Overtime? Nah. Trump’s owes us an apology, a resignation and a check

President Donald J. Trump this week floated the idea — half-joking, or maybe not — that he should get a two-year extension to his four-year term. Why? Because he and some of his supporters have convinced themselves that the first half of his presidency was “stolen” by the distractions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion by Trump’s campaign, and alleged attempts to obstruct the investigation and, thus, justice.

As occasionally is the case with this unique Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Trump has gotten this backwards. Far from deserving reparations or “overtime,” he is in arrears. Having squandered so much of his first two years, he has already exhausted his term, wasting our time, and he should resign immediately.

Although this should be self-explanatory, I will explain my reasoning, just in case.

No one made Mr. Trump lose time to fretting and fuming about the Mueller investigation.

If he could have kept his ego in check and trusted the rule of law, he would have acknowledged the magnitude of Russian interference and encouraged, not resisted, a thorough probe of how it happened and who was involved.

If he was certain he hadn’t been actively complicit in conspiring with a hostile foreign power and thus had nothing to fear, he could have let the investigation proceed without comment and devoted his time and full attention to studying infrastructure proposals, learning the subtleties of foreign policy from veteran diplomats, exploring ways to make our economic system more equitable, expanding his knowledge and grasp of history, and perhaps improving his syntax and grammar.

Instead, he frittered away thousands of Presidential hours golfing with cronies, preening at fan rallies, monitoring cable news programs in search of flattery and perceived slights, and tweeting insults and threats about hundreds of American citizens, from Stacey Abrams to Jeff Zucker.

If anything, Mr. Trump’s devout followers should be even more annoyed with him than those who consider him the most shameless, amoral lowlife ever to occupy our nation’s highest office. It’s their agenda that his misspent, tantrumic hours have delayed and likely robbed.

I realize, of course, that it can be argued that Americans who believe he is not only callous and vulgar but dangerous should be grateful he’s wasted so much of his precious tenure soliciting flattery and having snit fits. But two-plus years of his nasty theatrics has made a less forgiving person of me.

By my rough count, Mr. Trump’s hours of self-indulgent prattle and pissiness have more than exhausted the term he dubiously won. Not only should he vacate the Oval Office, he should cut us a personal check for his overrun. I think $1 billion would just about do it, assuming he’s actually got it. He would likely write it off on his taxes anyway. But I suspect most of us would accept his departure plus five or ten bucks and call it a bargain.