For Trump, there's always a dark conspiracy arrayed against him. Someone is always doing him an injustice by not treating him with the required deference.

Trump, like any good Stalinist, knows that one death is a tragedy but 100,000 is a statistic.

Our leaders ranged from bad to extraordinary. But through it all, the GOP was the one party even vaguely amenable to limited-government conservatism, to at least some adherence to the Constitution over the social preferences of the moment, and to the constraints on government power that our Founding Fathers so cherished.

It's become a cliche to stare in mute horror at Donald Trump's endless stream of Twitter vomit, wondering what chthonic god finds pleasure in watching us writhe as Trump brings out the very worst in his followers and new levels of willful ignorance from Republicans determined to see no evil, no matter how in their face that evil is.

The purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter. The mission of deterrence to make all parties in possession of nuclear weapons never, ever use them.

Crony capitalism on the left and crony capitalism on the right are still crony capitalism.

American populism is no stranger to our political life. From the earliest anti-Federalists to William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, and George Wallace, and many in between, we've sampled the populist temptation, often in times of national distress and dislocation.

Be it China, the World Health Organization, the Bavarian Illuminati, or lizard shapeshifters, it's never Trump's responsibility. It's never Trump's fault.

Trump is a masterful con man, he's always trying to squeeze a little more juice out of his marks.

Trump-era name-calling is just as tiresome and juvenile as it is nonsensical.

I've written about this before, but the sad truth is this: There are only a handful of Trump true believers in the Senate. The rest are chugging a toxic slurry of cowardice, ambition, and opportunism that has led members of the upper house of a co-equal branch of government to relinquish their power and prerogatives.

Only a fool would believe Trump would draw a sharp, bright line between his personal and family financial interests and the interests of the nation.

Donald Trump is an idiot and a moron and just a kook of the first order, but he is surrounded by a bunch of guys like me, who are ride-or-die for him. They don't love him ideologically, but they're stuck. And they're very smart. And they're very determined and they will do anything to win.

America once used the words 'treason' and 'traitors' only in cases of actual betrayal of our nation's most vital secrets or interests.

Extinction isn't pretty, especially when you know it's coming and do nothing about it.

Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and others who raced to the microphones at the slightest hint of Obama overstepping the lines were damn quiet as Trump wildly colored outside the lines of any rational version of executive power.

Like all alchemists, Trump seeks to convert dross into gold, to toss a broth of his incompetence, denial, delay, deception, and failure into some supernatural alembic and extract political advantage.

Trump will never, ever do the right or decent thing, and his consultants certainly won't. He will make outrageous, unsupported claims.

Richard Nixon is typically considered the modern exemplar of a dark and vindictive president. President Trump would be Nixon minus the keen intellect and work ethic.

Donald Trump, like many cult leaders, understands the power his words will have over the minds and actions of his followers... but few cult leaders have a pet media infrastructure.

Every re-election campaign is a referendum on the incumbent. Every. Single. One.

Part of the sales pitch for the Trump campaign is their unique, esoteric secret sauce based on a rabid cult following motivated by Facebook, Twitter, and other social media manipulation.

For Donald Trump, any opposition, either personal, ideological, or political is treason. Anyone who stands in his path betrays the Great Leader. Anyone who fails to take the knee is a traitor.

Trump has learned over his long career as a lying liar who lies that none of his stories have to be true.