So, Trump has done it again (no surprise there). That it is one of his most open, most violent, racist screams should come as no surprise. For Trump is already buckling down for an election fight in 2020 that is going to be a tough one, even for him. He is, of course, going to run on The Three R's: "Racism, Russia, and Repression (of voting)," just as he did in 2016. But Trump, history's consummate con man, who, knowing nothing about U.S. government, thinks always in terms of reality TV. He knows that in order to keep his audience (otherwise known as "his base") he's got to up the ante this time around. And so he has, in spades, as they used to say at one his (bankrupt) casinos. Of course, we hope that his electoral strategy this time around will be in the end as bankrupt as were those casinos, with no (unknown-but-we-can-guess) bank(s) to bail him out. But hey, you never know. There were many in Germany in 1932 who thought that that "crazy man" Hitler could never become Chancellor.

The Epstein-Barr virus, first of all, is the cause of an infectious disease, mononucleosis, which is (interestingly enough in light of what this column is principally about) called the "kissing disease." Its primary symptoms are: fatigue, fever, lack of appetite, rash, sore throat , swollen glands in the neck, and weakness and sore muscles. While in this column we are dealing with a different kind of Epstein-Barr virus, one of the political sort (credit here must go to one of my Twitter mates, JoeInWVa, for identifying it as such [although unfortunately I cannot find the link to that particular cartoon]) some of the symptoms are the same. That is if you broaden the diagnosis to include Sick-of-Trump-and-Barr Syndrome.

If you are going to read just one (or one more) book about Donald Trump and his character, what drives him, what explains his behavior in all the realms of his life (at least in the ones of which we are aware), I strongly recommend Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump (Hachette Books, 2019) by the golf writer, Rick Reilly, associated for a long time with Sports Illustrated and ESPN.

Adolf Hitler, head of the German Nazi party (that is the party with the mis-leading name, sort of like Trump will make America great again, when he really means "white" again), was appointed Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on January 30, 1933. The Nazis, although powerful, were still not the dominant political party in Germany of the time. In fact, there was no dominant political party at that time.

For those of you who might not know (and I should think that most political types would, given the massive publicity on media of all stripes the event gets) something called the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) took place over this past weekend. It was funny, because when I heard about this year's event I thought "wait a minute; didn't they have one of these of few months ago?" No, I'm not losing it yet. That's just some evidence as to exactly how much the annual shindig is talked about.