We're hostage to a bomb maker

So the Orange Cheato is going give his first State of the Union address today. It's all too easy to assume that, all may not be well, but all is under control in Trumpland. A normal political cycle grinds on (if you don't include GOPer failure, despite their majorities, to pass any budget resolutions). How bad could things be?

This man's antics should remind that all is decidedly NOT well, that our hold on any normality is partial, a privilege of the (white) privileged, and precarious. I'll outsource commentary to Tom Toles:

When someone tries to reassure you that the institutions of American democracy are holding, they are telling you that the president of the United States is a recognized threat to them.

When someone says that the constitutional system hasn’t broken under Trump, what they are saying is “yet.”

When someone says that Trump tried but didn’t succeed in firing Robert S. Mueller III, they are acknowledging that the president was fully prepared to assert a dictatorial power, then decided the timing wasn’t right.

What we are watching is a president who doesn’t recognize any power but his own, and we’re trying to console ourselves with the fact that he picks his moments to break another pillar of representative government. But his intent is manifestly clear. ...

Read it all and resist.