Jennifer Rubin said something similar in the Washington Post: "En masse, most Republicans — including those at some premier publications (which are now unreadable to all but the Trump cultists) — declared willingness to defend ignorance, bigotry, dishonesty and ineptitude on the chance that they’d get a top marginal tax rate of 28 percent. "

Naked greed is a powerful motivator, but I am reluctant to oversimplify. I think establishment Republicans also desire power and its perquisites, as much as they can obtain of it. Which would suggest that two remaining GOP principles have in fact survived the bonfire that was the Trump campaign.
The millions who voted for him were told (repeatedly) at the time that they were suckers and bigots. It's not an easy thing to stand up and say, "You were right, I am a sucker." Nobody wants to be that person.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board composed this piece entitled, "The Dishonest President. I think it is a brilliant profile of the first days of the Trump presidency. Here's an excerpt:

“What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.” – The L.A. Times Editorial Board

I just want to reiterate what I said a long time ago, in the Trump Watch thread: It looks like he is on the road to impeachment. Listen to Roger. We're not on the road to a fascist state. Not hardly. People panicked when Nixon was in, they panicked when Reagan was in, and they're panicking now, but Nixon and Reagan were polished politicians, whereas Trump is a business man - the paradigm bull in the china shop, to reluctantly use a cliche. The country is strong enough to survive the machinations of a macho, soccer-coach-style billionaire playboy in the White House. It has come through far more trying times than what we see at present.

*Putting on prophet hat (taking off the tinfoil one for the time-being)*

In 2021, DT will still be orange, though the grey roots will be greyer, and the lines in his face will be deeper. He'll write a book (with a ghost writer, naturally) about what it was like to be POTUS, and become even richer. He'll get another TV show, but by 2025 it will be cancelled, due to pressure from President Baldwin.

The most incredible thing about the whole mess is that it is forcing Trump to keep engaging with various subsets of people in a way that he has been able to avoid so far and as he does so it becomes more and more apparent that there is not a completely formed person hiding behind the schtick. He really is a small minded idiot deeply fascinated by his own reflection and little else. Like for real. Not "I just don't like him so I call him an idiot" but a for reals mindless thug is in charge of a nuclear super power. I think in the editorials that are popping up everywhere, that shoe is finally dropping for some who thought maybe behind the groping schmuck was something viable. But....no. At least some of the most vile subsets of American politics have tied themselves to this anvil as it is edged closer and closer to the precipice of bat shit crazy. Just read that Economist interview. Prime the pump. Awesome.

Thanks, Jim, for posting that link to the LA Times series of editorials. Powerful stuff.

I hope nobody overlooked this part:

Thanks, Andrew, for the Economist interview. Here is an excerpt, with Trump speaking first:

"you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

Yes.
We have to prime the pump.

It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?

Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do."

To be fair, I don't think Donald Trump is an idiot. I didn't think George W. Bush was an idiot. I think Trump combines an ignorance, laziness, and narcissism that make George W. look stakhanovite, with a rare gift for unfiltered speech. And that leads to astonishing moments like the one above. He becomes hard to take seriously, or put another way, easy to underestimate. People have done so before.
One Trump topos is the powerful people who keep coming to his throne for approval. We heard from Trump how Comey did so, here it is heads of state like Trudeau. These are the rules of Trumpworld, and what a sad world it is.

Update. Here is the latest NYT headline: "‘Looking Like a Liar or a Fool’: What It Means to Work for Trump"

Of course not, but he's no genius either, like Lenin or Mao. Let us be thankful for that.

Monty Python: "And there was much rejoicing..."

Outrage is what liberals do, Richard. It's the same over here. Right now it's all they do. And it's likely that scenario will continue until... oh I don't know. Until the death of grass.

There was a chap called Mr Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells on a comedy show just after the War. He did outrage. But he was on the right. I don't know what that means.