June 23, 2019

I'm old enough to remember when columnist Tom Friedman promised over and over and over again, that our occupation of Iraq would turn a critical corner in six months.

He did it so much that the blogosphere just coined the term "Friedman Unit" for that mythical six month period that would change things for the better.

Then there came the big talking Anthony "Mooch" Scaramucci, who lasted an astounding ten days as the White House Director of Communications. Even in a White House with an unprecedented turnover of employees, his tenure was remarkably short (although not short enough to disqualify him from being booked on cable news shows, sadly). Even the mainstream media started talking about Trump staff tenures in terms of how many "Scaramuccis" or "Mooches" they lasted.

And now we have a new unit of time for the Beltway denizens: the Trump unit.

What is the Trump unit? It's two weeks away.

Trump's taxes will be released in two weeks.
Trump's new health plan will be released in two weeks.
A major economic program will be released in two weeks.
Trump will authorize an attack on Iran in two weeks if they don't agree to negotiations.
Trump will have ICE and CBP sweep up immigrants in two weeks.

Two weeks is truly a perfect time period for Trump. It's short enough to convey a sense of urgency, but long enough in this chaos presidency to be drowned out by multiple scandals and forgotten, especially for someone as easily distracted as Trump. He uses it constantly. Now that it's been identified, watch how often you hear it.

Promise the world anything, but in two weeks. Welcome to the Trump unit.

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