*** “Wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts.”
[ Double Pulitzer Prize winner; Historian; Barbara Tuchman ]
Donald John Trump has done much damage to America, and the world. Domestically, America MIGHT. be able to repair its democracy. BUT – Trump’s incredible STUPIDITY. of saying that climate change is a “hoax” [ in the face of unprecedented damage]; his arrogant treatment of [former] friendly nations; his coziness with other dictators; his STUPIDITY in saying, thinking, acting as if the United states can successfully enact an “America First” foreign policy may prove to be fatal to the American experiment in democracy.
***. “Acting on our own, by ourselves, we cannot establish justice throughout the world, we cannot ensure its domestic tranquility, or provide for its common defense, or promote the general welfare, or secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. But joined with other free nations, we can do all this and more.”
[ John F. Kennedy; 35th U.S. President; 7/4/1962 ]
This post presents excerpts from “Trump Is Making America Dispensable” [ Jon finer; New York Times; 7/12/26]. The results of Trump insulting and demeaning other nations; of his ignorant ideological framework; of his tariffs, bullying nations, and now his RECKLESS war on Iran. – will NOT be good for America in any sense. His 8 years as president might well be seen as the beginning of the collapse of America as a world power. America, “thanks” to Trump, is no longer seen with the same affection and respect the world had for us before 2016. Finer reports on what has ALREADY happened, is happening, will happen. YOU are watching the DISASTER unfold……………………..
1] “Three years later, de-risking from predatory superpowers remains the fundamental challenge facing European leaders, but China is no longer the main country of concern: The United States is.”
2] “It is not just Europe backing away from the United States. Leaders of America’s partners in Asia and the Middle East are quietly doing the same. The second Trump administration’s ostentatious corruption, trade conflicts, military adventurism and mercurial artificial intelligence regulation have produced a new moment in international affairs: a nearly global grand strategy of countries distancing themselves from the world’s most powerful nation.”
3]. “For the United States, which has called itself the “indispensable nation” for decades, this represents a sea change. Countries have long sought the protection of America’s mighty military and access to its markets and technology. That in turn has benefited our economy and national security.”
*** “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.” [ Isaiah. 48: 22 ]
4] “..in a world where big countries increasingly weaponize the dependence of small countries, and self-sufficiency is its own form of power, the global de-risking is already hurting Americans at home….The lost war against Iran…contributed to a $132 billion hit to American consumers, according to Moody’s.”
5] “Mr. Trump’s immigration policies are also driving countries away. Four million fewer visitors came to the United States in 2025 than in 2024, an estimated cost of more than $8 billion. America is hemorrhaging future skilled labor as enrollment by international university students dropped 17 percent last fall from the prior year, already costing universities at least an estimated $1 billion, and potentially costing the country hundreds of billions in future revenue.”
6] “The chilling effect is spreading. As Mr. Trump muses about making it a 51st state, Canada has embarked on a “new strategic partnership” with China, opened its market for the first time to 50,000 Chinese electric vehicles and joined a more than $150 billion European defense fund aimed at breaking the dependency on the American defense industry.”
*** “The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.” [ Will Rogers ]
7] “In East Asia, where Mr. Trump has paused the sale of arms to Taiwan in deference to President Xi Jinping of China, Taipei and allied capitals are recalibrating their relationships. Japan is overhauling its concept of national defense to develop greater offensive strike capabilities. South Korean contractors are displacing American arms sellers around the world.”
8]. “India is deepening commercial ties with Europe, the Middle East and even, grudgingly, China. India is one of a growing number of countries sufficiently worried about reliable access to American frontier A.I. models that it is considering Chinese or domestic alternatives.”
9]. “But nowhere is the push to de-risk from the United States more costly to both sides. – and disadvantageously timed. – than on the continent that coined the phrase. Once unthinkable conversations are underway in European capitals. European officials tell me they are quietly developing plans for responding in the event of a full-blown trade war with America…”
*** “Before we engage ourselves, we must know what we are doing, and once we have engaged ourselves, we must prevail, or the impact will be catastrophic.” [ Henry Kissinger; former U.S. Secretary of State ]
10]. “..the divisions Mr. Trump is causing are different. In 2021, for example, Australia agreed to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. submarine industry, on the promise that new boats would appear near Perth somewhere in the mid-2030s. Fewer countries are willing to make such long-term bets on America anymore…”
11]. “Some costs of the world’s de-risking from America are already hitting home. Others won’t be evident overnight. Allies were right not to join Mr. Trump’s unnecessary Iran fiasco, but our ability to deter future conflicts is weakened by our greater isolation. Lacking a clear alternative partner, most countries will hedge gradually, rather than immediately “decoupling” from the United States.”
