Albany Times Union (Sunday)

A disassembl­y, you say? Bring it on.

- By Barbara DeMille Barbara DeMille is a writer living in Rensselaer­ville.

A great deal worthy of notice has happened of late: A couple of purportedl­y untouchabl­e-due-to-highrating­s men are gone from Fox News and CNN. With dispositio­ns, indictment­s, and special grand juries, the rule of law looms over Donald Trump. And a just metaphor: That venture meant to exceed nature, the Space X rocket, aiming to fly around the moon and return, made an explosion worthy of at least four Fourth of Julys over the Gulf of Mexico. A “rapid, unschedule­d disassembl­y,” the engineers said.

In short, it blew up. And to my great pleasure, some other less grand but no less seemingly stolid factions are working their way to their muchdeserv­ed ends. From the count of the prosecutor­s now actively interested in his past behavior, it would seem that the reign of Donald Trump is also drawing to a close.

There will always be a line beyond which it is forbidden to step. More often than not, dictators mistake

The Trumpian circus, too,

will come to an end.

their brief cloud of fame and personal exaltation as permission to cross it. For me, Trump crossed on that January day on which he stood before an army of angry citizens armed with bear spray, pikes, flagpoles, and bicycle racks, pointed his neatly gloved finger in the direction of the U.S. Capitol, and urged them to march down that Mall and fight.

They did. And destroyed property. And, while fighting their way into the Capitol past seriously underprepa­red Capitol Police, they killed some people. And when order was finally restored, many in the mob were charged, jailed, tried, and convicted.

But not Donald Trump or his henchmen. And for some of his adherents, though it may be too painful for them to admit, watching him walk away a free man burst the disco ball. Scattered in those shards were the fantasies of prosperity and justice served, stoked by Fox News, that had nurtured many a man through a bleak winter evening.

The times, they are a-changing, they used to sing. And they surely have, and changed and changed once more, until now we are left with the dregs of a bender in an amoral abyss, led on by a man who could boast of groping women in their most private parts and yet be elected president.

But temporary madness will run its course. Trump may yet feel the weight of his actions. And much of what has been a national indulgence in the world of the demeaning insult and the filthy word has reached its limit. Try it: Stand like the sturdy, defiant second-grader you are and say, “Tinkle, potty chair, toilet,” go on, say it – say “underpants.” Now, say, “Immigrants are diseased rapists stealing our jobs.”

Feel better? Either way? I didn’t think so.

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