THE TRUMP VARIANT

The longer a highly contagious virus loiters in an area, the more people are going to be infected with it. And the more folks come down with the disease, the more the virus is going to mutate. The more mutations come down the pike, the more likely it is that something really, really bad is going to happen.

Simple mathematics.

The virus doesn't have a plan. It doesn't know what it's up to. Mutations just happen. Every time a copy is struck, there's a chance something will go wrong and the code will change. As Forrest Gump once pointed out, you never know what you're going to get.

The next version of the virus could be ten times as contagious and twenty times as deadly. And there's a bonus: The more infectious it is, the more opportunities for future, even nastier mutations.

But viruses are not only example of this pattern. Take Donald Trump (please).

The man is an inept, corrupt, vindictive, lying bully. He mocks the ill. He mocks the disabled. He's so stupid, he thinks he's a genius. Take away his voluminous, gas-filled ego, he'd be nothing but a puddle of hairspray and bronzer. He's what they call a big fat nothing burger.

But he could be worse.

The man was the crappiest president we ever had, and after January 6—the culmination of the Big Lie—he became the crappiest American in the history of the country. And he's still going strong, dumping out lie after lie.

But it could be worse.

Folks are lining up to follow in his shaky footsteps, folks who want to be the next Donald Trump. Folks who desire not just to emulate, but to surpass the man in corruption and lunatic lies.

New, more destructive variants of Donald Trump.

The man has provided the model and molded the environment for an even deadlier strain of authoritarian leader.

Right now, Trump is willing to risk the destruction of this country to assuage his wounded ego.

His successor might be looking to sell the whole fricken planet down the river.

(And yes, I know: Trump, the climate change denier in chief, has already taken an arrogant shot at that target.)

As I like to say, if it ain't one thing, it's five things.

Buckle up, boys and girls. It's going to be a bumptious future.

MURDER CAPITOL

Mitch McConnell has constructed a blind to hide Republican fingerprints on a bill to raise the debt ceiling. Ten GOP Senators will vote with the enemy on a bill to allow the Dems to raise the ceiling all by themselves with 51 votes: Democratic votes only.

I wonder if McConnell understands what he's asking his caucus to do.

Republicans who vote for Democrat-backed bills (for any reason) are in for a lot of crap from GOP hotheads. Nasty calls. Screaming rants. Death threats, and so forth. Some Republican family might be missing Dad (or Little Susie) at Christmas dinner this year.

If so, they have only themselves to blame.

Republicans have quite deliberately constructed a monster and filled it with damnable lies designed to elicit violent action. And to make the game more interesting, they've loaded their creature up with lots of constitutionally-approved guns. Lock and load, everybody!

That sounds like fun, but can they be sure they know how to control that conspiracy-crazed beast?

There is nothing on this planet more dangerous than a human being who knows he's about to do God's work. Humans can't be wrong, you know. Being right, about everything, is baked in by evolution.

Doesn't matter what nonsense has been shoe-horned into your noggin, by definition it's certified golden, God-given truth. Get busy putting your solution into action: sharpen your knife, load your mags, get your camo-panted butt to Washington and let 'er rip.

Donald Trump mini-me Matt Gaetz was on the teevee the other day, rhapsodizing about how things will go when the GOP blasts its way back to power in 2022.

Forget about weak-ass work like legislating. That's off the table. He's looking for wall-to-wall investigations into the Dems' nefarious election steal. He's going to get to the bottom of that fictional well and suck it dry.

Such manic operations are like lightning storms in the sky above the tall rock walls of the laboratory, force-feeding raw power into the skin of the monster, energizing its limbs, packing its Abby Normal brain with incontestably divine motive to unleash the inevitable righteous rampage to come.

Break out the blood flag, Hans, there's a new mission coming in on the hot line.