating every reasonable standard citizens should impose on public servants dealing with legislation that affects more than one-sixth of our economy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan have little time for worrying about the Constitution because they are busy doing Trump’s bidding on health care.
The joke is that Trump doesn’t know what is in the health care bill, not any of them. It would be great if he held a town hall and answered questions about the bill he wants to see, because he couldn’t explain the details. All he can do is rant about Obamacare. He leaves the policy stuff to others.
Trump is not normal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Might the explanation be something like this?
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Saying that Trump is not normal is actually a compliment. There are many people that are not normal who are great people. Einstein wasn’t normal. Gandi wasn’t normal.
The Kremlin’s Agent Orance is much worse than not normal.
He is a criminal.
He is a traitor.
He is toxic.
He is terminal cancer.
He is more dangerous than the Marburg virus.
He is a hemorrhagic fever virus.
He is an advocate and supporter of global warming and life threatening pollution and poisons that could lead to the end of life on Earth as we know it including our own species.
He could set off a nuclear World War III killing billions and accelerating global warming 100x faster than the current pace.
Even the billionaire oligarchs, the Koch brothers, the Walton family, Bill Gates, Suckerberg, etc., should fear Trump because even they and their families can only survive for a little bit longer in their deep shelters after the rest of us are gone and the oceans have risen more than a 100 feet or more above today’s sea level.
In fact, Trump, with help from the GOP, is moving so fast that the oligarchs won’t even have time to build a livable space station or colony on another planet and flee.
And the majority of the GOP is supporting this insanity by not stopping the #FakePresident making them all accessories to his crimes against all of humanity.
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And the majority of the GOP is supporting this insanity by not stopping the #FakePresident making them all accessories to his crimes against all of humanity.
Yes. Collective silence by a majority in the GOP and twits who are cheering on the mad man are not just a threat to the USA.
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Everyone that supports #FakePresident Donald Trump is a traitor to the United States Republic and the Constitution that guides that republic to keep the people safe from their own government.
It’s guilt by association, and ignorance is not an excuse.
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“Campaign” rally???
Sent from my iPhone
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The U.S. was never a democracy. Nearly every one of the Framers of the Constitution hated or distrusted democracy, so they wrote a document solidifying the rule of wealthy white men, with supposed “checks and balances” that make it extremely difficult to amend it; that deprived women, poor people, and slaves of the right to vote; that made it impossible to have federal recall elections; and that provided for direct election only of members of the House, while the racist Electoral College actually elects the President and Senators were not popularly elected until 1913.
The U.S. has been an oligarchy from the start, and it is now worse than it was just after the Gilded Age and before the Crash of 1929, with corporations running the government and the Deep State directing all policies, foreign and domestic, for their own greedy, selfish interests.
Delusions about “democracy” and “American exceptionalism” only serve to keep us ignorant and divided against ourselves while the oligarchs laugh all the way to their Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts as the planet gets hotter.
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Ed,
Some of what you say is correct, but you are also wrong. The United States is a Constitutional Republic. The U.S. was never a democracy and it was never meant to become an oligarchy.
The Constitution and the division of powers between the three branches of the federal government were designed to protect the people, if the Constitution was strictly followed, and then the billionaires known as oligarchs would not be able to rule the country and/or wield the influence they have today.
Two recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court made it possible for the billionaire oligarchs to gain more power but they do not have total power yet. They are closer to total power over the U.S. than the age of the Robber Barrons but they don’t have it all yet.
That means, the pendulum can swing the other way and take some of the power the oligarchs have bought with their great wealth in recent years, and shift that power back to the three branches of the federal government and the U.S. Constitution – a system that was designed to keep a balance between the people and the oligarchs so one could never control all.
Since the pendulum has done this before, it can do it again. The last time the pendulum swung away from the oligarchs was when Teddy Roosevelt was president. When Nixon became president, it started to swing back to favor the billionaires. Reagan did all he could to keep it swinging further in that direction and every president since, even Obama.
Trump is so insane, incompetent, ignorant, corrupt, and outrageous, it’s possible that without intending to do it, he will cause the people to start electing representatives that will send the pendulum back toward them.
As long as the Koch brother and ALEC don’t get the Constitutional Convention they want, there is always a chance this will happen sooner or later.
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This Administration is causing the Norms of Government to have to run down to Cheers for a few stiff drinks.
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