Breathing Together

Everyone loves a conspiracy.

― Dan Brown

While not every Trumpster insists Barack Obama is a Muslim or Hilary Clinton a cannibal, every Trumpster demands we acknowledge the "deep state."

You cannot find one that doesn't.

Conspiracy-thinking is the Trumpster's oxygen.

But after spending 40 years in Washington, and watching close up a succession of nine administrations—Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, George W., Obama and Trump—I can assure you there is no deep state.

There are only deep pockets—the ones rattled by fat-cat donors of every stripe. Their goal is not world dominion, but control over the various industries that produce their massive wealth.

But Trumpsters must have their deep-state conspiracy, that octopean treachery they long to "unmask."

Conspiracy (meaning "plot") entered English in the 14th century from the Latin conspiratio, noun-form of the verb conspirare, meaning—literally—"to breathe together."

So you could say Trumpsters' romance with conspiracies is a deep fondness for breathing together.

They demonstrate that love at every maskless rally the president holds.

If there's a conspiracy afoot, it's theirs: the confederacy of dunces.