The American Know Nothing Party, which began as an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration, and xenophobic, (and also violently anti-elite) secret society, later formally known as the Native American Party and the American Party, dominated large sectors of U.S. politics in the early to mid-1850s. Its supporters were eerily similar to those Republicans who currently support President Trump, in that their strong beliefs were anchored in values often totally at variance with science.

Over the past three years as President, Trump has exhibited no real understanding of science, using or discarding it at will. He also has demonstrated a total lack of mathematical or statistical ability or comprehension, substituting his “hunches” for judgements based on science and calculations. So far, he’s been wrong most of the time. When he has been correct, and there are times when this has been so, it’s usually been in the political arena [excepting with Putin], not in science, technical expertise, or statistics. The problem isn’t just that he’s weak in those areas, but that he refuses to admit any weaknesses in any of those areas, and he is reluctant, at best, to defer to experts, or, at worst, intransigent and insists on shouting down and denying anyone who questions his failures.

Lately, he’s been insisting that he, as President, has “ultimate authority” over state governors, which he doesn’t. The Constitution reserves a great many powers to the states and their governors, and even extreme Conservatives are balking at this assertion.

What’s even more astounding is that, only a week or so ago, he was insisting that he couldn’t order the governors to issue stay-in-place orders. This is a President who not only knows less and less, but can’t even remember what he said yesterday… or worse, holds the American people in such contempt that he feels he can say anything and never be held accountable.

Remember, he did once say something to the effect that he could shoot someone in plain sight and get away with it. You thought he was merely exaggerating?

Yet the Republicans in Congress blindly back their President Know-Nothing as if it were normal for a chief executive rail on for hours because the media caught him denying statements he made previously… and not just one or two, but scores. Tens of thousands of Americans are dying, many unnecessarily, because, first, he, as chief executive, abolished the pandemic task force. Then, second, in early January, he declared that coronavirus cases would be down to zero in weeks and did essentially nothing for two months. And he throws temper tantrum after temper tantrum on national news when questioned about his continued failures.

This is normal? And we’re accepting it?