*** “…thanks to Donald’s penchant for division, and devastating uncertainty about our country’s future have created a perfect storm of catastrophes that no one is less equipped than my uncle to manage. Doing so would require courage, strength of character, deference to experts, and the confidence to take responsibility and to course correct after admitting mistakes. His ability to control unfavorable situations by lying, spinning, and obfuscating has diminished to the point of impotence in the midst of the tragedies we are currently facing.”
[ Mary L. Trump: “Too Much And never Enough. How My Family Created the World’s most Dangerous Man” ]
*** “Trump’s rash behavior makes his presence in the Oval Office a clear and present danger to the safety and security of not just the American people but the rest of the world, too.”
[ double Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “The Making of Donald Trump” ]
Tag: iran
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CC. – “Trump Just Took Us Somewhere The Country Had Never Been Before…a dark new realm of presidential corruption”
***. “We can never truly know..[Trump’s]. character, but we can examine and assess it based on his actions…This is why I focused on Donald Trump’s obsession with money and the trappings of wealth, and his many comments about women not as equals, but objects, their value measured in particular by the size of their busts and the length of their legs, not the size of their hearts or how far their minds reach. It is also why so much of this book is about Trump’s many complex and little-known with criminals – a vast assortment of con artists, mobsters and mob associates, swindlers, and other unsavory characters, including a major drug dealer he went to bat for.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “The Making Of Donald Trump” ]
This post presents excerpts from “Trump Just Took Us Somewhere The Country Had Never Been Before” [ Noah Shachtman: New York Times; 5/24/26 ]. We also present statements by Pulitzer Prize winners, relatives, close observers about Donald John Trump. Ethical behavior and empathy for others have never been his strong suit. YOU should not be surprised that Trump is brazenly engaging in obvious corruption. Close observers tell YOU he’s engaged in morally-challenged behavior before.
5] “Just in terms of sheer dollars, this is the most corrupt action in American history,” says Brendan Ballou, a former Justice Department special counsel…”This may be the most infamous thing that Donald Trump does beyond Jan. 6, 2021.”
14] “…Mr. Trump’s scheming will define him and his family. When he leaves office, the Trump name will most likely be stripped from the Kennedy Center. The challenge coins he’s affixed to the White House doors will no doubt be stripped away. his ‘enhancements” to the Oval office may eventually be remodeled away. All that will be left is his reputation. Mr. Trump has made that synonymous with corruption forever.”
7] “..openly monetizing the presidency is a true Trump innovation. You have to go back at least a hundred years, to the administration of Warren harding or Ulysses Grant, to find anything remotely similar. And no one ever accused Harding of minting memecoins. “This isn’t the ‘honest graft’ of Tammany Hall – corruption as the price paid for public improvement,” The Time’s Jamelle Bouie wrote. “It is petty theft.”
12] “If political violence committed in the president’s name is not only tolerated but actively rewarded, it could take this already bleak timeline somewhere much, much darker.’
***. ‘..Donald, who understands nothing about history, constitutional principles, geopolitics, diplomacy [ or anything else, really ] and was never pressed to demonstrate such knowledge, has evaluated all of this country’s alliances, and all of our social programs, solely through the prism of money, just as his father taught him to do…In the midst of obscene plenty, one person, using all of the levers of power and taking every advantage at his disposal, would benefit himself and, conditionally, his immediate family, his cronies, and his sycophants; for the rest, there would never be enough to go around, which was exactly how my grandfather ran our family.”
[ Mary L. Trump: “Too Much And Never Enough” ]
1]. “President Trump has been thinking a lot about his place in history. That’s one of the reasons…he’s paying so little attention to his plummeting popularity and so much attention to remodeling Washington in his own image. But there’s no arch high enough, no ballroom gilded enough, to distract from the mountain of corruption he’s constructing.”
