Here is a brief and far from exhaustive list of excuses for, minimizations of, and attempts to change the subject from the abuses and misbehavior of the Trump administration that should be retired.
This isn’t one random thing after another—it is a consistent pattern of predictable behavior from a man who already has tried once to stage a coup d’état.
Trump is the toddler in the backseat of the Family Truckster who, when told not to touch his brother, holds an index finger an angstrom away from his sibling’s forehead while bleating, “I’m not touching you!” All of us—and Trump’s apologists most of all—know exactly what Trump is doing: He is seeing what he can get away with. He believes that his supporters and sycophants will accept virtually any degree of misbehavior from him—that they will celebrate it—and that our institutions are not equipped to deal with a president who cynically abuses power in this way.
And he is right on both counts.
