...the Arbiters of Reality seem to be settling in for a protracted battle, as opposed to the impeachment proceedings or deep state coup they’ve been openly pining for. The overriding message is … “Don’t expect any proof of Trump’s collusion with Russia, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it, and it doesn’t really matter if we can’t prove it, because even if we can’t officially impeach him, he’s still a fascist, Putin-loving traitor, and since we’re stuck with him for the next four years, we’re going to move on to other things.”

All of which is understandably jarring for the neoliberals, neoconservatives, and just garden variety authoritarians who’ve been dutifully swallowing the preposterous swill the corporate media has been pouring down their throats (and who have been looking forward to Trump’s removal from office). And more so, given that, in the course of a year, they have (a) had to pretend to believe that Donald Trump is a modern-day Hitler who is going to exterminate millions of people and transform America into a new Fourth Reich, and then (b) once that tactic didn’t work, immediately forget the Hitler hooey, and pretend to believe that Donald Trump is a secret agent working for Putin, who they (c) suddenly had to believe is an evil James Bond-villian-type menace intent on annihilating Western democracy … all of which has been hard to swallow, given that, just before all this started, they (d) were just getting used to believing that the official enemy was not Putin, or fascists, but rather, those scary self-radicalized terrorists. Can you remember back to when they were the enemy? It was actually less than a year ago. The media was calling it “The Summer of Fear.” Back then, Trump was just becoming Hitler — they had started with the Hitler stuff back in May — but Putin wasn’t controlling him yet, as no one thought he had a chance of defeating Clinton in the general election, so the terrorists were still the reigning bogeymen,and George W. Bush was still a war criminal and not smooching it up with Ellen DeGeneres.