2]. “The president may wish to be considered in the same class as Napoleon or Alexander the Great, but he is in danger of turning himself into the next Mobutu Sese Seko or Suharto: a kleptocrat remembered not for his ideas and not for his power but for his greed.”
3] “Mr. Trump has devoted a large portion of his second term to enriching himself and his family with foreign and private funds…But until recently, there was no evidence that his most brazen capers involving taking actively, from you and me. That changed when he, two of his sons and the Trump family business sued the government for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns.”
4] “Trump supporters convicted of crimes connected to the Jan. 6 riot could get large spoonfuls. But the Trump clan looks to be the biggest beneficiaries of all: As part of the settlement, the U.S. government would be barred from prosecuting or further auditing the Trumps or their family businesses for any potential misconduct preceding the agreement. That would save the Trumps from penalties that some estimate could reach $100 million or beyond. More than that, it could functionally put the family beyond the reach of the law in these tax cases…”forever.”” [NOTE: read this again – forgiven for misconduct, now and “forever.” Wouldn’t YOU like to have this?????]
***. “[Trump]..routinely staked out positions on issues that violated the law and that ran counter to what career law enforcement, intelligence, military, and economic officials believed was right. Even more mysteriously, at times Trump appeared to favor positions that benefitted America’s geopolitical adversaries, like Russia, more than the United States… McGahn had spent hours laying out what the president did and said behind closed doors as he sought to maintain control over the Russia investigation.. how the president insisted on having a loyalist oversee the investigation..the true reasons the president had for firing the FBI director, James Comey..told them that Trump wanted Mueller out.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner Michael S. Schmidt: ‘Donald Trump V. The United States” ]
6] “Mr. Trump is the defining political figure of the past decade. But despite his enormous influence, he’s had relatively few legacy-making accomplishments….He’s bullied specific schools instead of remaking the educational system and cut bargains with drug retailers instead of recasting the U.S. government’s relationship with Big Pharma….[So far, only Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court appointments and their warped decisions have amounted to truly historical changes.]”
8]. “Mr. Trump has already pardoned convicted criminals after receiving donations on their behalf…Trump cronies…brought up .case over a round of golf with the president.”
9]. “This new slush fund – set up with minimal guardrails, not even a definition of what constitutes “weaponization”..Just think what people might be willing to do to get this money, and what Mr. Trump might get in return. This fund would institutionalize that ethical disaster…This would make cronyism an official function of the federal government, a U.S. Agency for Corruption.”
*** “Trump’s dozens of pardons are just one of several moves by the administration indicating a newly permissive environment for white collar crime.” [ Jeffrey Toobin: “The Pardon Brokers…How The Trump Administration Turned Clemency Into A Lucrative Cottage Industry”; New York Times Magazine; May 31, 2026 ]
***. “..the lucrative pardon industry that has emerged around mr. Trump. It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to mr. Trump’s politics of grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a likelihood of recidivism.” [ Kenneth P.Vogel: “Pardon Industry Offers the Rich A Path to Trump”; New York Times; 3/8/26 ]
10]. “The primary risk is that this money is going to be used to fund paramilitary organizations that are loyal to the president,” Mr. Ballou said. “Financial support for violence – that is going to be the most important thing, and it’s fundamentally new and different from, say, the Qatari jet.”
11]. “THe self-described “American terrorist” Andrew Paul Johnson was convicted of his role in the Capitol riot, pardoned by Mr. Trump and subsequently found guilty of molesting two children. To silence his victims, he is said to have promised them a share of the millions he said he was about to get from the federal government for being a “Jan. 6-er.”
13] “The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bars the government from paying ‘any debt or obligation incurred in aid or insurrection or rebellion against the United States,” which would appear to bar payments to people who attacked the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election.”
