Already gloomy days grow ever colder and shorter for the President as we move toward January and the convening of the 116th Congress.

Voters pointedly gave the President the cold shoulder on November 6, an election in which he, himself, declared himself present on "every ballot." He was and he and the Trumpist GOP lost . . . around 40 seats in the House, not to mention governorships in the states whose Electoral College votes gave him the Presidency after losing the popular vote.

By all accounts still in a snit from some variant of post-election trauma, the President managed to embarrass himself and the country at ceremonies commemorating November 11, 1918, Armistice (or perhaps more accurately by his behavior AT some ceremonies commemorating the end of the First World War and his absence from others.)

He pointedly refused to join heads of state who walked together in the rain to the Arc de Triomphe, then pointedly arrived late, in his well-armored limousine.

He pointedly skipped ceremonies at Belleau Wood entirely, a snub to both the spirit of the hour and to every Marine who ever marched behind a flag adorned with the most sacred of the Corps' battle streamers. Again, he blamed the rain.

He didn't cross the river to Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day because he said, he was "busy."

Business Insider, not a liberal publication by any stretch of the imagination, joined a host of others, online and in print, in publishing photographs of better men in soaking rain honoring those who died for their countries. (See https://www.businessinsider.com/8-photos-ofworld-leaders-honoring-falling-soldiers-in-the-rain)

One salutes the rank, not the man, combat soldiers say. The President chose to salute neither while accepting honors rendered by those whose combat experience is all too often stated only by their ribbons.

At home things only got worse. On the eve of the Thanksgiving holidays Trump sent troops, 5,000 of them, to the border with Mexico, ostensibly to "protect" us from a group of asylum seeking refugees, men women and children, old and young still a thousand miles away.

He fired Jeff Sessions, his faithful and demonstrably sycophantic Attorney General, for conforming to the Justice Department's code of ethics and recusing himself from oversight of an investigation of entities in which he had played a leading role.

Trump then appointed as Session's interim replacement, (illegally in the eyes of most constitutional scholars) a man not only unvetted by the President (by his own admission), but singularly unqualified for the job, of questionable character, documentably linked to at least one criminal enterprise, and outspoken in support of the President's self-serving point of view about a criminal investigation in which the President himself, the President's family and business associates, and members of his campaign staff and government are witnesses, targets, and in some cases already convicted felons.

Though adamant about "locking up" Hilleary Clinton for imaginary crimes years ago thoroughly investigated and dismissed, Trump continues, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to support: Vladimir Putin's discredited insistence that he "knew nothing" about Russian interference on Trump's behalf in the 2016 elections; Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's insistence that he had nothing to do with the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi; and, Recep Erdogan's efforts have us hand over exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen to the mercies of Turkish justice.

At press time the President was busy blaming the victims of California's deadly forest fires for "not raking their leaves."

Perhaps Trump is Gloucester indeed, like Gloucester has consciously or unconsciously set a course.

"To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of
these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and
dreams"

Cold indeed.

But the earth revolves and things get warmer.

Democrats with subpoena power take power in January.

And Special Counsel Mueller, by all accounts, has already filed a dozen or more sealed indictments.

Tic. Toc.