And meanwhile the media and internet are obsessed with the reflecting pool fiasco, which Trump blames on invisible saboteurs. Seems trivial compared with the seismic long-term effects of the Iran fiasco, but this is not accidental. The incompetence and delusional dishonesty of the administration are blatantly visible in the most sacred place of our capital city. There may be a fundamental shift going on here in what the great majority of the public understands about our situation.
The reflecting pool fiasco demonstrates that Trump didn't need to attack Iran to completely shift attention from the EPSTEIN FILES. Too bad about the timing.
Having spent twenty years in on the ground activism in the US I found most working class people don't care about reality. It was and still is amazing to me that as soon as the ruling class plays the race and other bigotry cards the working class puts the gun to their heads and pulls the trigger.
The older I get, the more I identify with Mark Twain’s opinion of mankind. I could plot an uninterrupted downward trend of my view of human nature starting from the optimism of my 20s to the near cynicism of my 70s.
It's been going on in this country a lot longer than that! The first Gilded Age, "I can get one half of the working class to kill the other half" --Jay Gould
Those who actually did the fighting in the Revolutionary War got paid alright, in worthless Continentals. Our 45th president sent me back to the U.S. history books. I hadn't touched one in 30 years. Ignorance was bliss.
Isn't that at least partly the effect of the US propaganda and marketing "media soup" we experience?
Because I need to point out rather clearly here that working class New Yorkers elected Mayor Mandami. And NYC's working classes have also just elected three similar candidates.
Yes, this is not accidental. The humiliation of a lost war is too painful to discuss and certainly isn't a joke material. But the reflecting pool is different. And it's not just the incompetence and dishonesty. Trump has hired his mafioso neighbor to do the job (my wife is from Youngstown and confirms that the guy is a mobster).
My wife went to a Catholic high school in Western PA (a bit west of Pittsburgh). Some of her classmates were daughters of a mobster (who, of course, eventually got a pardon from Trump).
So, in the "It's a small world after all..." I grew up 15 miles west of Pittsburgh and am familiar with the Catholic High Schools in the area so probably know of your wife's alma mater. Where I lived, the Italian Mafia was king. One of my classmate's father was in the Italian Mafia but the family "disappeared" from our town and no one knew why. I like to think they just relocated to Las Vegas...
It was Villa Maria. A 45-minute drive from Youngstown. My wife was driving a cheap car, while some girls were driving a Mercedes or BMW being mobster daughters). So she still believes she grew up in poverty. That's very funny to anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union. My wife has a very old photo (c. 1909) of her grandfather as a little boy. His parents were poor (I presume) Welsh immigrants (had they been rich, they would have just stayed in Wales, right?). So in the photo they are all relaxing on a fishing trip or whatever. And you can also see their car. In 1909 or so. Not all that surprising given that Youngstown was a booming steel town that needed to attract a lot of workers with high pay. Anyway, my grandmother was born roughly halfway between Moscow and Ryazan 11 months before the fall of the Russian monarchy. Growing up in her village in the 1920's, she had lots of siblings, and at dinner they were all sitting on benches around the table (just think of a picnic table in a park - that was a typical setup in peasant homes, with all furniture homemade) and all reaching with long wooden spoons into a big wooden bowl of soup (with the father smacking with his spoon any child trying to grab too much non-liquid stuff). Too bad I never got around to asking her what kind of car they had.
The reflecting pool is the perfect metaphor for every fuckup Dilbert has ever committed. Everyone can understand it just looking at it. You're missing the point.
And doubly amazing that there is not even whispers of talk of firing His Lordship of War, Hegseth, for total incompetence. Nor any talk of replacing 'babes in the wood' negotiators such Vance, and Kushner - who for some weird reason hangs about in the background like some kid at the adults party, desperately trying to look clever and relevant. To the Iranians, Omani's and Pakistani's it must be like negotiating with country bumpkin foreigners who have just wondered into a middle eastern bazaar for the very first time.
Put clearly and boldly, you document how, in one fell swoop President Trump in a few short months created the worst military and strategic defeat since the battles of 1812. He unilaterally started a war on another country, was totally defeated; demonstrated to all the total weakness and ineffectiveness of US military capacity (and consequently our abject vulnerability at home and throughout the world); demonstrated to all (except US media) total national humiliation; and endowed the worst adversary and disrupter in the Middle East with extraordinary freedom of action and economic resources. Trump has even revoked the sanctions on Iran for the embassy hostage attack 47 years ago. How unpatriotic can a President be? The tragic consequences of this mistake will reverberate for years.
