To judge by the political analysts most likely to devote multiple column inches a week to ejaculating outrage in his direction, Trump is also remarkably adept at triggering the neocons. Which, come to think of it, may indicate that at least some of them have always been more lib than con.

With every column dedicated to verifying the awfulness of Donald Trump, these pundits confess to his pathological hold over their psyches. They also inadvertently demonstrate that their judgment has been distorted by their boundless loathing of the man who inhabits the White House. They fail to recognize that their Trump hatred ends up elevating him into a seemingly all-powerful force in American (and world) politics when he is in fact an incredibly weak president who can’t even get his own staff to follow through on direct orders. This has been vividly clear since the very beginning of his presidency and has recently been confirmed more powerfully than ever by the Mueller report, with its intricate narrative of institutionalized defiance and insubordination by underlings.

Describing the Trump haters as primarily triggered libs is to some extent unfair to liberals. It’s true that nearly every progressive pundit and activist despises Trump, and many of them respond right on cue to every tweeted provocation. Yet liberal opinion journalists tend not to be quite as Trump obsessed as those who write from the center-right.