A Point Most Obvious (Far More Serious)

#resist | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Steve Benen brings the Monday morning update―

The fact that Donald Trump relied on a foreign agent as a top campaign adviser—and a trusted member of his inner circle—during the presidential campaign looks bad. Not necessarily stop-the-presses bad, but the fact that the Republican was paying Michael Flynn while Flynn was also paid by Turkey is a tough controversy to simply explain away.

What’s becoming a far more serious story is Team Trump lying about all of this now.

―and perhaps a sense of fatigue we feel should not be ignored.

It is true, every day is a shitshow in #DimensionTrump, and this harrowing, made for television, one-star farce is exactly #WhatTheyVotedFor. There is a legitimate concern about normalization, but we also ought to guard against wringing our hands in fraught amazement; yes, they really are doing this.

When it seems deliberate, it probably is, but figuring what this seeming slapstick is for presents a challenge entirely its own. As long as we measure according to conventional norms, precisely nothing will make sense. But the idea that they’re trying to wreck the place generally works, except for the nasty question about why. Pretty much anything purporting to fill in that blank will be sensational, bizarre, and about as possible as the next speculation.

One way or another, though, it would seem to fit the argument that government doesn’t work, an infamous thesis we might reasonably suspect Republicans actually intend to prove, and in the end, the enemy of their enemy is not necessarily their friend―but, you know, if that ends up being how it turns out, well, government just doesn’t work and, see? they told you so.

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Image notes: Top ― Retired Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump's incoming National Security Adviser, listens during the presidential inaugural Chairman's Global Dinner, Tuesday, 17 January 2017, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo) Right ― Donald Trump speaks at a fundraiser for veterans organizations, 28 January 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. (Detail of photo by Mark Peterson/Redux for msnbc)

Benen, Steve. “White House’s claims about Flynn are falling apart under scrutiny” msnbc. 13 March 2017.