In the Court of the Mad King

       Even as the Roberts Supreme Court's latest ruling ensured the public will not see Cheetolini's tax returns until after the election, the aforementioned president* went on a twitter rampage criticizing the court's reasoning.  After all, tRump was looking for a ruling validating his vision of an imperial presidency of maximum power and minimal accountability.
      As Paul Krugman points out in today's NYT, this latest outrage is of a piece with tRump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.   Based on the experience of the social democracies in Europe who had time to get ready to deal with the pandemic, the US could conceivably limited casualties to the same per capita rate as Germany and Denmark.  That means 20,000 or fewer deaths.  Instead, we have over 130,000 and could top 200.000 dead by Election Day in November.
     It didn't have to be that way.   We could have had a robust federal response, led by the CDC and Congress and guided by the president.   Instead, the chief executive buried his head in the sand for weeks, denying the problem and then actively hindering palliative measures such as social distancing and mask wearing.   Now he is actually bragging he saved "millions" of lives with his know nothing and do nothing stance.
     We are truly in the hands of a mad king, as surely as the British were during the Revolutionary War.  Fortunately, despite the damage we are suffering as a nation, we can change course in a few months.  Hopefully we will still recognize our America when the nightmare of the last four years is over.