* The electors have now voted. The die of all dies is cast. Our worst nightmare will be confirmed: We have not been binge watching a Netflix sequel. The House of Shards is happening.
* Alexander Hamilton wrote most of the Federalist papers. For obvious reasons, a quote of his on the Electoral College has resurfaced. The Electoral College, he noted in Federalist No. 68, “affords a moral certainty, that the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
What electoral irony. Hamilton was pushing the prudence of a counterweight to mob rule. Now the Electoral College rubber stamps the embodiment of the loudest drunk buying the last round at last call. Sorry, AH. Aaron Burr never looked so good.
* To those still rationalizing Trump’s billionaire-populist, bumper-sticker appeal, recall one of the more quotable lines from his “Art of the Deal.” Remember when “I play to people’s fantasies” used to be harmless, self-evident, pop-culture piffle? That was then; this is not.
* Conflict of interest. From the Trump brand and non-blind trust business interests to the ExxonMobil mogul with a crony in the Kremlin and energy interests and sanction subplots all over Russia, does this term have any meaning at all any longer?
* Golden elevator-door photo-ops: Trump and Mitt Romney; Trump and Al Gore; Trump and Kanye West. You can’t make this up. It could be worse–but Trump-Elizabeth Warren won’t happen even in this parallel political universe. Besides, she’s already preparing for those confirmation hearings.
At least we have something to look forward to.
* The nomination of David Friedman, the bankruptcy lawyer aligned with the Israeli far-right, is rife with implications for U.S.-Israeli relations and the two-state, peace scenario. The outspoken Friedman has likened liberal Jews in America to the Jews who aided the Nazis in the Holocaust. An announcement of a Trump Tower Jerusalem would say it all.