TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN TALK

As you know, we just elected a president who either sexually assaults women or lies and says he sexually assaults women in order to get other guys to think he sexually assault women.

Donald Trump, famously, dismissed the whole bang-bus episode as "locker room talk."

By which he apparently means he was lying and everybody involved knew it—and you should, too. That's what locker room talk is, according to Trump: guys swapping lies about all the vaginas they have tried to get into.

And because everybody knows it's lies, no harm, no foul. So shut up about it.

Of course, there were women who came forward to substantiate his alleged actions, women Trump has yet to sue for defamation as he said he would. Still time for that, I guess.

But it got me thinking.

I had been wondering if Trump was aware of all the lies and exaggerations he told on the campaign trail.

Stuff like knowing ISIS better than the generals, and having a plan to defeat those bastards quickly and easily. Or a promise to replace Obamacare with something better and cheaper. Or that he would investigate Hillary Clinton for a variety of crimes. Or proclaiming repeatedly that if she became president she would confiscate all our guns. Or maintaining at every point that everybody else was lying about everything.

And much, much more. It wobbles the brain to contemplate the entire list.

Looking back, I was wondering if all those dubious statements passed through Trump's magnificent noggin and out his pouty mouth without being properly vetted. I was wondering if this was some sort of pathological weakness that might rise up to destroy us in the future.

But then it occurred to me something else might be going on. What if all the jacked-up nonsense that tumbled out of his pie-hole was just "campaign talk."

Like locker room talk, see, only it's stuff you just naturally say on the campaign trail. Stuff everybody knows is nonsense, and which nobody takes seriously. Because it's not meant to be taken seriously. It's just a bunch of crap people say when they're campaigning for national office in America.

Is that the way Trump saw it? Just a game he fell into, that he played along with, because that's what everybody does? Considering the gap between reality and political rhetoric, this conclusion is vaguely plausible.

Or wait! Is it actually true? Does everybody (but me) know better than to listen to a word any politician says?

Whatever the truth of that, the campaign is over now. Unfortunately, Trump can't stop tweeting trash as if it were still on going. Is that worrisome?

What if he thinks there is something called "presidential talk," a barrage of blather that all presidents have to blab out, and which everybody knows means nothing.

Trump has already questioned (more than once) the One China policy, and has wondered out loud why he can't use nuclear weapons. He appears to be considering a new nuclear arms race with his pal, V. Putin—and promises to win it. Yay!

(Good news there: Maybe he can nuke Mexico into paying for the Wall.)

But don't worry, boys and girls. No harm can come to this country owing to the words Mr. Trump says. Because everybody in the world knows our presidents are just playing a game.

Right?

(Quick, somebody remind China it's all a stupid game.)