*** “The characteristics of Trump’s leadership, blazingly evident through the first three years of his presidency, had deadly ramifications in his final year. he displayed his ignorance, his rash temper, his pettiness and pique, his malice and cruelty, his utter absence of empathy, his narcissism, his transgressive personality, his disloyalty, his sense of victimhood, his addiction to television, his suspicion and silencing of experts, and his deception and lies. Each trait thwarted the response of the world’s most powerful nation to a lethal threat….Most of Trump’s failings can be explained by a simple truth: He cared more about himself than the country.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winners Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker: “I Alone Can Fix it” ]
[ NOTE: read this again – SLOWLY – and remember, this all occurred when, during Trump’s first term, he was “restrained’ by patriotic advisors and others from doing numerous illegal and dangerous and destructive things. Now – in his second term – Trump is deliberately surrounded by loyalists and Project 2025 authors. That largely explains the Trump DICTATORSHIP. ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXVI – “Buyer’s remorse sets in over Trump”
***. “..one of the traits that had led Trump to the White House on full display: his extraordinary capacity to say things that were not true. He always seemed to have complete conviction in whatever product he was selling or argument he was making. He had an uncanny ability to say with a straight face, things are not as you’ve been told or even as you’ve seen with your own eyes. He could commit a lie in the frame of his body and in the timbre of his voice so fully, despite all statistical and even video evidence to the contrary.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winners Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker: “I Alone Can Fix It” ]. [NOTE: read this again, and again – for many observers, THIS is a capsule of who Donald John Trump is ]
This post presents excerpts from: “Buyer’s remorse sets in over Trump” [ Dan Merica, Cat Zakrzewski; Washington Post Weekly; 3/22/26 ]. Americans are waking up to the Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, Incompetence, Dishonesty of the Trump DICTATORSHIP !!!!! The Big Lie that “Trump cares about me” is exposed more and more. Trump is costing YOU money!!! One analysis soon to be posted: Trump’s 2027 Pentagon budget request is estimated to cost EVERY American household about $4,000. There are MANY other Trump DICTATORSHIP “costs.”
1] “Joshua Byers was hopeful when he voted for Donald Trump in 2024. The 26-year old document clerk believed the former and future president when he said he would lower prices and improve the lives of the working class….
“I feel betrayed”…”
2] “But with prices stubbornly high, a belief that Trump is overly focused on international conflict and concerns about how federal officials are implementing the president’s immigration policy, they also said they are questioning why they voted in the first place..”
3] “I wouldn’t even say it’s a living,” James Wiest, a 23-year old arcade technician from Mooresville, North Carolina, said of his life…”It’s more survival.”
***. “Trump is not Adolf Hitler, but he shares many of Hitler’s disorders, addiction to lies, and appeal to wounded followers through the dehumanization of target groups. In Trump’s case, these include African Americans, Muslims, women, Hispanics, and migrants.” [ Bandy lee, editor: “The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump” ]
4]. “A Washington Post – ABC – Ipsos poll released last month found 70 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds disapproved of Trump’s handling of the presidency, compared with 29 percent who approved.”
5] “I don’t really want to vote anymore,” Byers said…I don’t want to feel responsible for taking a vote and feeling misled, or misjudged, or making a wrong move.” [NOTE; what effect will THIS ‘COST’ have on American democracy????? ]
6] “Young voters are also more likely to disapprove of the Iran war, according to a Washington Post poll released Tuesday. a majority of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 say they oppose the military campaign in Iran…”
***. “Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.” [ Niccolo Machiavelli ]
7] “Lilly Burrow, a 23-year-old teacher from Charlotte who voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, said..she initially supported the strikes because she thought they were intended to change the regime in Iran. But her view has since shifted, and now she believes the United States is “doing Israel’s dirty work.”
8] “Wiest, a Republican, said he feels demoralized and is unlikely to vote in the 2026 midterms. “I agree with his idea of making America great again, but the way he is going about…it’s not who I thought would be running this country,”…and he does not care about what we are mad about.”
