This could have been, in the words of one of my favorite books, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

Let’s go to the tape.

The mango MAGA signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran. A memorandum. Of understanding. Three hundred billion of our dollars later, and what exactly did the understanding understand? Not the nuclear program — that’s still humming along untouched, which is more than you could say for Obama’s deal, the one we shredded because it was insufficiently humiliating. So we paid the GDP of a mid-sized country to solve precisely zero centrifuges.

But why settle for expensive and useless when you can also be presumptuous? The thing bound Israel to terms Israel never agreed to — a neat trick, signing other people’s names — and the thank-you note arrived as the Strait of Hormuz slamming shut all over again. Then, for the encore, we handed back the frozen Iranian assets that were one of the last real levers we had, because nothing telegraphs strength like giving away your leverage and calling it a win.

And then — because the Grifter-in-Chief has never met a symbol he couldn’t faceplant into — he signed it at Versailles. Versailles. The Hall of Mirrors. The exact room where a flattened Germany was made to swallow full blame for the war, in a treaty so punitive it bankrupted the country and incubated a far worse one twenty years later.

The Provost of Prevarication didn’t just sign a bad deal. He pulled up a chair at history’s most cursed table and ordered the same thing.

And then we found out what literally screwed our cattle farmers and our grocery budget.

Remember Elon Musk and his Musketeers at DOGE, who cut programs willy-nilly with the wealth of experience possessed by twenty-two-year-olds? Turns out one of the programs they cut was for screwworm eradication. It was a $15 million program that released infertile screwworms to keep the population in check. Program cut. Screwworms procreated, and now we’re footing the bill — a $300 million tab to eradicate the screwworms that doesn’t include a 20% increase in beef prices, let alone getting rid of the real screwworms (Mango and Musk).

Clara Peller and James Garner are rolling over in their graves.

And then there are the tarps covering the Kennedy Center façade since the orange narcissist supposedly took his name off the building. I say supposedly because the tarps are still up and no one has seen behind them, and sadly, saying you’re going to do something and then not doing it while violating a court order is right out of the Dimdom playbook.

I could mention the unveiling of the Qatari Air Force One, demonstrating the Grifter-in-Chief grifting — thumbing his nose and giving the middle finger to the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

Let’s not forget our reflecting pool — repainted on a no-bid contract to a Trump supporter — is now an algae farm with peeling paint and a stench worse than Diaper Don’s Depends.

Or the DOJ probes into MLB for being anti-Christian. (Don’t ask. You really don’t want to know.)

And that trust in government is at an all-time low because he personifies the worst of us.

Let’s take a moment to breathe. In through the nostrils. Out through the nose. Feel better? Me neither, but let’s continue.

But then came Thursday. And the opening of the Obama Presidential Library.

It was attended by three ex-Presidents who had very different political agendas than Obama’s but shared the same desire to protect the values of our country in the best way they knew how. But that really wasn’t the headline for me. They seemed genuinely happy to be together and celebrate Obama’s legacy.

Here is a shocker. Obama’s speech was not about himself. His stated hopes ran toward civic renewal. He spoke about our “shared values that make democracy possible” and detailed his hopes for the U.S., while never naming Trump but repeatedly aiming criticism at the current administration. He tied it to the coming 250th anniversary of the Declaration, emphasizing that “we are all created equal” and that in the United States “there will be no kings or lords, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens”

For the place itself, he pitched it as a living campus rather than a mausoleum: he asked people to “make this campus a part of your lives,” be inspired by the art, and check out books from the public library branch — and bring them back on time. The complex includes a museum, the Obama Foundation offices, a Chicago Public Library branch, and a playground.

The throughline — the moral arc quote anchoring the plaza’s arch — is the thesis he wants the place to embody: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

There were no golden statues unveiled. No chorus of “me, me, me.” Instead it was about giving back to the community, in Chicago and elsewhere, that had given him so much.

He made me feel better. He did. But he was not the star that day. Michelle was.

She started with “Barack, you gotta look at me,” she said — and he shook his head with a smile and said he was going to look down instead, as the crowd laughed. He didn’t manage it for long.

It was human. It was real. Not the gold-plated, phony, deep-as-a-puddle fondness that the Tangerine eater of souls is capable of…

She reminded him he’d once told her he couldn’t promise her the world, but could promise her an interesting life — and said he’d outdone himself and given her both. “There hasn’t been a single second through this experience that standing by your side hasn’t left me in awe,” she said, as he began to cry. She praised the “unshakeable values” he embodied — equality, empathy, honesty, inclusion, fairness — and walked through the trials of his presidency, from personal attacks to national tragedies. “Eight years in the crucible, and not once did you melt from the heat,” she continued, before naming the racism he faced as the first Black president — the birther lies, the questions about his faith and patriotism, the claims that a U.S. senator and constitutional law expert wasn’t qualified for the job.

Okay. I will admit it. I am a big crybaby. And at this point the tears were pouring down my cheeks. Sure. Part of it was missing people who speak in complete sentences and can articulate well. I mean, I have been known to weep over a good sentence. But mostly it was because it was a public display of love and devotion from one human to another. Can you imagine Melania giving such a speech? Or, for that matter, anyone within the Hollow Man’s circle?

She closed the frame by insisting the center isn’t a monument to him: “Barack and I have always said that this center is grounded in our stories, but it has never been about us.” At one point he reached up to wipe away tears, glancing up at her before dropping his eyes again.

What Michelle, Barack, and the three living Presidents reminded me on Thursday is that our country is based on the ideal that we are all in this together. That we are at our greatest when we do our best to connect, be real, and come together in the best approximation of our mutual goals. That love, compassion and friendship are best built on what we share and that people like Deviant Don can spew all the hate and vitriol they want. However, as long as we seek to find connection and treat each other well, we will come out ahead.

It could have been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. Thursday wouldn’t let it.

So here’s the assignment. In November we don’t beat him because we hate him — hate is his whole act, and you don’t beat a man at his own game. We beat him because we remember what Thursday felt like, and we want four more years that feel like that instead.