There's a chance you'll be sitting on the wet end of dock this summer, and a loon will make its familiar call, and you will think, "The cry of the loon is so haunting." And then you'll think, "Dammit! The words 'cry of the loon' just made me think of President Trump's tweets. Why can't I get him out of my head, even on vacation!"
It may be the greatest irresolvable problem of our day: How do we limit the bandwidth we devote to this man?
Mr. Trump is incessant. He's like an afternoon rainstorm that's still going at midnight. The minute you think American political life might finally be normalizing, he's back on Twitter saying things that no president should ever say.
Then the media go nuts, and it's all the American cable news people talk about for 48 hours. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers around the world leap aboard the condemnation bandwagon – see, we're doing it right now – or rise to his support, depending on their inclinations.
The cycle has become laughably predictable. The calming months of summer are a good moment for Mr. Trump's fevered critics to ask themselves: Could we dispense with any parts of the endless circle of outrage/rinse/repeat?
Because, let's be honest: If his tweets and utterances were shocking when he took office in January, six months later they are beginning to look like a calculated ploy to keep Donald Trump at the top of the newscasts.
He is infinitely polarizing, but his controversial statement are also infinitely relatable – as the embodiment of the worst in humanity for some, and for others, the necessary airing of insensitive truths.
Maybe you, too, have noticed that whenever the spotlight is momentarily off Mr. Trump, he reliably brings it back by launching an offensive of blitztweets.
He then cultivates the inevitable backlash, reheating it for his followers in campaign-style speeches during which he thunders that the so-called fake news media treat him and his people unfairly.
It works perfectly. Mr. Trump's millions of supporters revel in their President's shared victimhood.
The thing is, Mr. Trump is not a victim. He's the President, a.k.a. the most powerful man in the world. His supporters are right that he won the election. And they're also right that he's doing at least some of what he promised when he was courting their votes.
He may be unpresidential. But he is getting (some) things done, and trying to do a lot more. And that's what his critics, and his supporters, should concentrate on. It's not just about attention-grabbing tweets regarding what he thinks of this TV show or that news host.
He promised a conservative judge on the Supreme Court; he put a conservative judge on the Supreme Court. He promised to reopen the North American free trade deal; he's doing it. He said he'd pull out of the Paris climate change accord; he did. He vaguely promised to make life difficult for people from Muslim countries and south of the border; he's taken steps to do that.
And then there's what he promised but hasn't done. Getting rid of Obamacare while somehow replacing it with an even more comprehensive form of health coverage, at lower cost, while cutting the taxes on the wealth used to fund part of the program? Not yet. The wall on the Mexican border? Still waiting.
Concentrating on Mr. Trump's social media attacks, and his personality, misses the point. Focus on what he's actually doing. Instead of feeding the beast, his critics should dial back the rhetoric and relax a little bit. Don't twitch at every tweet.
Yes, it's unsettling that America elected a president like him. Things have gone badly in other countries that fell for brutish leaders who played on fear and hatred, and who questioned the legitimacy of critical institutions.
If he convinces enough people that most of the press is "the enemy of the people," as he keeps saying, and that the courts are biased, and if in such an atmosphere there were to be, say, a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, things could get ugly, quickly. In a moment of panic and fear, Americans, urged on by their President, could turn against the institutions that protect their freedom.
That's the danger, and why it's not possible to put Mr. Trump out of our minds for four years.
Some of what is required is happening. The media and the courts are doing their jobs, as are civil rights groups, businesses that support free trade, and many state governments and legislators in both parties. The system of checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution seems to be alive and well, so far. On many issues, it's literally the Trump White House against the rest of the world.
If you want some peace of mind, remember that America is not a country that can be so easily set adrift by one unevolved president with limited support.
Plus, Americans are no better or worse than the rest of us. That includes those who voted for him. They may be mistaken, but they are not stupid. Mr. Trump's schtick will wear thin if he doesn't accomplish more than signing endless executive orders, and if he succeeds in lowering taxes for the wealthy, paid for thanks to worse health care for tens of millions of other Americans.
Mr. Trump is dangerous, but a lot of what he says and tweets can be ignored. He's a brilliant and instinctive self-promoter – but that's the sell, not the substance. Worry about his actions, not his tireless, tiresome act. On a sunny summer's day, the latter can safely be tuned out, at least until tomorrow.