Another book to be written about how Trump created a departmental shambles

One of the more interesting things to read about the Roger Stone sentencing is this article at the Washington Post, explaining that the prosecutor appeared not to really be endorsing the revised sentencing submissions, and wouldn't confirm who had written them!

It really sounds like a Justice Department in complete internal disarray, all due (of course) to Trump and his enabler Barr.

While on the topic of Trump, I was trying to find live streaming of the Democrat debate on Youtube yesterday lunchtime, and there was none to be found.  (I think it was still on while I was looking, but maybe I was a little late.)   Instead, I ended up watching a little live streaming of Trump at a rally, and once again I find his cult status completely puzzling.

The 10 minutes I watched were mostly bragging about how his election night went, and how TV pundits couldn't believe it when he started to win.   It was a story he has presumably told scores of times before, and people behind him did not look all that engaged.  Finally, he moved onto "Democrats are the parties of high crime and late abortion, ripping the babies from the mother's womb", and the audience got a little animated again.  And he threw in some clearly dubious bragging about medical advances.   It seems, incidentally, that Trump cultists are really pleased that if they get a deadly illness, they can try some pre-approved drug.  The fact that the vast majority of new drugs never get approved (only 14% make it, apparently) would surely indicate that very few of them going to have a benefit from the drug, let alone be saved by it.   (Not all new drugs would be actual life saving ones in any event.)

My point is - it is extremely difficult to understand why his followers think it is worth going to his rallies.  He speeches are rambling, clearly vain, off the cuff efforts by someone who would be given a poor rating as a high school orator let alone as an adult, and the audience itself does not look highly engaged during the more repetitive sections.   He doesn't attempt theatrical drama and practised emotional high points, like Hitler.  Yet people still, presumably, get some emotional lift from being there.

Although I have never been to a cricket match in my life, I think it might be like the odd way you sometimes see a cricket crowd start to amuse themselves during tedious play, with Mexican waves, etc.   What they came to watch is not all that great at the moment anyway, but they all know they all like the same thing when it is great.  

And I am still inclined to believe that they are clinging together because they know they are on the losing side of long term social and economic change.