Are we having fun yet?

     

The Apple store in Northbrook, which recently closed.

     So last week the president announces these insane tariffs. Which he immediately rescinds — no, puts on a 90-day hold. Before announcing other, equally insane, economy-killing tariffs on China, the source of most of our electronics, particularly iPhones. Which he also immediately scraps — well, makes exceptions for the phones and electronics.

     Which I guess is a relief. Reversing folly is good. The tanking stock market clawed back some of its losses. Though we're still in a situation of total uncertainty, and nobody wants to build a factory or invest when the market can be — will be, judging from the recent past — whipsawed again and again by the whims of an idiot. 

     This almost prompts me to wonder why anybody cares at all what he says or does, given how little weight those pronouncements and decisions carry? The man is a chronic, habitual liar. We can't we accept it, assume it? Should we not have reached that point a long time ago?

     But that too is an illusion, the belief that nothing is significant, nothing true. Mistakes are not being reversed. Real damage is being inflicted — lasting damage, to decades-old relationships, to the American reputation as a world leader. We're becoming a pariah nation, half-feared, half ridiculed. And even "becoming" is optimistic. We're there, right now, our closest allies talking among themselves about how to best carry on without us.
     Every 20th of the month is another anniversary of his administration. A week from today it will be three months. A quarter of a year. One-sixteenth of his second administration, assuming he doesn't maneuver himself into a third, which, like most suppositions that a particular tradition will somehow endure, is no longer a safe assumption. Fifteen-sixteenths left to go. A very long time. As a certain program says: one day at a time.