As I have understood the mechanisms of the domestic US politics, Trump is right. This makes yet a little noise in the media, and will soon diappear from the main discourse and retire to the small (relatively to the population) rooms where people are interested in foreign affairs. With 'Trump is right' I mean he knows that if he just can lower the gas price, not even necessarily to the level before the war, and hence the inflation, the GOP will not be 'totally obliterated' in the midterms.
The long term destruction following this government will probably first be felt a little after the next Democrat president is sworn in in 2029.
Who in the US actually cares very much about an Iranian win? Among those who aren't already supporting the Democrats / weren't already doing so before the war?
Trump's instinct about the gullibility of his base have generally been proven right. The MAGA Neocons who so desperately wanted to destroy Iran and empower Israel _do_ care, but what are they going to do? They're already pretending everything is fine, and those who aren't a) how many of them are there and b) are they actually going to support Democrats or not?
I guess we have to hope that independent voters will take a dim view of the US being humiliated, but again, I have to wonder whether they're going to be swayed by this if they haven't already been turned off Trump by any number of domestic fiascos.
I accept that quite a few independents _have_ already been put off Trump by the many domestic fiascos, but the question was whether this defeat by Iran will materially negatively impact Trump despite the damage it's obviously doing to the USA?
It certainly wont swing the election. However Trump failure and defeat should make a small number of swing voters even more inclined to vote Democratic. And in US politics these days, a small number of voters matter.
The swing voters are very important, but perhaps the most significant impact will be the turnout. The disillusionized R voters don't have to vote Democratic, it is sufficient that they will stay at home. Only an inspiring (for them!) Trump can boost the turnout for the GOP. I can't imagine Vance or even Rubio do much for that. The low overall popularity of mr Trump is the best weapon the Democrats have - beside the economy, stupid - and perhaps the 'owning the Libs' now sees a backlash since it has developed into a too crazy competition, irritating the average, normal citizen. Or...?
I am of the opinion that "Independent voters" aka "undecided voters", when it comes to Trump and his political enablers, are either sincerely ignorant and conscientiously stupid or selfishly (and deludedly) solely interested in personal financial gain..
Of course the war will hurt them, specially because they can't hide how weak Trump is. Weakness is his cryptonite, I think. They love his raw nicknames, his bluster and his particular, exceptional talent for owning the Libs. Even his mafia boss threats and actions - like the weaponization of the DOJ. His fundament is the strongman image he can project, included the strength to improve the economy. See tariffs. It isn't necessarily that he believes so strongly in the positive effect of tariffs, it is the feeling of power they give him.
The US is being led by a senile old man with a cult following so this is not really too unexpected. There is no institutional way of removing this incapacitated man so this human problem will just fester. Trump will bluster a lot like old senile people often do but I think he will concentrate on playing golf, posting, building the ballroom and arch and trying to enrich himself as much as possible. The rest of the world can just go hang. He really doesn't care what happens to the rest of us.
Because he is so disengaged with the details, he will agree to any old deal that gets him out of this--which is why it has been and will continue to be a terrible US defeat.
I doubt that he even knows any of the details of what is being negotiated. It appears to me that he gets his "intelligence" watching right wing media and his social media feeds. That what he responds to.
There IS an institutional way of removing this incapacitated man... It's just that hypocritical, spineless Republicans refuse to use it. Their behaviour really does make a mockery of everything they claim to have believed in all these years.
How can they remove him? They'll lose a lot of the MAGA voters, and even if they are less than 20% of the electorate, only 5-6 percent points will make an enormous difference.
That might be the price the party would pay for removing him. Which is a quite different thing to saying there is no institutional way of removing him.
I'm not an expert on the US constitution. Even so, when all the checks and balances were being written into it - both the explicit ones around the removal of a President deemed to have gone insane and the implicit ones on the separation of powers, the rights of Congress, etc. - they must have assumed that elected politicians would put the country, rather than party first. Otherwise, why why include the rules at all?