9] “Byers and others in the focus group said they got much of their news about the 2024 election from social media, including online influencers…a constant stream of pro-Trump content..” [NOTE: so – “our’ president is elected by loads of amateur “journalists,” unqualified to say what they do, to repeat Trump’s lies without questioning….}
*** “He is incredibly suggestible, skimming ideas and thoughts and statements from other people and repacking them as his own; campaign aides once called him a “sophisticated parrot.” He has sown willingness both to believe anything is true, and to say anything is true. he has few core ideological impulses, but is often willing to suppress them when it’s useful for another purpose. He makes vague statements that allow people to project what they want in his words, so two sides he same issue could claim his support.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner Maggie Haberman: “Confidence Man” ]
10]. “Those same influencers who helped Trump connect with young voters during the election are now using their platforms to criticize the war in Iran and reconsidering their actions in the election. Rogan, who endorsed Trump after his 2024 interview, on Tuesday called the Iran war “so insane” and said Trump had “betrayed” the Americans who supported him.”
11] “Andrew Schulz, one of the cohosts of “Flagrant,” has criticized Trump since last year for doing the opposite of what he promised on the campaign trail.”
12] “Naturally, Americans are furious about it, right?” Schulz said. “Because we’re like, ‘How the f— does this benefit me? I can’t even afford to pay for college. i can’t buy a home. I can’t pay for health insurance. And we’re going to spend billions on a war in a country i can’t even point out on a map.”
***. “When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” [ Euripides ]
13] “Ross, who wore a white MAGA hat during his 2024 stream with Trump, also has expressed regret for having associated himself with the campaign.”
14] “..Faith Peavey, a 21-year-old American Sign Language interpreter and Republican who said she voted for Trump in 2024 with ‘caution…”It has definitely been frustrating to see him doing things that were not things he promised to do and not doing things that he promised to do,” Peavey said.”
*** “In the end the Party would announce that two and two make five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.”
[ George Orwell: ‘1984″ ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXIV. – Trump’s Incompetence, Corruption, Contempt
*** “It’s hard to believe anyone would vote for me. People must really be very stupid.” [Donald Trump]
This post will provide just four May, 2026, examples of how INCOMPETENT, how Corrupt, how much contempt Trump has for ordinary Americans – like YOU. We have folders and envelopes FULL of similar stories. It seems EVERY day brings a new example of how Trump has declared war on ordinary Americans, on American democracy, is weakening and disgracing America. Not by me – but by the Preamble’s principles: “We the People”. created a new government to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare..” Trump doesn’t care about any of this.
1] “Intel shows Iran’s military stronger than Trump says”. [Adam Entous, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of thre 33 missile sites in maintains along the Strait of Hormuz…Iran has regained access to roughly 90% of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide…Trump and his military advisors overestimated the damage that the U.S. military could inflict..and underestimated Iran’s resilience and ability to bounce back.”
***. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” [Mark Twain]
2] “Trump’s IRS suit could be settled”. [Andrew Duhren, Alan Feur; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “..a move that could involve the government directly providing taxpayer funds or another public benefit to the president…the possibility of the IRS dropping any audits of Trump, his family members or businesses..”…Depending on its terms, a settlement with the IRS could be among Trump’s most brazen efforts to bend the government to his personal will – an agenda often carried out through the Justice Department. Trump and his family have repeatedly disregarded Washington ethical guardrails aimed at preventing government officials from profiting from public office.” [NOTE: if memory serves, didn’t Trump says his was going to voluntarily disclose his tax data???]
***. “What do I care about the law? Haint I got the power?” [ Cornelius Vanderbilt ]
3] “Trump: Economic pain not a consideration for Iran War”. [ Erica Green; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he does not think about the economic hardship Americans feel as a result of his war in Iran, and it did not factor into his negotiations to end it…..”I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,’ Trump added. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all”
[NOTE; Trump hopes that YOU will forget the HE canceled a settlement that PROHIBITED Iran from having a nuclear bomb !!!!!!! Perhaps because President Obama negotiated it – can’t have anything Obama did !!!]
***. “The basest and meanest of all human beings are generally the most forward to despise others. – So that the most contemptible are generally the most contemptuous.” [ Henry Fielding ]
4] “Tobacco’s big win, courtesy of Trump”. [ Christina Jewett, Kenneth Vogel; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “The industry has poured millions into his presidency…Donald Trump got an earful from a group of tobacco executives and lobbyists unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry…He complained to [RFK, Jr., Oz]..about the FDA’s regulation of e-cigarettes..”…The message was received. Less than a week later, the executives got what they wanted….The new policy bypassed the FDA’s regular rule-making process.”
