[station]

Conspiracy theory time. Does anyone else think the barrage of agressive executive orders in the first few days is part of a Republican plan to set Trump up for failure? The orders are not mundane or limited to undoing Obama's legacy. They are his most controversial topics: immigration, refugees, the wall, climate change, torture, abortion, media censorship. All of these things are going to galvanize his opposition and immediately hurt his overall popularity.

I think his hardcore base of deplorables is around 20% and the other 26% voted for him because jobs, or just thought he might actually somehow grow up after becoming president. That group will abandon him at some point.

Now remember that Pence and Preibus are not Trump insiders, they represent the GOP establishment in his inner circle. He's clearly in over his head and utterly unprepared, so there is no way this is all his plan. I think they've designed it this way on purpose for these reasons:

1. It strokes his ego. He can lay out all his stupid big plans and get photo ops and feel like he's lord of the castle. His base fawns over their great leader actually making American great again, placating them. He stays busy and distracted so he doesn't drop nukes on Alec Baldwin or something. Without Obama and Clinton to rile them up his base slowly loses interest.

2. Distraction. Without knowing exactly how executive orders work, I assume half of this stuff is basically meaningless and won't actually come into effect. I doubt he can allocate funds to the border wall for instance without congressional approval. We're left to wring our hands over each ridiculous lie and affront to basic human dignity while the GOP establishment quietly implements their tea party dream agenda.

3. I think a lot of people were willing to give him a chance but it became clear very soon after he became PEOTUS that he wasn't going to change and the GOP couldn't control him. He is too much of a wild card and if he goes down, many in the GOP could go with him in the midterms if they don't play it right. Most of these Trump policies were heavily criticized by the GOP establishment during his primary run but they are conspicuously quiet now outside of a few. He is easily the most unpopular incoming president ever and his opposition is growing. Getting all of this out there right away hardens his detractors. The lies and outlandish statements will build up, the moderates will leave him, and soon all that will be left is the 20%. And even some of them will leave cause wtf they haven't gotten that 6 figure job yet and black people can still vote. Then the tax returns, apprentice tapes or Russian pee tapes come out and he's cooked. Pence is in and the GOP come out relatively unscathed cause hey they never wanted him in the first place. Pence is vanilla and controllable and America goes back to celebrities and fast food.

And somehow I'm actually hoping for all this to be true. What a time to be alive.