Republican members of the House and Senate ought to be acting first and foremost as members of the House and Senate, representing the nation. Sure, there's always a balance to be struck when it comes to party policy. But they are letting this President get away with things that surely would never have been allowed by any previous group of politicians of any party.
I see what you mean. I read ‘ The rediscovery of America’ by Ned Blackhawk which sets America as a site of genocide. Still the Iranian rulers are hanging their citizens who protested against them. That qualifies them as devils in most books.
“No one knows how these negotiations will end. But there are two sides engaged here and only one is taking the talks seriously. The Trump administration seems utterly uninterested in achieving anything of substance and, instead, is desperately hunting around to win the narrative struggle in the USA itself (which btw, it is losing).”
Actually, we know exactly how this ends: Complete Capitulation on the US side! And frankly, this may be by design. When you consider how Trump has been dismantling our National Security Apparatus one government institution at a time, it’s not beyond the pale of possibilities:
1. Annihilated our NSC by tweet and because of social media influencers like Laura Loomer—whom may or may not be a Russian Asset!
2. Coupled with refusing to promote or firing top military and Intelligence officers, replacing them with unqualified loyalists.
3. Putting another unqualified head of the DNI—dismantling the agency and making this nation more susceptible to terror attacks—makes the chance of Trump declaring Martial Law or a National Emergency more likely.
Not to mention, the ridiculous tariffs on allies. Threatening them and bullying them. As well as refusing to arm and support NATO and Ukraine, while refusing to enforce Russian sanctions and easing them. As well as firing our best officers working with our European allies, we ha e the perfect storm of incompetence, or an intentional destruction of our military and security apparatus to help Russia.
Bottom line, there may be more to this than we think. With Project 2025, and this administrations ties to Orban and Putin, nothing would surprise me at this point. And let’s not forget, we have several administration officials who have been serving other interests which aren’t the US. Gabbard comes to mind! Just a thought!…:)
What near term price do you think America will actually pay? I am afraid that for the average American there will be no consequences for any of this. The long term damage to American prestige may take decades to fully reveal itself. In the meantime Trump can still point to a lot of short term superficial wins -the unprecedented US domination of South American politics, where other than Brazil right wing pro-US governments are taking power everywhere. The increasing European dependence on US LNG and AI. The global defunding of NGOs and progressive activists almost everywhere, not just the US. Israel is going to pay an immediate price for losing this war, but actually reintegrating Iran into the global economy would probably be a net win for the US on economic terms, and therefore a win for the US consumer.
Near term is that the US will conitnue to lose friends and influence. Im not so sure about the benefits from South American governments being Trumpian--he has made both the Canadian and Mexican governments more US-skeptical (and they matter a heck of a lot more).
Economically, I see no wins from this---except for Putin.
…and China. I think that when historians (like you!) write about this social media presidency and the collapse of the establishment GOP, the Iran defeat will be seen as marking a real turning point in the transition of power and influence from the U.S. to China. In comparison to Trump’s incompetence, dangerous ignorance and continual undermining of long standing allies (and of course betrayal of Ukraine), China appears a sea of calm stability. Its influence, both regionally and globally, can only increase significantly while the U.S. self destructs. There can be few U.S. allies left - in Europe, Asia or now the Middle East - who have any confidence left in the United States. And it won’t change after Trump - the political system in the U.S. has proved itself too unstable and dysfunctional to be relied upon. Everything China wanted and more.
Putin is not winning much of anything right now. He is "nationalizing" the private property of oligarchs to fund the war. He is losing Crimea, big time. His minister for finance/banking is distributing Russia's growing war-debt - a state debt - across what I understand to be private banks. His chip factories and oil infrastructure is being bombed repeatedly by Ukraine.
One photo from Switzerland sums up this omnishambles perfectly. It is Vance standing alone in the background whilst being cold-shouldered as Omani and other Gulf Arab participants in the negotiations glad-hand each other. It would make the perfect front cover for a book on imperial hubris and imperial decline.
Totally agree that tRUMP won't resume the war against Iran for all the reasons you outlined. Plus, the Senate voted on Tuesday to block tRUMP from resuming the war with Iran in a 50 to 48 vote with four Republicans voting against tRUMP so he's gotten a clear message. Throughout "Operation Epic Failure" and subsequent negotiations, we saw an erratic leader without vision, values, strategy and the ability to execute, character flaws tRUMP has demonstrated throughout his life. But as president of the United States, these flaws make our nation and the world more dangerous, unpredictable and anxious. tRUMP has hastened the end of the American Century and is in the process of inflicting what historian Timothy Snyder calls "Superpower Suicide":
"Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity."
