Give Trump the Attention He Deserves _______________________________________________________________

Donald Trump runs the government the way a blind-folded four-year-old approaches a pinata: disoriented, directionless, flailing.
 
Ignorant and empty-souled, Trump careens from crisis to crisis, each day a new episode in the melodrama in which he stars as both villain and hollow hero before a crush of complicit journalists.
 
How many hours of exposure have the cable networks, where so many tune in to check out the news, donated to the occupant of the White House in those south lawn scrums? How much of it is newsworthy? Informed? Accurate? How many of you, like me, have nearly worn out your mute button?
 
Since so much of what Trump says is untrue and since the commentators will analyze, condense, report what he said ad nauseum, and eventually label it fact or fiction, I no longer waste my time listening to his false claims and rambling ruminations. … Frankly, I can no longer stand the raspy voice, the chin in the air, the crossed arms, the inane posturing, the churlish childishness of it all. 
 
And the trotting out of his prize collection of American sycophants to sing his praises? Oh, my! I’m not sure I have the words. Why not just play a recording of The Hallelujah Chorus? We could all sing along.     
 
Back to those hapless reporters on the south lawn, however. I realize they collect there because it’s the one place they get a glimpse into the tumult behind those pristine white walls. Relishing the chaotic back and forth with reporters he claims to hate, Trump babbles on, and there’s the occasional newsworthy nugget.   
 
But just once, I’d like to see Trump getting the attention he deserves—trudging towards the helicopter, alone—while  the news networks, with truly pressing business to cover, train their cameras on three or four steps of Trump’s lonely trudge, then immediately turn their cameras to  compelling concerns …
 
Imagine the scene: Trump trudging away as, voice-over, a commentator says, “Meanwhile, as Trump departs for a golfing weekend at Mar-a-Lago, we take you now to …

• Immigrant children, ill-fed, dirty, seeking sleep on cold concrete floors, children who need social workers and nurses and trained child-care personnel, children trying to care for each other in the custody of prison guards, children confused, fearful and, for now, unaware of how this experience will scar them for life
• A constipated Congress 
• Mass shootings
• A frayed social safety net 
• An ill-conceived tax system 
• A crumbling infrastructure
• A compromised voting system
• An outdated electoral college that has put a president into office without a majority of the popular vote in two of the last five elections
• Persistent attempts in state after state to deny women the right to determine their own futures
• Egregious presidential violations of the emoluments clause, presidential affection for  autocrats, presidential indifference to human suffering
• Bungled relationships with our allies
• Brinksmanship with those Trump sees as foes
• A cabinet full of people best described as temps, and
• Immigrant children, ill-fed, dirty, seeking sleep on cold concrete floors, children who need social workers and nurses and trained child-care personnel, children trying to care for each other in the custody of prison guards, children confused, fearful and, for now, unaware of how this experience will scar them for life (Yes, I know I already said that, but the thought of what they’re enduring infuriates me. I hope it infuriates you, too.)
• …and                                                              
• …and                                                               
• …and                                                              

 
(Fill in the blanks above.)
 
We’ve heard it said over and over again: “This is not who we are.”
 
In that case, who are we? And how would anyone know?

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The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
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-Thomas Jefferson-