The risks of something nutty

I’ve been trying to follow my own good advice: Donald Trump is a distraction from the real things going on in this troubling and troubled world. Best to ignore his inanity and focus on what matters.

It isn’t easy. President Trump spent much of the week flogging the idea that we should arm school teachers to prevent mass shootings. This is a patently bad idea for many reasons:

• The perpetrators are always armed with greater fire power than a teacher could conceal;
• An armed teacher who survives confrontation with a perpetrator would face serious risks once the SWAT team arrives;
• The risk of harm to innocent bystanders from a teacher with a handgun would be far greater than the risk from the SWAT team;
• Few teachers would take up this privilege;
• The environment in schools would however become far more antagonistic between teachers and students than it already is, since the idea is to keep secret which teachers are armed;
• There would be a risk of students getting hold of a teacher’s gun;
• Administration of such a program, including training and storage of weapons and ammunition, would be burdensome, not to mention the costs of insurance and legal settlements.

Even the stationing of trained and armed uniformed guards in schools has not demonstrably helped.

Trump’s advocacy of this bad idea, which pleases his National Rifle Association donors, distracts from other things going on, most notably the indictments of his senior campaign officials (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) on top of the indictments of more than a dozen Russians who hacked the 2016 election.

There can no longer be any doubt that Russia conspired to discredit the electoral process and support Trump’s candidacy. Nor can there be any doubt that President Putin blessed, if he didn’t actually order, the effort. The Russians also appear to have relieved Manafort and Gates of debt obligations while they were serving the campaign, in return for something still unknown. Both are likely headed for lengthy prison terms for “conspiracy against the United States” and other crimes, even as Trump’s supporters at a conservative political conference this week chanted “lock her up!”

That is not the whole story of this week’s real news. Washington has let it be known it has intercepts of the the Kremlin approving if not ordering an attack by Russian mercenaries on US soldiers and their allies in eastern Syria a couple of weeks ago. Moscow is also participating with the Syrian government in a ferocious bombardment of civilian targets in East Ghouta, outside Damascus, killing hundreds. A UN Security Council resolution intended to initiate a ceasefire is still held up, by guess who? Moscow is trying to eke out at least of few more days of air raids on East Ghouta, in hopes that is will surrender to Damascus after almost seven years of siege.

Trump continues his refusal to criticize Moscow, even if much of his Administration is trying to find ways to bite back. That in the end may be this week’s real news: what the President says is increasingly disconnected from reality and aimed mainly to protect himself from the Special Counsel’s investigation. The more he hears Mueller’s footsteps, the crazier Trump gets. He is becoming a kind of pugnacious and erratic figurehead presiding over an Administration that is far more in touch with reality and trying to prevent him from doing what his predecessor called “stupid shit.” I hope the saner folks succeed, but the risks of Trump doing something nutty are increasing.