...governance is not the goal. Dominance, not leadership, is the sole agenda. This was a fully conscious choice by Trump to disrupt the governing cycle.. Americans are accustomed to not much getting done politically during the 10 months that precede an election, when Washington enters a campaign mode. Between elections though is the window when, with varying degrees of sincerity, those who we elect attempt to attend to the people's business, and claim to represent the nation as a whole, not merely their political base. That has vanished now.
For all the media talk about Red and Blue political tribalism that crucial point has been obscured. Donald Trump officially began his 2020 election campaign as soon as he was inaugurated in January 2017. This is new for the American presidency. The one person who can officially speak for all Americans now spends every month of his reign demonizing those Americans who did not support his last election and/or stand in the way of his reelection. This week, while campaigning, Trump called elected Democrats "evil people".
Much like the North Korean "Supreme Leader" who he has "fallen in love with", Trump uses the specter of an enemy to consolidate his beyond question standing among the people who now prop up his rule. For Kim, that enemy has always been America. No matter how bad things get in North Korea, Kim knows who to blame, and Kim cultivated permanent hatred of America as a means to consolidate his rule. With Trump’s perennial campaign mode it becomes clearer every day who Donald Trump holds up as America's enemy - it is half of America itself. We have witnessed the formation of a cult of personality in the United States of America that the Republican Party is fully complicit with.
Once again the mass media is behind the curve in their latest manifestation of "both siderism". Donald Trump does not simply play into political tribalism practiced by "both sides of the aisle." He is institutionalizing tribalism as a means of control. It is not in his interest to bridge divisions inside America, it is in his interest to widen and exploit them. His bully pulpit is a sword used to vanquish those who refuse to swear loyalty to him. Left unchecked look for the rise soon of a Trumpian American version of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Its early seeds are already being sown at campaign rallies across the nation. And no, "both sides" are not doing this.