Watching the news now is a dizzying horror, an exercise in self-flagellation.

That's what Trump wants. Authoritarians depend on endless scandal to break the public will and train them to expect a society without hope or objective reality. https://www.themuckrake.com/main/postpolitics

Every day we're inundated with one new scandal after another, the heartbreaking proof that our president is profiting off a pandemic and actively sentencing Americans to death.

The onslaught is part of the authoritarian playbook. It erodes our trust, our faith, our hope.

Every authoritarian engages in this. Most recently, it's Vladimir Putin, who uses open and closed systems of power to rule over Russia while pretending it's a democratic society.

Trump is following that playbook and day-by-day he destroys our notion of a fair and open society.

The point isn't to hide the corruption or the crimes. Inevitably they'll be uncovered. The point with Trump and Putin is to flood society with so much crime and corruption and so many lies that eventually we'll lose sight of the truth and any hope of fairness.

We cannot cover Trump like he's a normal president.

Trump is an anti-president.

His is a post-political politics. This isn't about helping anyone. It's about destroying our notions of government and law while consolidating profit and power.

People need to understand this. Now.