*** “People who contribute get the ear of the member and the ear of the staff. they have access and access is it. Access is power. Access is clout. That’s how this thing works.” [ retired U.S. Representative Romano Mazzoli; in “Economic Apartheid in America”; Chuck collins, Felice Yeskel ]
***. Donald John Trump is THE man our Founders feared. He is THE anti-George Washington. He is THE anti-Abraham Lincoln. He is THE man feared in JohnW. Dean’s “Broken Government” ;…”another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years, under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” – This from a “life-long Republican” in the Nixon White House!!!!! YOU have ONE. chance left to prevent the Trump DICTATORSHIP from being even more destructive, more undemocratic. – In November, 2026, VOTE AGAINST EVERY REPUBLICAN. – because they have almost all. “Drunk the Koolaid,” are giving Trump whatever he demands. – like the. KNOWN. corrupt mid-decade. GERRYMANDERING.
***. “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXIII. – Trump Betrays His Voters, Destroys Middle Class
*** “The most perfect community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.” [ Aristotle ]
This post will BEGIN. to discuss evidence on how the Trump DICTATORSHIP policies are negatively impacting Americans. Leaving aside damage to the environment, relations with formerly friendly countries, undermining the rule of law, undermining democracy. – this post concentrates on. SOME. reasons most Americans are struggling financially. Often a headline alone is enough.
1] “The Middle Class Is Selling Blood Plasma to Get By” [ Kurtis Lee, Robert Gebeloff; New York Times; 4/5/26 ]: “As living costs rise, collection centers are increasingly opening in wealthier areas of the country.”
2] “The Great American Heist: How Reagan, Trump, and Their Billionaire Backers Stole the Middle Class” [ Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; December, 2025 ]: “Every major social program since the 1930s has been opposed by Republicans…Trump just de-unionized an additional few hundred-thousand federal workers…the middle class has shrunk to fewer than 50% of us, and it takes two paychecks to do it.”
3]. “The Town That Reveals All of Trump’s Bad Economic Ideas” [ bob Davis; New York Times; 4/26/26 ]: “The town is making a comeback..But the reasons have nothing to do with mr. Trump and his signature policies.”
4]. “Republic for Sale”. [ Sabrina Haake; The Progressive Populist; December, 2025]; “Thanks to Citizens United…Trump is indebted to hundreds of industry leaders from tech, auto, education, banking, arms, prison, healthcare, and fossil fuel sectors…Trump is targeting these federal agencies for privatization: USPS, VA, FEMA, TSA, National Weather Service, National Parks, TVA, CDC.”
***. “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
[ Benito Mussolini ]
5] “To Pay Bills, Seniors Turn To Gig Work” [ Cathy Bussewitz; Associated Press; 4/6/26 ]
6]. “VA eliminates thousands of medical jobs…Despite promises to care for veterans..” [ Nicholas Nehamas, Andrea Fuller, Danielle Ivory, Ellen Barry; New York Times; 3/4/26 ]
7] “Brisk sales at Goodwill suggest shoppers worried”. [ Kim Bhasin, Sophia June; New York Times; 2/1/26 ]
8]. “With Grids Under Strain, Blackout Risk Rises for Millions of People”. { Brad Plumer; New York Times; 2/8/26 ]
***. “No society can..be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of..members are poor and miserable..It is but equity..that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have..a share of the produce of their own labor as to themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.” [ Adam Smith; yes – THE Adam Smith ! ]
9]. April 17, 2025 – 5:30 PM CBS News: there are 50 million Americans who are food insecure.
