Turns out I was wrong all this time. Contrary to what I’d thought (and yeah, haven’t read it yet, though it’s on my ever-expanding list) Sinclair Lewis didn’t coin the phrase “when fascism comes to the US it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” But it’s hard to watch the latest bit of performance art in Nashville and not think, damn…this is deeply disturbing.

Gratuitous cruelty is official policy. Puerto Rico was abandoned last year, even as Trump flat out lied in bragging about his response to the two storms that devastated the island. Ever more contorted excuses are, what– tested/focus grouped?– by Ghouliani and others as they no longer bother to deny felonies like collusion with a foreign government or obstruction of justice but instead rehash the old Nixon defense of “if the president does it, it’s not illegal” (notwithstanding that collusion occurred before he “won” the election).

And that Trump spent a decade or more as a full service laundromat for mobbed-up Russian cash…not to mention having a personal life that evangelicals would condemn if they weren’t so eager to give him a mulligan…is little more than gossip column fodder. Michelle Wolf got that one spot-on. They just can’t quit him.

But we’ve got to. Trump might be a joke, but the direction he’s taking the country isn’t. It’s a race to the bottom that doesn’t end well at all.