Toward the end of the 11th month of each year we're treated to newspaper columnists, editorialists and op-eders informing us of either what they're thankful for or what we should be thankful for. Their recommendations range from the playfully silly to the sententiously gag worthy to the empirically incontestable.
The sillies are just that — brief, harmless, lighthearted reprieves from the grindingly grim. I'm particularly fond of the gag-worthy suggestions, though — over-the-top paeans to founders and forebears and the like. They're the first cousins of those laughably godawful Christmas card missives in which we're notified of the parents' Einstein-level children, spectacular job promotions and dazzling, worldwide trips taken.
Which brings us to those written reminders of what's not always remembered with vastly appropriate thanks — the dark times, done and gone. And that brings me to Dana Milbank's latest column, "Be thankful that sanity has returned to America — for now." In this printed tempest, Mr. Milbank seeks to remind us of just how wretched the United States was "by this time in Trump’s first year." To wit, by now he had:
"praised the 'very fine people' marching among violent neo-Nazis in Charlottesville; fired the FBI director for investigating his national security adviser; replaced his national security adviser, chief of staff, press secretary, communications director, chief strategist, secretary of homeland security and secretary of health and human services; ripped up treaties and threatened to pull out of NATO; threatened nuclear war on Twitter; attempted to impose what aides called a 'Muslim ban' and disparaged a 'so-called judge' who objected; belittled U.S. intelligence and shared sensitive Israeli intelligence with Russia; sabotaged Obamacare; falsely claimed his predecessor had tapped his phone lines; embraced Stalin’s phrase 'enemy of the people' to describe the free press; exposed the 'dreamers' to deportation; stood by a Senate candidate accused of sexually assaulting a minor; tossed paper towels (but not the needed aid) at hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico; continued nonsense claims about a 'deep state'; insulted hundreds of people in often vulgar and misspelled tweets; made more than 1,600 false or suspect statements; and shoved the prime minister of Montenegro before a photo op and insulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel."
You may want to print out the above maelstrom of Trumpian imbecilities, national embarrassments and skin-crawling transgressions — all committed within merely the first 10 months of his maladministration. Read them off to your gathered family, who thereupon will drop to their knees in profound relief that that nightmare is over. At least, as Milbank adds, "for now."