The history of these days will certainly speak to the cult; how easily they were gaslit; how they rallied around petty grievance; how they railed against their own interests; how they suppressed reasoned thought; how they succumbed - in so many ways - to a flawed and obvious con. History will also certainly speak to the enablers, some of whom pursued proximity to power, some of whom were seduced by opportunistic grift, some of whom caved and capitulated out of misplaced fear, and all of whom pursued personal gain above a greater collective good. But it remains to be seen whether history ever speaks to the true unforeseen disaster of these days, one which I shake my head at continually, which is the shameless, consistent, and widespread normalization of a madman.

Good morning. The air is fresh. My dog is a good boy. I've lost count as to how often Trump has embarrassed the United States. The fact that he is surrounded by sycophants who only admit that embarrassment privately, makes it a little worse. The fact that millions of Americans see reality as concocted through Trump's skewed pathologies, and don't feel or suppress the embarrassment, makes it worse still, and is a major reason why the America Experiment finds itself in its current predicament. Yesterday, we saw an old and abnormal man who is an unserious leader showing deference to a serious one, a rival. The pageantry was high; the substance was low. The old and abnormal man was dominated by his pathologically unquenchable thirst for respect and legitimacy. He'd like it through merit, but it will never be. His unserious and abnormal way of legitimizing himself yesterday was to share his partisan humor in the photo insulting Biden, his pseudo-bravery in his photo from Butler, and his prowess in naming things like turning AI into SI. The serious rival nodded and smiled and played along, recognizing the absurdity. Trump regaled the serious rival with a Who's Who of dignitaries and magnates. Was he inferring that he was the epicenter of money, technology, and the future? Perhaps, but his real inference was "look at all the important people who come when called because they like me and respect me." This was about everything BUT the future. This was a dying narcissist sucking up energy, fantasizing about legacy, oblivious to any and all considerations that doesn't directly and daily dominate his impulses and cravings. My late grandmother would wave her arm in disgust and say: "Oy!" "Oy" indeed.

When I think about MAGA, I think mostly about its dwindling numbers, and when I wonder about those that are still hardcore supporters, I don't ask myself how they can vote for him. Because more often than not, the answer is that they have been fearmongered and fallen for the demonization of the Left. What I wonder about instead, are three things: How can they think he is competent? How can they think he's honest? How can they think he cares about them? And here's what I have concluded, which is sad: Many of them DON'T think he's competent, or honest, or that he cares about them. But they've gotten sucked into the negative, the dopamine, and the imitating of his pathology. And that's now they're world view, and they're stuck. They're afraid that if they give that up, they're either admitting fault they cannot bear to admit (much like him), or they're afraid of being directionless, with nothing left.