Appeasement is lazy evil. We can only hope Obama has a secret plan.
Trump will not pivot suddenly now that he's President Trump. There's a saying about power, and it isn't that power pivots to the middle.
Power corrupts. But imagine if you
arrive at power pre-corrupted, like Trump, having run such scams as Trump University and then paying off Florida's Attorney-General not to investigate, or running a charity that spends donations on non-charitable things like portraits of himself. I'd call it a perfect storm, but that might sound like a hoax invented by the Chinese.
He said drain the swamp, but his approach to draining the swamp seems to be by drowning it, with more swamp. Appointees like Gingrich date back to the earliest organisms in the swamp's evolution.
Trump's not an anti-hero, all bluster but with a heart of gold.
He is what he's said at rallies. And it wasn't WWE trash talk, just entertainment. Those statements are now White House policy.
I'm sure Trump is looking forward to Obama's last day in the White House, so he can slam the door and quip: "Get outta my house!" Or, obviously, "You're fired."
The thought makes me sicker than the earthquake did, but obviously millions who voted will feel the opposite. They will cheer. They will troll. As they have this week, they'll call me a cry-baby, and crow that this is what happens when you allow an Asian on the media. And the vast majority will deny they are racist.
This is our one droplet of hope, soon to evaporate as the world marks its hottest year on record.
The one droplet of hope is that white supremacists (with notable exceptions such as those with letterhead, like the KKK and the American Nazi Party) still resist being called white supremacists.
Our one hope is they don't like being called racist.
Steve Bannon, Trump's nominee as strategy chief, has threatened to sue Buzzfeed for calling his news site, Breitbart, a white nationalist website. He regards "white nationalist" as defamatory. Obviously, he doesn't really, because look at Breitbart.
But what moneybags Bannon is doing is silencing criticism. This is what authoritarian regimes do. This is what Putin did by imprisoning Pussy Riot, and Trump has said he admires Putin's leadership.
Putin's breaches of human rights and borders will go uncriticised now by the White House. And you can bet Peter Thiel, the Facebook billionaire who bankrupted Gawker, won't be demanding any changes be made to Facebook's "news" algorithm.
Since the election, there's been an explosion in hate crimes, as documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch.
The very worst impulses, at best hooded since the 1960s, have been given the go-ahead, from the very top.
Trump's idea of diversity would be to hire beyond his favourite children, and include Tiffany in the Cabinet.
For progress, society doesn't need racists to change their views. But it's vital they pretend to. Racial equality needs to be stated, out loud, as a principle. Even in 2016.
If you're on Twitter, follow Sarah Kendzior. She's an American PhD who lives in the red state of Missouri. Her specialty is authoritarian states.
It requires literally zero imagination now to draw the parallels. The lines are no longer parallel -- they overlap. In thick pen that rips through the page.
Don't expect anything good to come of Trump, even by accident. The lens of decency will be used against you.
The same surnames used to crop up among Presidents, but this time America has really become a family business.
People accused Dick Cheney's company Halliburton of profiting from government policies, such as the war in Iraq. Trump takes this to dictator level. Trump Inc will privatise, pollute and plunder, while his companies steer insider decisions for profit.
As he becomes richer, he will tell his supporters America is great again. And they will buy it. And unlike Trump, they will pay.