So, two of the three "superpowers" are now showing themselves not to be so powerful after all. With Ukraine humbling Russia, and Iran humiliating the United States, only China is left with any semblance of a reputation. They also are the only power looking to the future. While the US obsesses over "woke" renewable energy and billion dollar Patriot installations, and Russia seeks political power through selling cheap fossil fuels the world is buying less of, China is investing in drones, wind turbines, solar panels, EVs, battery technology and unless another player enters the scene, will lead the way into the future. Perhaps there is space for Mark Carney's "group of middle sized powers" to flourish after all?
I'm assuming the Trump team, having abandoned hope of an actual victory, doesn't really care what the outcome is, so long as it is framed in the US media as a victory for Trump. Let someone else clean up the mess: "serves them right for opposing Trump", I imagine the internal narrative goes. And, no doubt, he will find plenty of willing media channel participants here in America to carry the lie. It's a hallmark of this administration.
Is anyone who reads the papers and listens to the nightly news really surprised by this defeat and by Trump’s pathetic attempts to spin an obvious defeat into a victory? Is anyone really surprised that Trump would make impulsive decisions to use the US Armed Forces without considering unanticipated consequences? Trump is a fabulist dominated by his wishful thinking and denial of reality. Also when his denial of reality and his spin doesn’t work, like election results in 2020, he lies and insists that all Republicans lie also or else they will be punished. So, most of them lie and Trump continues unimpided to wreak havoc. I submit that no American with reasonable intelligence and any grasp of the news is surprised by anything Trump does at this point. I am surprised that Americans voted for him and that reasonable adults have not taken steps to get rid of him.
Nothing more needs to be said about this beyond "US lost, Iran won". It is a "fait accompli" and totally predictable because Trump initiated and directed it. Has anything Trump was behind...in his entire life...turned out successfully? Oh, wait. He successfully sired a new generation of grifters.
The US has shown that it cannot sustain prolonged operations when faced with a determined and prepared foe. American adversaries around the world have seen this and have taken note. A larger issue may be that Americas erstwhile allies have also seen it and it will affect the US ability to build coalitions. Prospective partners must in future ask themselves, will the US see this action through to the end, or will it capitulate after a month and leave us holding the baby, with all the associated unpopularity at home? After these events the probabilities are firmer in the latter case and governments will make their decisions accordingly.
And meanwhile the media and internet are obsessed with the reflecting pool fiasco, which Trump blames on invisible saboteurs. Seems trivial compared with the seismic long-term effects of the Iran fiasco, but this is not accidental. The incompetence and delusional dishonesty of the administration are blatantly visible in the most sacred place of our capital city. There may be a fundamental shift going on here in what the great majority of the public understands about our situation.
The dishonesty has sadly become so routine that people do not pay it any attention--which is exactly what Trump wants.
The reflecting pool fiasco demonstrates that Trump didn't need to attack Iran to completely shift attention from the EPSTEIN FILES. Too bad about the timing.
Having spent twenty years in on the ground activism in the US I found most working class people don't care about reality. It was and still is amazing to me that as soon as the ruling class plays the race and other bigotry cards the working class puts the gun to their heads and pulls the trigger.
My view of human nature has not improved over the last few years--thats for sure.
The older I get, the more I identify with Mark Twain’s opinion of mankind. I could plot an uninterrupted downward trend of my view of human nature starting from the optimism of my 20s to the near cynicism of my 70s.
My view is that the good people I might are much finer than I ever imagined, however there are many more less good than I thought when young.
Hear, hear!!
I would add "religion" to "race and other bigotry" - though in Christian Nationalism there is substantial overlap..
Divide and conquer. The GOP plan since Nixon. https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
It's been going on in this country a lot longer than that! The first Gilded Age, "I can get one half of the working class to kill the other half" --Jay Gould
Those who actually did the fighting in the Revolutionary War got paid alright, in worthless Continentals. Our 45th president sent me back to the U.S. history books. I hadn't touched one in 30 years. Ignorance was bliss.
