Robinson: Trump administration’s dysfunction the new normal

Imagine the reaction had President Obama fired Comey as the FBI investigated Hillary Clinton. Articles of impeachment would have been drawn up within hours.

For Democrats and others who opposed Trump’s candidacy, there is no solace to be taken in campaign promises that sounded vaguely progressive. In early rallies, Trump flirted with the idea of universal health care, which eventually morphed into a pledge of health insurance “for everybody.” But he threw his full support behind the House attempt to snatch insurance away from at least 24 million people and cut Medicaid by some $800 billion. His budget director recently mused that diabetics are to blame for their own pre-existing condition.

The most significant single accomplishment of the administration — putting Justice Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court — is not anything progressives are likely to celebrate. And Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is trying to reverse the progress the Obama administration made on ending mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses.

There is no silver lining that I can discern. There is no realistic hope of sudden salvation.

We are where we are

Thinking some transgression or another will eventually prove to be a tipping point for Republicans is logical but not realistic. The see-no-evil GOP response to the Comey firing is instructive. Trump said during the campaign that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose popular support. For House Republicans to impeach him, presumably there would have to be multiple victims.

There are those who entertain the fantasy that Trump will get bored or frustrated and eventually resign. But he’s already bored and frustrated with the drudgery of governing, and he has developed coping mechanisms — he stages campaign-style rallies, chews out his hapless staff, vents on Twitter. When he invited House members to the White House to celebrate that awful health care bill, he interrupted his speech to say, “Hey, I’m president! Can you believe it, right?” He’s not going to voluntarily give that up.

If news reports are correct, he is mulling a substantial shake-up of his White House staff. But no communications team is going to look good while having to defend the crazy, indefensible things Trump regularly says. No chief of staff can institute orderly processes if Trump is going to ignore them and fly by the seat of his pants.

We are where we are. Democrats need to flip one or both houses of Congress next year to slow this runaway train. It won’t stop itself.