10] November 18, 2025 – 6 PM PBS News Hour: 44% of U.S. wokers are in low-wage jobs; 60% of U.S. workers live paycheck-to-paycheck
11]. January 30, 2026 – 6 PM PBS News Hour: Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” cut back $911 million on services to adults with disabilities
12]. “Parents face tough child care choices”. [ Julie Weil, Joanna Slater; Washington Post Weekly; 1/25/26 ]
***. “We can either have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we cannot have both.” { Justice Louis Brandeis ]
13]. “Millions abandon pricier ACA coverage” [ Reed Abelson, Margot Sanger-Katz; New York Times; 5/10/26 ]
14]. “Less for Health Care, More for the Pentagon” [ Lindsay Koshgarian; The Progressive Populist; January, 2026 ]
15]. “To Make America Healthy Again, Break Up Big Ag”. [ Amanda Starbuck; The Progressive Populist; May, 2026 ]
16] “Babies become ‘sitting ducks’ in outbreaks of measles”. [ Devi Shastri, Laura Unger; Associated Press; 4/25/26 ]
*** “We will move from a society based on the pretense..everyone is given an okay standard of living in which people are expected to fend for themselves…a world where..10 to 15 percent of the citizenry is extremely wealthy [and has fantastic lives]…” [Tyler Cowen, a “pro-market” economist; in Robert McChesney and John Nichols: “People Get Ready” ]
17] “EPA won’t consider lives saved in setting rules” [ Maxine Johnson; New York Times; 1/13/26 ]
18]. “The Trump Administration’s War on Science Has A Human Cost”. [ Jeneen Interlandi; New York Times; 3/1/26 ]
19]. “Manufacturers not seeing tariff payoff…Trump’s rationale of more factories opening hasn’t materialized” [ Josh Boak; Associated Press; 3/19/26 ]
20]. “Trump’s Betrayal of His Voters Is Now Complete” [ Joe Conason; The Progressive Populist; may, 2026 ]: Trump: “I said to Russell, Don’t send any money for day care because the United States can’t take care of day care.’ That has to be up to a state.’ We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people.”
*** “His entire life Trump has been a con artist. In “The Art of the Deal” he brags about deceptions that enriched him. He has boasted about not paying banks that loaned him billions of dollars. He lost a court case, had to pay back $25. million on his Trump University scam. [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Worse Than You Think” ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXII. – “Trump’s Second Term Is a Cationary Tale”
***. “Character is the only secure foundation of the state.” [ Calvin Coolidge; Republican; 30th U.S. President ]
We have now put forward 181 posts on the Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness of the Trump DICTATORSHIP. Our job is to present to. YOU, the average American citizen. as many different facts as we can find. Our goal is to make YOU think, and most of all. to raise questions about the direction the Trump DICTATORSHIP is taking America. Hopefully, YOU, and other Americans will see the DAMAGE being inflicted. – and. – protest, oppose, – and, most of all. – vote against the Trump DICTATORSHIP in EVERY way that YOU. can.
Donald John Trump is THE man our Founders feared. he is, without a doubt, THE anti-George Washington. This site has already presented words of critics, some Pulitzer Prize winners, some former U.S. government officials, some economists. – telling YOU that the Trump DICTATORSHIP is profoundly damaging the United states – as a democratic country, as a decent civil society, as a respected moral force in the world, as a forward-looking economy, as a society that respects and listens to scientific evidence.
This post presents excerpts from: “Trump’s Second Term is a Cautionary Tale.” [ Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 4/19/26 ]:
1] “To have spent any amount of time observing President Trump over the last month is to conclude that he is in over his head. The president is struggling with the consequences of his actions..”
11] “.. the most important question of the Trump years thus far: Will his legacy be durable and lasting? Does it represent a new template for American government going forward? or is it more like an unfortunate detour into a dark alley?……if we can escape these years intact and respond accordingly, we may find that Trump stands less as an example and more of a cautionary tale of what happens when we embrace unaccountable, unilateral authority.”
3] “..this is not a man in control of himself, or a president in control of the situation around him..so uninterested in governing that he has handed his power to a handful of deputies.”
***. “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
[ Niccolo Machiavelli ]
5] “This is not to say that Trump has been an inconsequential president, that he hasn’t presided over the wholesale destruction of large parts of the federal government, or that he hasn’t turned the sharp edge of the state against the most vulnerable people in the country.”
2] “When Trump launched his ‘short-term excursion,” he assumed that it would be. – in the words of a Pentagon official in the last Republican administration to launch a Middle East war. – “a cakewalk.” That, as Trump’s own intelligence agencies told him, was a mistake. Now, he is stuck. And lacks the skill and patience to find a way out of his self-inflicted catastrophe.”
