Trump Is Angry and I Am Scared

Donald Trump is angry. I know that because the political press wants me to know that Donald Trump is angry.

Robert Costa, Philip Rucker, and Ashley Parker at the Washington Post: Upstairs at Home, with the TV on, Trump Fumes over Russia Indictments. Specific!

Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire at the AP: Trump Fumes as Mueller Probe Enters New Phase with Charges.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jeff Zeleny and Kevin Liptak at CNN: Trump 'Seething' as Mueller Probe Reaches Former Aides.

Okay, I get it. Trump is angry. As one imagines he would be, given that he's a pretty mirthless guy on a good day.

What I want to know is: What does that mean for us? What's he going to do with that anger? Trump doesn't sit well with any kind of discomfort, and he is, by his own admission, a vengeful guy. He likes to hurt people whom he believes done him wrong. And he's already learned, thanks to the press' slavering admiration of any president who drops a bomb on people, that hurting other people can be both a distraction and a way of earning praise.

So we're in a dangerous moment. And if it's accurate that Bob Mueller is only getting started, then we're going to stay in that dangerous moment, with a spiraling president whose anger and urge to hurt people will continually escalate as Mueller gets closer to him.

I see a lot of people celebrating that Trump is squirming with discomfort and seething with rage. That doesn't make me happy. It makes me scared. Scared for what he may do, and the people he may harm. He is still the president, after all. He retains enormous power that he can flex in frightening ways.

And he is not, as we have continually been reassured, surrounded by "moderating influences." Ivanka cannot contain him. Pence does not contain him. Kelly will not contain him. To the absolute contrary, Kelly continues to abet him in the grossest of ways.

Congress refuses to levy any checks and balances, because his party is fully complicit. That makes me scared, too. Even the "best case" scenarios leave us with a Republican president who is just as corrupt and authoritarian as Trump, but has the sense and discipline to look "normal."

Whether that's Pence or Ryan, that presidency will be greeted by a political press and populace who are desperate to exhale and pretend that he's better than Trump, despite the fact that he will continue and expand Trump's policies, with the help of the Republican Congressional majority, who are not looking at this nightmare and reconsidering their attempt to seize total control of the government on every level, but maneuvering to get through this attempt at some accountability while sustaining the least damage to their steamroller.

I want to be giddy with (seemingly) everyone else. But I can't be. Not until I truly see something to be giddy about. And the future is yet far too murky.