Trump is reprising his “angry drunk” shtik. I think it was George Will who said early on that there is someone like Trump in every small-town bar. He’s the one who shares his militant ignorance and bigotry with everyone who can hear him, and, you know, not a few of them tell one another “Don really tells it like it is.” But Trump’s latest outbursts are more likely to elicit something like “Do you remember the time when Don got really drunk and said those liberal bitches should be deported?”

But I fear this was not really a case of Trump just blurting out his secret hatreds. To be sure his belligerence was not a put-on, nor is his bigotry a sham. This was the real Donald Trump. But it is also true that his raving is in fact rather slick political theatre. We should face the fact that it is statements like his recent tirade that won Trump the presidency.

Moreover, this latest explosion comes right out of Trump’s rules of engagement. Investigations into his misconduct continue. Another of his cabinet members has had to bail out, and it looks like the law has finally caught up with his soul-mate Jeffrey Epstein. The many atrocities of his war against immigrants are coming into public view. No one outside the U.S. has stepped forward to contradict former Ambassador Darroch’s assessment of Trump and his failed presidency. So Trump has again created a distraction, a bit of cheap uproar to shift attention away from his embarrassments.

How I wish the Democrats and the media would ignore Tweety Trump for just two weeks. Let him blather all he wants, but keep it all out of the news. Then we might learn more about his assaults on the American government.