Trump derangement syndrome has evolved into Trump wake-me-when-it’s-over syndrome. To briefly recap: a man facing four felony trials during his campaign, and two civil trials, one for fraud and one for rape, is the overwhelming favourite to win his party’s nomination for president — more secure in the race for his party’s nomination than any candidate in modern memory. Then, in the general election, with a field of two, he has a 50 per cent chance of winning the presidency. Or, to put it in more precise dramatic terms, his existential plight is to spend the rest of his life in prison or to become president and take his revenge on those who sought to slay him. The system destroys him or he destroys it.
This is so large that of course people turn away from it. It’s like global warming. Minds formed by generations of the wonkiness and policy disputes of American politics can’t process the big bang. All the expenditure of angst and rage about Trump that took place before this ultimate showdown makes everything now seem like an anti-climax. When you strike the king, you must kill him. Democrats went for Trump with a special counsel and a years-long investigation over his Russian connections, and then, when that failed, two impeachments and Senate trials — and yet he is stronger than ever. It’s not just a sense of failure and embarrassment and incomprehension on the part of Democrats, but of one season too many in a dramatic series.
