Tyson Zone? Nope, Not Strange Enough

I thought I wrote a few months ago that Trump had entered the Tyson Zone (can't seem to find the post), and today, Michael Cohen said the same thing.  The idea is that a person can be so consistently off the wall that nothing they do can be really that surprising.  Sorry, but Trump has officially blown my mind.  He keeps doing stuff that is more appalling, more beyond the pale, more beyond the imagination.  Yes, he continues to shock me.

Yes, asking for Russia to release HRC emails is shocking.
Yes, saying that he might recognize Russia's conquest of Crimea is shocking.

So, I'd like to say he can't shock me, but he can.  Amazing what one can do when one has absolutely no shame, no principles and values nothing but attention.  Makes an ordinary narcissist like me feel bad.

Focusing on the last bit of news--the Crimea stuff, I joked on facebook and twitter that Trump was trolling me directly.  Why?  Because who cares strongly about Crimea?  Scholars of irredentism!  Ordinarily, one would look at the electorate and find some interest group, some diaspora, somebody that would favor an issue and say, aha!  Candidate x is pandering to this group.  But there really is not much of a pro-annexation of Crimea constituency in the US.  Russian-Americans as a voting bloc?  Crimean Russians as a voting bloc?  Nope, not that we can observe.  So, who is the audience for this stance?


Ok, not Satan, but could it be ... Putin?  It would seem to be the case that Trump is putting Putin's interests ahead of the American national interest committee.  Which led me to ponder whatever happened to the House Un-American Activities Committee?  Trump is promising via weakening NATO, defaulting on the debt, throwing out NAFTA, tossing aside our Asian allies, and accepting Russia's boundary changing to hurt the US in big ways, to betray American values and interests, and to make the US worse off.

One cannot really overreact to Trump--he may not be Satan, but only because the devil has far more discipline, intelligence, and organization.  I am still pretty confident that Trump will not be elected.  He is not pivoting to the center unless Russia somehow became the center of the American political system.  He is going to lose responsible Republicans. I just wish more Republicans were responsible this past year.   Trump is not going to gain more independents or wavering Democrats with these stances that tie him to Putin.  So, thanks for being a self-fulfilling prophecy, Trump, as a repeated loser. I just wish he didn't do so much damage domestically and internationally along the way.