Same old, same old. Teddy, FDR, Ike, JFK, LBJ clawed back some rights from the oligarchs. Hard to beat the Powell Plan and Citizens United.
Isn't that at least partly the effect of the US propaganda and marketing "media soup" we experience?
Because I need to point out rather clearly here that working class New Yorkers elected Mayor Mandami. And NYC's working classes have also just elected three similar candidates.
Yes, this is not accidental. The humiliation of a lost war is too painful to discuss and certainly isn't a joke material. But the reflecting pool is different. And it's not just the incompetence and dishonesty. Trump has hired his mafioso neighbor to do the job (my wife is from Youngstown and confirms that the guy is a mobster).
You could understand alot about Trump by watching the Sopranos...
I think I'd go with the Three Stooges over the Sopranos, personally.
The competence of the Three Stooges and the morals of the Sopranos
Methinks the Sopranos possessed greater ethics than Trump and his enablers..
The Sopranos (at least) were entertaining … and Tony had a therapist!!
Unfair. Tony Soprano was a model of probity compared with the Trump mob.
I'm from Western PA and everyone there knew Youngstown, OH was a mob town!
And tRUMP first did business with the russian mob in New York City in 1984 so he probably got a discount as a long time customer...
Slava Ukraini!
My wife went to a Catholic high school in Western PA (a bit west of Pittsburgh). Some of her classmates were daughters of a mobster (who, of course, eventually got a pardon from Trump).
So, in the "It's a small world after all..." I grew up 15 miles west of Pittsburgh and am familiar with the Catholic High Schools in the area so probably know of your wife's alma mater. Where I lived, the Italian Mafia was king. One of my classmate's father was in the Italian Mafia but the family "disappeared" from our town and no one knew why. I like to think they just relocated to Las Vegas...
And tell your wife: GO STEELERS!
Slava Ukraini!
It was Villa Maria. A 45-minute drive from Youngstown. My wife was driving a cheap car, while some girls were driving a Mercedes or BMW being mobster daughters). So she still believes she grew up in poverty. That's very funny to anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union. My wife has a very old photo (c. 1909) of her grandfather as a little boy. His parents were poor (I presume) Welsh immigrants (had they been rich, they would have just stayed in Wales, right?). So in the photo they are all relaxing on a fishing trip or whatever. And you can also see their car. In 1909 or so. Not all that surprising given that Youngstown was a booming steel town that needed to attract a lot of workers with high pay. Anyway, my grandmother was born roughly halfway between Moscow and Ryazan 11 months before the fall of the Russian monarchy. Growing up in her village in the 1920's, she had lots of siblings, and at dinner they were all sitting on benches around the table (just think of a picnic table in a park - that was a typical setup in peasant homes, with all furniture homemade) and all reaching with long wooden spoons into a big wooden bowl of soup (with the father smacking with his spoon any child trying to grab too much non-liquid stuff). Too bad I never got around to asking her what kind of car they had.
Exactly! The Russian mob in the US was not exactly news to either Trump or Epstein.
Did you see that guy’s picture?? Paul Bearer!!
Trump's father worked with mafiosi. Trump was initiated into their ways and did deals.
The reflecting pool is the perfect metaphor for every fuckup Dilbert has ever committed. Everyone can understand it just looking at it. You're missing the point.
And doubly amazing that there is not even whispers of talk of firing His Lordship of War, Hegseth, for total incompetence. Nor any talk of replacing 'babes in the wood' negotiators such Vance, and Kushner - who for some weird reason hangs about in the background like some kid at the adults party, desperately trying to look clever and relevant. To the Iranians, Omani's and Pakistani's it must be like negotiating with country bumpkin foreigners who have just wondered into a middle eastern bazaar for the very first time.
At this point the reality of any deal is less important that the narrative fight, so Trump is ok with incompetents.
O’Brien, please address why Hegseth is still around.
Perhaps because everyone else is better?
Because, according to Trump, he LOOKS like a military guy should.
Because he'll say "Yessir!" when Dilbert orders him to have the troops open fire on us.
