
This is only to be expected; exercising one’s right to make non-violent gestures provided for in the US Constitution is anathema to an administration practising the zero conditional that if Trump is awake, ergo some fit of caprice is going to happen.
Now, this may or may not indicate a possible – and, for many – hoped-for future: assuming that if Trump is separated from his current menu of snafus and replaced by Pence, what might we expect? There are a number of possible permutations: a change in the big chair’s occupancy means that sanity may have finally broken out in the current White House configuration; Pence goes into glove-puppet mode and we have an “as you were” scenario emanating from somewhere in New York; Pence separates himself entirely from a “guilt by association” situation, and goes back to Indiana to take it easy and complete a visit to the football stadium. Which leaves what?
In the currently unlikely chance of any of the above happening, all of this is moot. There is always the forcible removal of Trump in whatever form it may take, which would be a drastic option for obvious reasons. In the final analysis, however, only the US can clean its own Augean Stables, even though the likely outcomes would affect others.
Dr Frank
Bangkok