Maureen Dowd is a liberal columnist at the New York Times. It is the best of all possible worlds for her. She can rip into liberals and no one will complain. She can skewer trump and his ilk and gain the plaudits of the Times' liberal readers. But we are in a situation in which the stakes are much higher than they ever have been before. The issue with Trump is not whether he is distasteful, but whether he can and will win. Winning is remaining in office.

To read Dowd, you would think the American people are ready to run Trump out of office. They don't like his talks with Kissinger.

They don't like his permissive attitude toward abusers. They do not have any use for his partisan actions, such as killing the Democrats' response to the flawed Nunes memo. I hope the reader of this paragraph will conclude, as I do, that we are very far along the road that leads to dictatorship.

Good Americans

This means that Maureen is among the Good Americans. They are willing to say never again to the wars of recent vintage. They are offended by the scandal of gun control hypocrisy. They find the GOP venal. But they do not conclude that Trump is a problem unto himself and that we are not talking about a reality show star walking aimlessly around the West Wing. We are talking about a man whose playbook is ominous.

We are talking about someone who needs to be removed from office sooner rather than later.

The fear

Trump has done wrong things but they are nothing compared to what can happen if he is allowed to continue, I do not think North Korea is more than an option for Trump to make manipulative mischief. I think the big kahuna for Trump is radical Islam and a potential hostile action against Iran.

That is fear number one. Any military action Trump now takes is bound to be unpopular, but the country has a way of gravitating toward support and Trump is a master of manipulation. If Bush and Cheney could pull off Iraq, Trump can pull off Iran with ease.

The second reason for fear is that Mueller will indeed get Trump for obstruction.

But in doing so we will see an action by Trump's rabble forces that has the impact of events that have in the past been crucial to the ascent of dictators. Trump will say that the rabble has been attacked by forces loyal to Obama and Clinton. I am not kidding. He will mobilize forces he has literally toadied to -- police and other law enforcement types. He will force a fear-stricken Congress to approve measures that place him above the law.

People who think triadically recognize the clear implications of binary action. Trump is a master of the binary. Maureen falls into his trap.
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