Terrorists in the U.S. are as American as apple pie. Since 9/11, there have been 12 terrorists whose actions killed people in the U.S. Every one of them was a citizen or legal resident of the U.S. Three of them were domestic terrorists, i.e., natural born U.S. citizens. Two came from Russia as children. Three had family that emigrated from Pakistan. One came from the Palestinian Territories. One came from Egypt, and he lived here for a decade before his attack. One had family that emigrated from Kuwait and one had family that emigrated from Afghanistan.

In addition about a quarter of the extremists are converts, further confirming that the challenge cannot be reduced to one of immigration:

Charlie Winter, in the Atlantic, explains why Donald Trump's immigration order has ISIS clapping. He has "reinforced the victimhood narrative at the core of the Islamic State’s recruitment pitch." He has "done wonders for salafi-jihadist ideologues the world over."

....the new administration is building the world that salafi-jihadists so dearly want to inhabit, one where “crusader governments and citizens” are seen to be persecuting Sunni Muslims en masse and in which the conspiracy about there being a U.S.-orchestrated “war on Islam” actually rings true.

...They can now declare with more gusto than ever that the White House is indeed at war with Islam, that all it wants from the Middle East is oil, and that it incorporates neither ethics nor morals into its myopic pursuit of global hegemony. In this sense, the new president is doing the Islamic State’s propaganda for it, buoying the caliphate in its time of need, and helping make up for its territorial losses in Iraq and Syria.

To answer my own question: My personal view is that Trump (and his team) are both morons (in the sense of being tone-deaf and too foolish to know they are aiding the very group they profess to want to destroy) and ignorant (about everything from world history to jihadist terror groups to the protections of the U.S. Constitution.)

I have consistently expressed my personal belief that Trump has always been an untalented, unremarkable, narcissist with autocratic propensities. And that his trust-funded children are as inexperienced and tone-deaf as he is. (I won't even dignify his bizarre, looney spokespersons -- Central Casting couldn't have picked a more off the wall group.)

Republicans are not in his corner. They may not want to impeach him and chance the Dems re-taking Congress in 2018, but at some point, they may want Mike Pence to take over. As a law professor writes in the Chicago Tribune, the 25th Amendment may be just what they need.

This previously obscure amendment states that "the Vice President and a majority of … the principal officers of the executive departments" can declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," in which case "the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."

This is option three for getting rid of Trump: an appeal to Vice President Mike Pence's ambitions. Surely Pence wants to be president himself one day, right? Pence isn't exactly a political moderate — he's been unremittingly hostile to gay rights, he's a climate change skeptic, etc. — but, unappealing as his politics may be to many Americans, he does not appear to actually be insane. (This is the new threshold for plausibility in American politics: "not actually insane.")

There's also a potential, however slight, for a military coup:

What would top U.S. military leaders do if given an order that struck them as not merely ill-advised, but dangerously unhinged? An order that wasn't along the lines of "Prepare a plan to invade Iraq if Congress authorizes it based on questionable intelligence," but "Prepare to invade Mexico tomorrow!" or "Start rounding up Muslim Americans and sending them to Guantánamo!" or "I'm going to teach China a lesson — with nukes!"

It's impossible to say, of course. The prospect of American military leaders responding to a presidential order with open defiance is frightening — but so, too, is the prospect of military obedience to an insane order. After all, military officers swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the president.

I'm not going to feign outrage over the firing of any individual prosecutor, particularly one I have no personal knowledge of. (They all work for and perpetuate an unfair criminal justice system that overly rewards cooperators and purchases testimony with promises of leniency or freedom.) But I'm delighted at the national reaction to his act of firing Sally Yates, whom Trump just asked to serve as Acting Attorney General a few weeks ago. He and his team were not only ignorant about her, they apparently failed to do any due diligence. (Her positions on everything seem at variance with Trump's. Her webpage will be gone soon, you can also try this page and the RSS feed in case they stay up longer.)

Every day Trump bites himself in the a*ss a little more, just like the snake in the story he told on the campaign trail. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.