Dec. 21 Open Thread: Trump Collapse Approaches Exit Velocity

Look, I didn’t say Trump’s collapse would be pleasant. I just said it was coming, and now it’s here.

Remember that story a year or two ago about the broken sewer main out in Christiana, a 7-foot-diameter pipe completely full of shit? That’s roughly how much of Trump’s output hit the fan yesterday — and yes, I’m comparing Trump to a 7-foot sewer pipe full of shit.

Yesterday proved that, of all the Donald Trumps in the world, this one is the Donald Trumpiest. First was goaded into shutting down the government by those two avatars of responsibility, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. His Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, the last remaining adult in the cabinet, quit in protest of Trump’s announced troop withdrawal from Syria and trashed Marmalade Mussolini on the way out the door. Even the Wall Street Journal, surveying the wreckage of another 500-point drop in the Dow and fearing a looming recession, praised him for wrecking the budget and the environment but says now Trump has gone too far.

Of all these calamities, Mattis’ resignation is the most serious. While the press has spent two years hyperventilating about Trump’s every tweet, people plugged into the global defense network have realized that responsible people like Mattis and the departed H.R. McMaster were around to keep Trump’s ignorance from doing real damage, so they didn’t panic. They’re panicking now.

The “responsible people” are filling the ears of senators and staff people with cries of alarm. That adds to the pressure on GOPers to do something to stop the unfolding disaster. Remember, most of these senators support Trump not because they want to, but because they have to, and the government shutdown, another needless Trump thumb in their eye, underscores the fact that he’s doing them as much harm as good. Every day Trump flails away gives them more reason to distance themselves as much as possible — and eventually they’ll only be able to get him far enough away by removing him from office.