You just know it's going to be entertaining when the White House announces an upcoming "Infrastructure Week," because the end result is always a fiery trainwreck of epic proportions. In one of the first instances of this recurring phenomenon, Donald Trump hijacked (there's simply no better word for it) what was supposed to be a press announcement rolling out a plan to reduce regulations to get road projects built faster. With Elaine Chao helplessly looking on from the sidelines, Trump instead let fly his unhinged "very fine people on both sides" rant in response to the racist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia. That was the biggest and most spectacular Trumpian trainwreck during a planned Infrastructure Week, to date. But now we've got President Man-Baby's latest temper tantrum to compare it to. Because Infrastructure Week always means "never a dull moment" in the Trump White House.

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It's always amusing when the inside-the-Beltway pundits realize with astonishment that they've been wrong about something. What happens is that one of them decides they know "what the American voter is thinking" and then all the rest of them stampede to the conclusion that this is really what's going on out in the heartland. They write articles and make television appearances corroborating each others' opinions, and it soon becomes virtually accepted fact among the cognoscenti. Then, reality interjects itself and their house of cards collapses -- leaving them to construct yet another false narrative to run with (which they almost always immediately do).

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It's been yet another week of life so bizarre it'd be hard to even imagine it as satirical art. Who would best be able to capture the lunacy and doublethink emanating from Trump's White House? Joseph Heller? George Orwell? Douglas Adams? Or perhaps Dr. Seuss? In other words, just another glorious week in Trumpland, folks.

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So it finally looks like the Democratic 2020 presidential field is set -- at a whopping 24 candidates -- with the addition (today) of Bill de Blasio and (a few days ago) Steve Bullock. Well, I should say that the field is hopefully set at least up until September, when Stacey Abrams has said she'll make up her mind about a presidential bid. But it's probably not going to change any further before the first round of debates happens. Which all means who gets on which debate stage is going to become pretty crucial.

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Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, just signed into law the first-ever statewide experiment with a "public option" in heath insurance. This is a momentous event, but so far it hasn't been getting that much attention in the media. Inslee is also a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, so it will now be incumbent upon him to become the champion spokesman for instituting a public option nationwide.

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Donald Trump's trade war with China reached a new level of intensity over the past week, as the trade deal talks all but collapsed -- instead of, as had been promised, leading to an imminent signing ceremony of the best trade deal ever struck in all of history. Trump suddenly announced he was more than doubling the tariff on Chinese goods entering the country, and then for good measure threatened to slap the same 25 percent tariff on everything else China sells in America. This morning, China announced its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, and the stock market sank 600 points. Trump continues in his role as cheerleader for the tariffs, which means Democrats are left to make the case -- once again -- that the emperor's new clothes don't actually exist. So far, they haven't been doing all that great a job in doing so, however.

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Most Fridays, we tend to focus on President Donald Trump's flailings and failings on domestic issues, but this week his buffoonery on the world stage was really what was front and center. Sure, there's an ongoing constitutional crisis between the White House and the House of Representatives, but this week in particular seemed to be "foreign policy mishap week" for Team Trump.

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In what is in all likelihood a political shot across Joe Biden's bow, Senator Bernie Sanders is about to introduce a bill in the Senate which would cap all credit card interest rates at 15 percent. A companion bill will be introduced in the House by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (where it actually has the prospect of being voted on). This will be a welcome addition to the ongoing debate over what the Democratic Party's agenda and 2020 platform should include. It's an idea with the potential for widespread support from the public, and one of those rare issues where normal people would actually see a concrete and beneficial difference in their own lives emerge from the politics in Washington. A further provision of the bill would allow the post office to start offering basic banking services, putting it in direct competition with the banking industry.

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Yes, we're almost at the point where every Democrat who has ever dreamed of running for president has already announced his or her intentions, and we can finally say that the field is set. Almost. We've still got three holdouts, but two of them seem likely to jump in the race within the next few weeks, and the third has announced she's not going to make up her mind until September, so even if she does join in, it isn't going to happen any time soon.

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The word on the lips of every political journalist who resides within the Washington Beltway this week is "electability." Countless articles have been written on the subject, and it's been raised to almost obsessive levels as the pundits wonder what the voters think about the Democratic field and who will have the best chance of defeating Donald Trump next year. And as with every modern presidential election cycle for at least the past 20 years, the elusive quality of electability is measured and debated using an agreed-upon definition of the term. The only problem is that this definition is now wildly out of date -- if it ever was even correct in the first place.

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