I’m afraid you’re right
Put clearly and boldly, you document how, in one fell swoop President Trump in a few short months created the worst military and strategic defeat since the battles of 1812. He unilaterally started a war on another country, was totally defeated; demonstrated to all the total weakness and ineffectiveness of US military capacity (and consequently our abject vulnerability at home and throughout the world); demonstrated to all (except US media) total national humiliation; and endowed the worst adversary and disrupter in the Middle East with extraordinary freedom of action and economic resources. Trump has even revoked the sanctions on Iran for the embassy hostage attack 47 years ago. How unpatriotic can a President be? The tragic consequences of this mistake will reverberate for years.
The War of 1812 was a bit of a draw--the is a defeat. The haggling now is about how bad a defeat....
The haggling seems to be more about giving Trump a fig leaf than about achieving any US goals.
As I have understood the mechanisms of the domestic US politics, Trump is right. This makes yet a little noise in the media, and will soon diappear from the main discourse and retire to the small (relatively to the population) rooms where people are interested in foreign affairs. With 'Trump is right' I mean he knows that if he just can lower the gas price, not even necessarily to the level before the war, and hence the inflation, the GOP will not be 'totally obliterated' in the midterms.
The long term destruction following this government will probably first be felt a little after the next Democrat president is sworn in in 2029.
My guess is that the whole Iran mess, even if Gas prices go down now, will have hurt the GOP materially in the 2026 elections.
Who in the US actually cares very much about an Iranian win? Among those who aren't already supporting the Democrats / weren't already doing so before the war?
Trump's instinct about the gullibility of his base have generally been proven right. The MAGA Neocons who so desperately wanted to destroy Iran and empower Israel _do_ care, but what are they going to do? They're already pretending everything is fine, and those who aren't a) how many of them are there and b) are they actually going to support Democrats or not?
I guess we have to hope that independent voters will take a dim view of the US being humiliated, but again, I have to wonder whether they're going to be swayed by this if they haven't already been turned off Trump by any number of domestic fiascos.
I accept that quite a few independents _have_ already been put off Trump by the many domestic fiascos, but the question was whether this defeat by Iran will materially negatively impact Trump despite the damage it's obviously doing to the USA?
It certainly wont swing the election. However Trump failure and defeat should make a small number of swing voters even more inclined to vote Democratic. And in US politics these days, a small number of voters matter.
I hope so! With all the gerrymandering going on, I wonder whether even quite substantial swings in the vote will actually change outcomes.
The swing voters are very important, but perhaps the most significant impact will be the turnout. The disillusionized R voters don't have to vote Democratic, it is sufficient that they will stay at home. Only an inspiring (for them!) Trump can boost the turnout for the GOP. I can't imagine Vance or even Rubio do much for that. The low overall popularity of mr Trump is the best weapon the Democrats have - beside the economy, stupid - and perhaps the 'owning the Libs' now sees a backlash since it has developed into a too crazy competition, irritating the average, normal citizen. Or...?
I am of the opinion that "Independent voters" aka "undecided voters", when it comes to Trump and his political enablers, are either sincerely ignorant and conscientiously stupid or selfishly (and deludedly) solely interested in personal financial gain..
Pretty much every move Trump makes is hurting the GOP.
Yay.
Of course the war will hurt them, specially because they can't hide how weak Trump is. Weakness is his cryptonite, I think. They love his raw nicknames, his bluster and his particular, exceptional talent for owning the Libs. Even his mafia boss threats and actions - like the weaponization of the DOJ. His fundament is the strongman image he can project, included the strength to improve the economy. See tariffs. It isn't necessarily that he believes so strongly in the positive effect of tariffs, it is the feeling of power they give him.
I sure hope so.
Unfortunately for Trump, the cost of living is much more than the price of gas
The US is being led by a senile old man with a cult following so this is not really too unexpected. There is no institutional way of removing this incapacitated man so this human problem will just fester. Trump will bluster a lot like old senile people often do but I think he will concentrate on playing golf, posting, building the ballroom and arch and trying to enrich himself as much as possible. The rest of the world can just go hang. He really doesn't care what happens to the rest of us.
Because he is so disengaged with the details, he will agree to any old deal that gets him out of this--which is why it has been and will continue to be a terrible US defeat.
I doubt that he even knows any of the details of what is being negotiated. It appears to me that he gets his "intelligence" watching right wing media and his social media feeds. That what he responds to.
He certainly seems to internalize the Fox news dialogue more than any other source.
