……….Part One………

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have been reflecting lately on the context behind this blog headline.

Donald Trump is not involved in politics as we have known about the subject in the past.

He is involved in his own little world where he and his family get what they want during his second presidency.

So, here is a list of what Trump is not.

• He is not a follower of rules.  They don’t matter to him.  He makes his own.

• He does not follow what Courts may say.  Their rulings do’t matter to him, so he violates them orders repeatedly.

• He does not follow what his staff may say to him.  He doesn’t ask for advice or listen.

• He doesn’t care what Congress may say doesn’t matter to him.  He avoids the institution at all costs unless its members bow before him.

• He is not a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent in the traditional definitions of those titles.  He is a narcissist.

So, with all this, it is hard to rate Trump on any normal political scale.  IT is true that many of his MAGA followers are departing from him, given how much damage he has done to the country, including at the gas pump. 

The fact that he doesn’t care about his followers or anyone else.  Just himself.

So, the question is whether we can tolerate two more years of Trump’s abhorrent behavior on the way to becoming an autocrat. 

Part Two will be a summary of what one country – Hungary – did to oust it’s own autocrat.  With effort and commitment, the approach could be replicated in the United States to get rid of Trump.