I am smack dab in the middle of the baby-boom generation. That used to mean that I am young; these days it means the opposite. Well, not quite opposite. It will get worse, not better. However, I am among those who think that age is, in many ways, an artificial construct. I find, for myself, that I get along better with Generation X or Y people than I do with fellow boomers. I don’t know why, but I have a few ideas. Anyway, be that as it may, that is material for a future column. The reason I mention my age is that I was born in a year that was not very far removed from World War II. Germany was one of our main enemies, so Germans got a lot of abuse when I was growing up in the 1960s. There were numerous movies, TV shows, cartoons and other media depicting regular German volk    as stupid, evil or both. I couldn’t imagine how ordinary people could have supported a villain like Adolf Hitler. It seemed so strange. They spoke a different language, and they were far away from us geographically, but still. That didn’t make them different beings. They were human, just as human as we were in the U.S. This dissonance didn’t really bother me, in fact I rarely thought about it. But it was never resolved.

Fast forward to 2015. A brash, egotistical, amoral lout with too much money, Donald Trump, descended upon a golden escalator at Trump Tower to throw his hat in as a presidential candidate for 2016. It was supposed to be a publicity stunt, to build up his brand and perhaps get him an increase in salary for his TV role in Celebrity Apprentice. He, along with the rest of the world, never expected to win. Nor did he want to win. It takes a very unusual person to have the combination of expertise, drive, and ego to want to be president and to have a realistic chance of winning the office. But Trump struck a vein in today’s political climate. Due to the so-called Great Recession, there was an extraordinarily large number of people out of work, and many of them had no prospects of regaining any kind of decent job. A lot of the manufacturing jobs were disappearing long before the recession, and that aggravated the situation. We had lived through two terms under our first African American president, and a lot of white people weren’t happy about that. In short, times were unusually straining, and people, particularly working-class whites, were resentful and looking for an answer. They found it in the silver tongue of Donald Trump. Trump had an uncanny knack of speaking to them in a language that they understood on a gut level. Hitler had the same knack with the people of his time. They were coming out of a depression, and the Nazis helped them come out of it with their prewar spending. German citizens were transfixed by Hitler, and he seemed like the answer to their problems.

Now, I’m not suggesting that America is on the verge of anything like the Holocaust. But, in times of economic trouble and disillusionment, America was ripe for the picking. Trump had an instinct that allowed him to capture the imagination and enthusiasm of white people of all classes, not just blue-collar workers. He became president. Now that he is president, Trump is thumbing his nose at the rule of law. I have never seen an elected American officeholder who behaves the way he does. It is as though he doesn’t care at all. Lies, financial conflicts, possible treason. If this had happened in normal times, it wouldn’t be a partisan issue. Criminals and traitors don’t get elected president, and if they are discovered, they will be run out of office on a rail. In normal times. Not now. Now we have a man who is our highest elected official, who cares only for himself, his wealth, and his family. But people are so desperate for a savior that a minority of Americans have pinned their hopes of the future on a wealthy, disreputable, vulgarian with dictatorial instincts. Not normal times. People don’t act normally in times that are not normal. I now see that the Germans are not exceptional people. Given the right circumstances, any country can become a dictatorship. Even America.

Well, it has happened. What, you ask? This: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken. When you have a significant number of people getting their information about current events and government from the propaganda station known as Fox News, along with Breitbart, the Drudge Report, InfoWars and social networking sites like Facebook, you have a lot of ill-informed voters. I truly believe that we must have a civic literacy test to be able to vote. Deliver it in any language. If a person doesn’t understand the functions of government, they can’t understand why a person might be or not be qualified for the job they are trying to get. So now we have President Trump. I will never have any respect for the man, but I do respect the office. How can I respect somebody who has acted like a child playing with matches next to a pail of gasoline while providing the public face of America to the world.

As I am typing this, Sean Spicer has just resigned as White House Communications Director. That he stayed as long as he did and he only resigned over a personnel issue doesn’t speak well for Spicer. He was repeatedly put out in front of the press corps under orders to lie, obfuscate, spin, and otherwise mangle the truth. Melissa McCarthy did an excellent representation of him on SNL. I am now recommending an actor to represent Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or “Huck” as I call her. The actor I am recommending is Tina Parker. She plays Francesca, Jimmy McGill’s secretary/receptionist on both “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”. If she goes on SNL and dons her Francesca persona to play Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she will bring the house down. Ms. Parker, in my opinion, or her agent, should contact SNL with this proposal. She could make a fortune, especially since it is so long between seasons of “Saul”.

The election of Trump is incredible. It’s as though almost half the nation is out to lunch. But he is president. How long he will be president is anybody’s guess. Now that I no longer work a full-time day job, I can see things happen as they unfold, sometimes in real time. It is amazing. Between Russiagate, the “health care” (tax cut) controversy, and Trump and his family’s numerous financial conflicts of interest, it is comparable to a good fictional series, drama-wise. If it wasn’t so outright stupid and classless it would be more enjoyable. The way I am trying to deal with it is by detaching myself. I have no control over any of this. I am powerless over it. I voted for Hillary Clinton. So all of this unnecessary turmoil in Washington is not due to anything I did or didn’t do, so I might as well relax, grab the popcorn and Coke, put on my 3-D glasses, and enjoy the show.