The new year is no longer so new, and we’re 10 months away from the midterm elections. Let’s take stock of where things stand in this country by acknowledging five central points that combine to tell us that we are at an unprecedented and chilling place in our history: We have a corrupt and incompetent president whom we are, for the time being, powerless to rein in; and on top of that, we have every reason to fear that, when the time comes to rein him in (this November), he will do everything he can to nullify the electoral process and reverse the voters’ will.

Last year was a democratic nightmare. This year is going to be worse. But he can’t do this forever. My five points below describe his temporary strength. But they also suggest that his hold on absolute power is fragile, and the reckoning day is coming.

Point one: On a personal level, Donald Trump is becoming more and more unhinged. He rambles, he stumbles, he fumbles. We don’t know whether he actually pooped himself in that one much-discussed episode in the Oval Office. But the fact that it has been discussed as something that might have happened is bad enough. And even if he retains full control of those evacuations, it’s the ones coming out of his brain and mouth that remain more concerning. Politico reported recently that the prime minister of Slovakia—a Trump ally—met with Trump at the White House on January 28 and later told other world leaders that he was concerned about Trump’s “psychological state.”

That repost of the Obamas as apes has been widely interpreted as one more Trumpian effort to troll the libs. Sure, I guess it was that. But what if it was something else? It may also have been the........

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