There is a great irony in the political scene today. It is at once chaotic and boring. Most of this is, of course, because the #resistance has made fever pitch routine, but as more people begin to realize that Trump is not the authoritarian, tyrannical Nazi-esque so on and so forth (and whatever the President is this week in addition to the usual epithets), they find he is a thoroughly uninteresting antagonist with nothing remarkable about him. Save maybe for his punctuality in light of eight years of “30 minutes late” being considered “on time”. You’re either dealing with this terrifying force of nature one remembers from the primary and the general but who has demurred in a way, or just the guy you’re used to seeing in the President’s seat at this point but are personally invested in yelling at.

And yet, it’s a bit disappointing. I can remember watching Trump’s inauguration with a sense that the next four years were going to be a whirlwind of the man finally being able to, if not crack the gridlock in Washington at least clear out some of the pipes and bring a dynamic to Washington that hadn’t been seen in a while, that is, one of more constant motion. He has seemed able to galvanize Republicans on occasion, and tweak his opponents with regularity. The latter, if nothing else, has been enjoyable to watch for its absurdist humor. But thus far his presidency has been a matter of occasional upending of said opponents while the rest of the news cycle is taken up by the white noise of this interminable Russian traveling roadshow and the loud declaration that everything everywhere is going to kill all of us.

It is kind of unfortunate that we can’t even ask for an exciting president anymore. We already choose not to ask for honest politicians, although that rests more on the electorate than anyone else. The electorate, as 2016 demonstrated, either takes the idea that “we’ll never get an honest or decent candidate” for granted, accepts it as universal doctrine, and yet still decides to play the moral argument as a centerpiece against the other person through the general election. The electorate doesn’t demand honesty from their candidates nor decency, and wonders why they get the same kind of people every time. They, in conjunction with these dishonest politicians, have created a political climate where any even debatably decent person (yes, including Oprah. although it’s tenuous that she is actually qualified for office, but we’re not talking about policies here) will be ripped to shreds and be made to look like the devil him/herself. The electorate helps to create the world it despises, and laments its creation.

Trump supporters however, while not moving the needle closer to this day of relative honesty and qualifications over party, are of course, not the most vocal when it comes to moving away from that. This comes from the unhinged (and at the State of the Union, petulant) responses of the hashtag army. The key right now is for them to change to a more rational debate style. To “blink first” when it comes to actually caring about content of one’s character and the accuracy of their words. Normally, I would say I don’t have a choice but to hope such a thing happens. Considering what I’m dealing with, I’ll hope when I see a change that doesn’t consist solely of one New York Times article telling the #resistance to calm down. Until then, this brand of crazy is the new normal. It’s not very exciting to watch, and its becoming quite exhausting to be surrounded by. One can only imagine however, what it is like to be that angry for this long about everything and have nothing but your emotions to use in retaliation.