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THE MANDATE Of HEAVEN Can be Forfeited Exemplar Early on in Joan of Arc's career, she pulled off some pretty impressive (borderline spooky) stuff, which made enough of an impression on the leadership of the French army that they decided to keep her on, as something of a good luck charm. The English, on the other hand, became Terrified of her. And this worked out for awhile. Her team notched up enough victories to affect the larger picture. However, Joan had the disadvantage of firmly believing her own hype, and she started trying things she shouldn't - dopey stuff, that no sensible commander would have attempted - and got herself caught (by Burgundians, wh were Not afriad of her), and executed. There's a lesson there. The New Version President Trump, a long shot candidate in 2016, a complete outsider, won the nomination of a Party he was fairly new to, defeated the Establshment, ushering in a glorious era of memes, and began undoing much of the damage of the previous Adminstrations. Respect.Transparently cheated out of re-election, he continued fighting, in the face of mounting legal threats . . . and battled his way back to the White House again. In the 11th hour of that effort, they tried to kill him. And came terribly close. There was alot of talk of divine intervention after that, especially by the conservative Christian community that were firm supporters of him (many of whom had already been calling him an anointed champion of their god). And we get the impression that President Trump started believing that. While we here at the Consulate were hopeful for his seond term (which he clearly was owed), lately, this has been a disappointment. His persistent unwillingess to pick a side, in the ongoing war between civilization, and barbarism, currently going on in Ukraine, for example. This has come to a particularly ridiculous head now. President Trump's allies running for Congress are polling worse than they would hope, and the blame is being placed on fuel prices - specifically, diesel. As part of a plan to address this, President Trump signed a deal . . with Russia! Wait, it gets better(/worse).The amounts involved are trivial. I heard one industry analyst describe it as "minutes worth of consumption". And that's US consumption - bear in mind that the US currently EXports diesel, and so this extra diesel will be dribbling out into the planetary pool. It's Not enough to move the needle. Seriously, it will be swallowed by the system oise of such things as a tanker arriving an hour late. In short, pure theater. And when the Ukrainian President objected, President Trump demanded the Ukrainians "get another leader!"We understand that theater is President Trump's forte, and bombastic retort his style. But there are limits. Such a transparently useless gesture, towards one of teh greatest living war criminals on the planet, cannot be lightly forgiven.Contingencies, & Outcomes Unfortunately, there are no good outcomes here. While the Democrats look poised to retake the US House of Representatives, and thus in position to pass Articles of Impeachment, they will not have anywhere Near the seats they would need in the Senate to convict him. . And even if they did, the current vice President is worse, in every way. So we're stuck. We pay a lot attention to Socionomics here at the Consulate, and that science has been warning of a severe economic depression for some time. And recent events in the financial amrkets have done nothing to dissuade us of such concerns.Since we know from historical example that US Presidents who (usually due to accident of history) preside over the begining of economic depressions tend to be villified by posterity, this used to worry us, as we did not want the legacy of a man like President Trump, who has done so much good, to be so treated. But of Trump is going to go to such lengths, to sully his Own legacy - well, then we suppose we will let the chips fall where they may. He is modling himself into the charicature that history will project onto him. Personal Note I was originally planning to hold my nose and vote for the Democratic opponent of Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, simply because he has identified himself as genuine stealth hate-monger. However, in light of Trump's latest antics, I think I will cat that vote with considerably less distaste. The man needs to learn to moderate himself, to work with others - and he's clearly Not getting any such effective influences from inside his own party.