WASHINGTON — So now we’re getting the crazy straight up.
The Doomsday Clock is ticking faster, the resistance is growing, and teetotaler Donald Trump already seems drunk with power.
He’s got the role of his life and he’s casting his show: Steve Bannon is his Roy Cohn, the combative hammer and agitprop genius; Theresa May is Maggie to his Ronnie; Ivanka and Jared are his consiglieri, family to help him figure out who stays and who gets iced; Vladimir Putin echoes the role of Trump’s dad, Fred, who was supremely aggressive and calculating, cool where Donald was hot, someone who believed the world was divided into killers and losers. (But in Putin’s case, it’s literal.)
It took us years to find out that Richard Nixon was swilling Scotch, eating dog biscuits, talking to the White House portraits and blowing up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 to help his election bid. It took us years to find out that, despite that deep, reassuring voice, Dick Cheney was a demented megalomaniac.
But with President Trump, it’s all right out there — the tantrums, the delusions, the deceptions, the self-doubts and overcompensation.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities,...
In its 38 years of existence, the USA TODAY Editorial Board has never endorsed a candidate for president....
