There are two kinds of Reality. The first is everything there is. The second is things as they should be. Trump and Mueller have very different ideas of realized reality. The realization for Trump is survival for another day. For Mueller, it has more to do with ethics -- with what comes first.

Trump is all about Trump. Mueller is about what the country can and should tolerate. He has already signaled that the country cannot tolerate criminality. His dawn raid on the home of Mr. Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, set a tone. Mueller places law above a president.

Trump's only option, given his premises, is war.

The declaration of war is issued by the lead story in today's New York Times. In an act of binary hyperbole that is typical, the newspaper has characterized Mueller as a user of Shock And Awe tactics. This is the Times equivalent of Trump's incessant exclamations on Twitter that exaggerate to the point of absurdity.

Mueller may have put the fear of god into Manafort but it had no parallel in George W. Bush's traumatizing attack on the consciousness of humankind.

Democracy in the dock

Shock and awe was a banal display of military might that insulted the presumption that the US really cares about universal democracy.

It was our response to the creation of a war based on a lie. Mueller's dawn incursion at the home of Paul Manafort was a signal that his quest for truth would be even-handed. Since then Mueller has emerged for many as the most likely defender of American democracy while it is being tested and tried as never before.

The case against Trump

The most cogent summary of the probable thrust of Mueller's probe is the following video. It focuses on the president's relationship with a man named Felix Sater. It goes without saying that criminality has never been far from Donald Trump's world. Soon it will be front and center in ours.

We are about to see Donald Trump charged, more than likely, with money laundering and cooperation with Russians who want to do business anywhere but "in Russia".

You be the judge.

Will the GOP be helpful?

What Trump is about to do is anyone's guess, but you can be sure it has to do with his own survival. Firing Mueller is on the table. Using foreign threats to divert attention from the sordid nature of the charges that are about to become public is entirely predictable.

Will the GOP, whose silence has been deafening, rise to the occasion if clear criminality is shown? We are about to face reality big time.
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