Some weeks are just too bizarre to contemplate as a sane and rational human being. It’s takes a dose of crazy just to get out of bed in the morning; sometimes several doses. Often, I feel like the image above when I sit down to have a cup of coffee and peruse the news some time around 5 a.m. Due to the differences in time zones, Trump has been up and tweeting for a couple of hours. When the man sleeps will always be a mystery to me. Couple the Orange One with the antics of his minions, and my day is off in a swirl of mind numbing, head-twisting revelations that never cease to be revealed as the day rolls on.

Trump is obviously losing it. His paranoid tweeting has become too painful to follow. It’s hard to believe the office of the presidency will be tainted for generations to come by this narcissistic, little cretin. Granted, people like me look for fault in Trump, simply because it’s so clear that the Republican Party has swallowed his bullshit hook-line and sinker without even the most trivial dissent about his actions or the dangerous ideas he is instilling into his shrinking base.

Last week, Trump threw a dinner party for his evangelical supporters for no other reason but to garner praise and gin up fear and loathing  in the group. Roughly, half of the speech was typical Trump bravado. Taking his gazillionth victory lap for doing the impossible, winning the presidency, his lame citations of his incredible victories sounded hollow during the campaign. They seem doubly so now.

Once he grew tired of patting himself on the back, he launched into the real message he wanted to send to those assembled in the State Dining Room including a long list of evangelical luminaries including the who’s who of just about every right wing religious group in the United States. Trump had them eating out of his tiny hands. Still, for the denser attendees, he spelled out the message he really came to give.

“This November 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it’s a referendum on your religion, it’s a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment. It’s a referendum on so much,” Trump told the assemblage of pastors and other Christian leaders gathered in the State Dining Room, according to a recording from people in the room. CNN

Despite the comical understatement that the November election will be a referendum on him, the rest of the paragraph is a chilling reminder that Trump is willing to use fear and anger to accomplish his main goal . . . to stay in power no matter what. Additionally, how a democratically held election can be a referendum on free speech and First Amendment rights is a bit of a stretch. A democratically held election is the epitome of both free speech and the First Amendment. He continued:

“It’s not a question of like or dislike, it’s a question that they will overturn everything that we’ve done and they will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence. When you look at Antifa — these are violent people,” Trump said, describing what would happen should his voters fail to cast ballots. “You have tremendous power. You were saying, in this room, you have people who preach to almost 200 million people. Depending on which Sunday we’re talking about.” CNN

Creating a bogey man in these people’s mind is to create hatred and fear of people who are fellow citizens. “. . . they will overturn everything we’ve done and they will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence.” Note the repeated word violence that he uses. Either his audience is made up of very slow learners, or more likely, Trump has decided rhetoric like violence will gin up renewed commitment to fight the devil worshiping Democrats, a supposed threat that would end the God fearing members of these people’s congregations.

Equally egregious was Trump’s support of Ron De Santis’ run for Florida governor. After Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, won the Democratic primary, De Santis wasted little time in going to the lowest proverbial denominator, a racist attack.

“The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state,” he said. “That is not going to work. That’s not going to be good for Florida.” NYT

The next day De Samtis resigned from a Facebook page, the Tea Party, where he was 1 of 52 administrators. The site is dedicated to conspiracy theories, alt-right rants, racists posts and an obsessive penchant for focusing on Michelle and Barack Obama. Trust me, it isn’t pretty. De Santis’ camp issued a statement saying De Santis didn’t know of the objectionable content, which is pretty lame considering his position as administrator with the website and the prolific attacks on people of color.

The fact that De Santis is still in the running is a cause for concern. Before this clown car left the garage, any candidate caught making racists remarks would be out on their ear in a heartbeat. The hidden factor that allows De Santis to dodge the silver bullet is, of course, Donald Trump and his backing. De Santis has his head so far up Trump’s butt he even made this campaign commercial that is guaranteed to give anyone left of Atilla the Hun the heebie jeebies.

It still amazes me how quickly Trump and his ilk shifted the playing field to make racism, bigotry, alt-right thinking, and anti-democratic ideas great again. With people like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and gofers like De Santis giving the president allegiance what else can America expect.

Several studies have found that an astonishing number of Americans, young and old, have little or know knowledge of current events. And it is getting worse. If they listen to Fox News, the little they do know is so slanted that it has created an entire army of misinformed, disgruntled citizens who fear everything from Clinton taking over the government to a black wave creeping towards them that imperils their safe little corner of the world. Trump is only a symptom of a much larger problem . . . the American people’s slouching toward irrelevance.