There IS an institutional way of removing this incapacitated man... It's just that hypocritical, spineless Republicans refuse to use it. Their behaviour really does make a mockery of everything they claim to have believed in all these years.
How can they remove him? They'll lose a lot of the MAGA voters, and even if they are less than 20% of the electorate, only 5-6 percent points will make an enormous difference.
That might be the price the party would pay for removing him. Which is a quite different thing to saying there is no institutional way of removing him.
I'm not an expert on the US constitution. Even so, when all the checks and balances were being written into it - both the explicit ones around the removal of a President deemed to have gone insane and the implicit ones on the separation of powers, the rights of Congress, etc. - they must have assumed that elected politicians would put the country, rather than party first. Otherwise, why why include the rules at all?
Republican members of the House and Senate ought to be acting first and foremost as members of the House and Senate, representing the nation. Sure, there's always a balance to be struck when it comes to party policy. But they are letting this President get away with things that surely would never have been allowed by any previous group of politicians of any party.
Hear, hear!!
Amendment 25
When you sup with the devil you’re supposed to use a long spoon. The Iranian devil has handed out the cutlery.
Indeed
Except... they aren't really devils, any more than the US is a Western devil. All humans. All very much human.
And as I once repeated from Kant ‘ from the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can grow’.
I see what you mean. I read ‘ The rediscovery of America’ by Ned Blackhawk which sets America as a site of genocide. Still the Iranian rulers are hanging their citizens who protested against them. That qualifies them as devils in most books.
“No one knows how these negotiations will end. But there are two sides engaged here and only one is taking the talks seriously. The Trump administration seems utterly uninterested in achieving anything of substance and, instead, is desperately hunting around to win the narrative struggle in the USA itself (which btw, it is losing).”
Actually, we know exactly how this ends: Complete Capitulation on the US side! And frankly, this may be by design. When you consider how Trump has been dismantling our National Security Apparatus one government institution at a time, it’s not beyond the pale of possibilities:
1. Annihilated our NSC by tweet and because of social media influencers like Laura Loomer—whom may or may not be a Russian Asset!
2. Coupled with refusing to promote or firing top military and Intelligence officers, replacing them with unqualified loyalists.
3. Putting another unqualified head of the DNI—dismantling the agency and making this nation more susceptible to terror attacks—makes the chance of Trump declaring Martial Law or a National Emergency more likely.
Not to mention, the ridiculous tariffs on allies. Threatening them and bullying them. As well as refusing to arm and support NATO and Ukraine, while refusing to enforce Russian sanctions and easing them. As well as firing our best officers working with our European allies, we ha e the perfect storm of incompetence, or an intentional destruction of our military and security apparatus to help Russia.
Bottom line, there may be more to this than we think. With Project 2025, and this administrations ties to Orban and Putin, nothing would surprise me at this point. And let’s not forget, we have several administration officials who have been serving other interests which aren’t the US. Gabbard comes to mind! Just a thought!…:)
This is a great summation.
Thx…:)
Timothy Snyder calls it Superpower Suicide, whicg is good as far as it goes.
Yet I like Ruth Ben-Ghiat's formulation better. It seems more accurate, b/c with Project 25, this was PLANNED.
Ben-Ghiat calls it SUPERPOWER MURDER.
100%…:)
Hear, hear!!
Thx
What near term price do you think America will actually pay? I am afraid that for the average American there will be no consequences for any of this. The long term damage to American prestige may take decades to fully reveal itself. In the meantime Trump can still point to a lot of short term superficial wins -the unprecedented US domination of South American politics, where other than Brazil right wing pro-US governments are taking power everywhere. The increasing European dependence on US LNG and AI. The global defunding of NGOs and progressive activists almost everywhere, not just the US. Israel is going to pay an immediate price for losing this war, but actually reintegrating Iran into the global economy would probably be a net win for the US on economic terms, and therefore a win for the US consumer.
Near term is that the US will conitnue to lose friends and influence. Im not so sure about the benefits from South American governments being Trumpian--he has made both the Canadian and Mexican governments more US-skeptical (and they matter a heck of a lot more).
Economically, I see no wins from this---except for Putin.
