There is a scene in the iconic 1999 movie Office Space where the protagonist, Peter, is unburdening himself in a group therapy session. He says that he’s realized that ever since he started working in a cubicle, every day is worse than the day that came before it. And that means that every day that you see him, you’re seeing him on the worst day of his life. The therapist asks, “What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?” Peter responds, “Yeah.”
At this point, it seems like that pretty much describes President Trump.
Every day brings a cascade of bad news for him. Today began with him being disinvited to the State of the Union speech. There’s been unrelenting bad coverage of the government shutdown with bad polls and economic forecasts to rub salt in the wounds. Everyone is accusing him of being a not-so-secret Russian agent. And now the Inspector General at the General Services Administration is saying that his DC hotel lease may be unconstitutional because it violates the Emoluments Clause. The Washington Post even demonstrated that the hotel is encouraging domestic corruption with a big story on how a phalanx of Verizon executives conspicuously patronized it last year while seeking a favorable ruling on their proposed merger with T-Mobile.
It’s not the worst thing on today’s list, but it’s still my favorite. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has a new book coming out and Axios obtained an advanced copy. At one point, Christie has this to say about Trump’s administration: “[He has a] revolving door of deeply flawed individuals — amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons — who were hustled into jobs they were never suited for, sometimes seemingly without so much as a background check via Google or Wikipedia.”
Of course, Christie has an axe to grind because he was in charge of staffing the incoming administration until Jared Kushner had him sacked. But everything Christie said is plainly true.
It’s not actually true that every day of the Trump administration is worse than the day that preceded it, but it sure seems that way most of the time. And, as a general trend, things are definitely getting worse at a rapid pace.
