The thing is as impotent and ridiculous as a Marcel Marceau show. If we had representatives, it would not be necessary to call them because they'd represent us – as we instructed them to.

A lawyer you've hired to represent you does just that. You maybe call him to check on the progress of the matter you've hired him to handle for you – such as a divorce, for instance – but you rest easy knowing he has to follow the specific instructions you've given him and that he may not take it upon himself to "represent" you in ways you did not ask him to nor approve of. Imagine hiring an attorney to represent you in divorce proceedings and later on you find out he decided to "represent" you in some business transaction you'd never even discussed with him, let alone authorized him to "represent" your interests in – but instead represented his own interests, or those of some other client who paid better than you.

That is the sort of "representation" we have in Congress. Which is to say, we aren't represented at all. It's a Jedi Mind Trick, so to speak, designed to make us believe we are – so that we accept what these "representatives" do to us and do not do for us.

That said, it might just be useful to call your "representative" – if he's a Republican – because it is only Republicans who have a self-interested reason to see Trump board Marine 1 for one last flight as president, perhaps doing the Iowa Jima fist pump on his way out rather than the Tricky Dick two-handed victory salute. The "Dumocrats" – as Trump likes to call them – certainly do not. If Trump were to vacate the premises and head off to Mara Lago, leaving JD Vance to hold the bag, the "Dumocrats" would lose the thing that won them control of both the House and Senate. It's the same thing that cost the Republicans the loss of both the House and Senate. It is the same thing that will almost certainly cost them the presidency in just a little over 24 months from now – which is not very far from now, is it?

Put another way, there isn't much time to staunch the bleed, to cauterize the cancer and perhaps save the patient.

Trump is at least as much a liability to the GOP as Nixon was by '74 and probably more so, because while Nixon was viewed as a scummy used car salesman type by a majority of Americans by then, the country was in much better shape then. The economy wasn't great but it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now for ordinary people, who could still afford new cars and homes and food, too. For example, in 1974, a brand new full-sized/six passenger family car such as a Chevy Impala sedan was $4,135. Punch that into a devaluation calculator – which figures the reduced buying power of the dollar – and you get $29,898. What does the latter sum buy today? A compact-sized crossover such as a Honda CR-V or a Mazda CX-5. Anyone old enough to remember '74 also remembers that a $100 bill bought enough groceries for a family for a couple of weeks. Today, a $100 bill buys maybe three plastic baggies of goyslop plus a bottle of Windex.