…and China. I think that when historians (like you!) write about this social media presidency and the collapse of the establishment GOP, the Iran defeat will be seen as marking a real turning point in the transition of power and influence from the U.S. to China. In comparison to Trump’s incompetence, dangerous ignorance and continual undermining of long standing allies (and of course betrayal of Ukraine), China appears a sea of calm stability. Its influence, both regionally and globally, can only increase significantly while the U.S. self destructs. There can be few U.S. allies left - in Europe, Asia or now the Middle East - who have any confidence left in the United States. And it won’t change after Trump - the political system in the U.S. has proved itself too unstable and dysfunctional to be relied upon. Everything China wanted and more.
Putin is not winning much of anything right now. He is "nationalizing" the private property of oligarchs to fund the war. He is losing Crimea, big time. His minister for finance/banking is distributing Russia's growing war-debt - a state debt - across what I understand to be private banks. His chip factories and oil infrastructure is being bombed repeatedly by Ukraine.
Although for Putin to win economically he needs to be able to refine and ship Russian oil and gas... How's that working out for him lately... 🤔😂
One photo from Switzerland sums up this omnishambles perfectly. It is Vance standing alone in the background whilst being cold-shouldered as Omani and other Gulf Arab participants in the negotiations glad-hand each other. It would make the perfect front cover for a book on imperial hubris and imperial decline.
Totally agree that tRUMP won't resume the war against Iran for all the reasons you outlined. Plus, the Senate voted on Tuesday to block tRUMP from resuming the war with Iran in a 50 to 48 vote with four Republicans voting against tRUMP so he's gotten a clear message. Throughout "Operation Epic Failure" and subsequent negotiations, we saw an erratic leader without vision, values, strategy and the ability to execute, character flaws tRUMP has demonstrated throughout his life. But as president of the United States, these flaws make our nation and the world more dangerous, unpredictable and anxious. tRUMP has hastened the end of the American Century and is in the process of inflicting what historian Timothy Snyder calls "Superpower Suicide":
"Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpower-suicide?r=1lbnim&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Slava Ukraini!
So, two of the three "superpowers" are now showing themselves not to be so powerful after all. With Ukraine humbling Russia, and Iran humiliating the United States, only China is left with any semblance of a reputation. They also are the only power looking to the future. While the US obsesses over "woke" renewable energy and billion dollar Patriot installations, and Russia seeks political power through selling cheap fossil fuels the world is buying less of, China is investing in drones, wind turbines, solar panels, EVs, battery technology and unless another player enters the scene, will lead the way into the future. Perhaps there is space for Mark Carney's "group of middle sized powers" to flourish after all?
Yes
I'm assuming the Trump team, having abandoned hope of an actual victory, doesn't really care what the outcome is, so long as it is framed in the US media as a victory for Trump. Let someone else clean up the mess: "serves them right for opposing Trump", I imagine the internal narrative goes. And, no doubt, he will find plenty of willing media channel participants here in America to carry the lie. It's a hallmark of this administration.
Is anyone who reads the papers and listens to the nightly news really surprised by this defeat and by Trump’s pathetic attempts to spin an obvious defeat into a victory? Is anyone really surprised that Trump would make impulsive decisions to use the US Armed Forces without considering unanticipated consequences? Trump is a fabulist dominated by his wishful thinking and denial of reality. Also when his denial of reality and his spin doesn’t work, like election results in 2020, he lies and insists that all Republicans lie also or else they will be punished. So, most of them lie and Trump continues unimpided to wreak havoc. I submit that no American with reasonable intelligence and any grasp of the news is surprised by anything Trump does at this point. I am surprised that Americans voted for him and that reasonable adults have not taken steps to get rid of him.
Nothing more needs to be said about this beyond "US lost, Iran won". It is a "fait accompli" and totally predictable because Trump initiated and directed it. Has anything Trump was behind...in his entire life...turned out successfully? Oh, wait. He successfully sired a new generation of grifters.
The US has shown that it cannot sustain prolonged operations when faced with a determined and prepared foe. American adversaries around the world have seen this and have taken note. A larger issue may be that Americas erstwhile allies have also seen it and it will affect the US ability to build coalitions. Prospective partners must in future ask themselves, will the US see this action through to the end, or will it capitulate after a month and leave us holding the baby, with all the associated unpopularity at home? After these events the probabilities are firmer in the latter case and governments will make their decisions accordingly.
Please keep up these mid-week updates. Even if some of them end up being brief, it's very helpful. Thanks you!