I would have been incredulous if anyone were to assert that the Republicans, in Congress or not, are very imaginative people. They seem content to do what they are told to do, sc., block any legislation or destroy any program which the plutocrats who support them could conceivably dislike. Even during the current Trump Catastrophe the Republicans have kept repeating the lines given them by the White House. But a new set of Trump crises has challenged them to work their imaginations and come up with explanations, based mostly conspiracy theories, to explain away Trump’s crimes. They are telling us: “It’s the F.B.I., it’s the C.I.A., it’s the Deep State, it’s the Democrats, it’s the European Union or all of the above who have shared in a brazen conspiracy to obscure Our Trump’s renown.”

These conspiracy theories are by now rather trite. So I want to help by providing some new conspiracy theories. We can say that Trump’s present woes are due to a plot by:

Neo-Stalinists, who are trying to attack Putin by discrediting his close ally, Trump;

the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, who want to make Cardinal Burke president;

White Supremacists, who find Trump’s support of them lukewarm;

Eric Trump, who thinks he is the Trump who deserves the spotlight;

Kim Jong Un, who is bored with Trump and wants a more clever adversary;

International arms dealers, who resent Trump’s generosity with weapons.

These imaginings, I have to admit, are rather lame. Maybe the Republican Party should sponsor a national contest to find the best explanation for future crises as they come along.