There is a powerful force that affects politics as much as individual lives. It is fatigue.
We just get darn tired of something, be it a job, a relationship, a hobby or a routine. We have been devoted to it for years, and suddenly we want out; we want to do something else. What we loved doing has become boring and tedious. More work than fun.
A kind of national fatigue played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union: People were tired of the system and its oppressiveness. Likewise, South Africa.
I was in and out of that country just before apartheid came to its timely death. Ordinary White people, including Afrikaners, said they had had enough; they were tired of the whole complex, cruel structure.
It is my contention that President Donald Trump wants out — that for him, the fun is over. The old stimuli — his daily television domination, the adulation, the global recognition — are ebbing.