He who must not be named is a national hero in his mind: “If anybody but [me] did what I did in Syria, which was an Isis-loaded mess when I became president, they would be a national hero,”

The extent of the president’s delusional world view becomes greater with each passing day.  Today he is a “national hero.”  Recently he bestowed the National Medal of Freedom upon Miriam Adelson, whose greatest contribution to America has been her multimillion dollar contributions to the Republican Party.  According to reports, she and her casino-king billionaire husband Sheldon Adelson used to be Democrats, but became Republicans as a result of their unpleasant interactions with unions for his casino employees.

It doesn’t sound as if the Adelson’s Democratic sympathies are very strong, unless the union demands in Las Vegas were intolerable.  We don’t know, and are left to speculate.

Clearly, the American democratic system has been fatally infected by the influence of money– to a greater extent than it was over a hundred years ago, during the Gilded Age.  Whether the capitalist system can be tamed by another Theodore Roosevelt or Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an open question.

What is not in question is the terrible destruction that has been wreaked upon the United States over the last two years.  This destruction was entirely predictable– we even know who the culprits are.  The thing is, we haven’t figured out a cure for a delusional, narcissistic, sociopathic, megalomaniacal commander in chief covertly supported by the Russian government.  Even after we get rid of him, it will take years to repair all the damage– assuming we have the motivation and perseverance to do so.

Perhaps Elizabeth Warren or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can lead us out of this nightmare forest– Bernie Sanders sure can’t do it.  We can only hope that someone will take charge of the Democratic Party and reverse the decline that has beset it as a result of Republican scorched-earth policies.  We must fight fire with fire and meet the lies told by Republicans with the searing truth at every turn.