*** “Emotionally he remains the thirteen-year-old troublemaker his father sent off to a military academy..”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]
4]. “Months before Trump won his second term, and well before he took office, the Supreme Court handed him the reins of the unitary executive. – the promise of an active, energetic administration free of what the court deemed unnecessary constraints. The president has used this power to run wild, trampling over constitutional government. But he has also, at the same time, shown himself to be the weakest and most ineffectual president of recent memory, less a man of commanding authority than, well, a buffoon.”
6] “Trump’s White House has also slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for new medicines and technologies in a crushing blow to scientific research in the United States.”
7]. “..these grim facts of Trump’s tenure should not blind us to the way his unilateral action betrays the weakness of his regime. Trump works almost exclusively through executive orders… In areas where Trump cannot political actors to obey his demands. – where there is no legal basis for his authority. – he struggles to do anything of consequence.”
***. “Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, maybe had it more right than he knew when he said understanding Trump meant understanding Alice in Wonderland.” Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward: “Rage” ]
8] “He’s doing little to nothing with Congress, period…Some of this is no doubt strategy, with destruction as a fait accompli, but most of it reflects his inability to engage the legislative process. The weakness we see abroad is the weakness we see at home, and vice versa.”
9] “Nothing underscores Trump’s weakness as a executive more than the war with Iran….It is the imperial project of a would-be authoritarian.”
10] “For as much as Trump is uniquely unsuited for the tremendous power of his office, it is also true that the idea of the unitary executive rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the American political system.”
***. “Early on, briefers were told not to send lengthy documents. Trump wouldn’t read them. Nor should they bring summaries to the Oval Office..PowerPoint was preferred because he is a visual learner…Then officials were told that PowerPoint decks needed to be slimmed down. The president couldn’t digest too many slides. He needed kore images to keep his interest. – and fewer words. Then they were told to cut back the overall message [on complicated issues such as military readiness or the federal budget]. to just three main points. Eh, that was still too much…Come in with one main point and repeat it. – over and over again, even if the president inevitably goes off on tangents. – until he gets it. Just keep steering the subject back to it. ONE point.” [ Anonymous: “A Warning” ]
[NOTE: Remember. – this is President Trump he’s talking about, in his FIRST term, NOT a kindergarten student!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does this “thought process”. of an American president, related on pages 28-34, help YOU understand why this article said: “Abroad and at home, the president is in over his head.” ?????]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, corruption, Craziness, CLXXIX – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, XI
***. ‘..psychiatrist Prudence L. Gourgueschon, a former president of the American Psycoanalytic Association, proposed judging Trump’s fitness for office using the United States Army Field Manual on developing leaders. She distilled..five crucial qualities needed to lead: – Trust -Discipline and self-control – Judgment and critical thinking -Self-awareness – Empathy. Not one of these is part of Trump’s nature.” [Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think”].
WHY did the United States go to war with Iran? What decision-making processes were conducted? WHO were the key people voicing opinions? WHO pushed for war? WHO voiced caution, and or, opposition to war?
This post presents excerpts from: “Behind The Scenes. As Trump Took U.S. To War With Iran”. [Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman; New York times; 4/12/26 ]: [NOTE: this might be THE article on those and other crucial questions. If YOU want to know more about WHY America is at war – then this article is a MUST read]
8] “But Trump would often seem to hear only what he wanted to hear.”
1]. “This account of how Trump took the United States into war reveals how the deliberations inside the administration highlighted the president’s instincts, his inner circle’s fractures and the way he runs the White House…And it shows how, in the end, even the more skeptical members of Trump’s war cabinet..deferred to the president’s instincts, including his abundant confidence that trhe war would be quick and decisive.”
5] “The CIA director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: “farcical.” At that point, Rubio cut in. “In other words, it’s bullshit,” he said Several others jumped in, including Vance, just back from Azerbaijan, who also expressed strong skepticism about the prospect of regime change.”
*** “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” [ Isaac Asimov ]
13] “Tucker Carlson..had come to the Oval Office several times over the previous year to warn Trump that a war with Iran would destroy his presidency…”I know you’re worried about it, but it’s going to be OK,” the president said. Carlson asked how he knew. “Because it always is,” Trump replied.”
11]. “In front of his colleagues, Vance warned Trump that a war against Iran could cause regional chaos and untold numbers of casualties…Vance raised other concerns, too. As vice president, he was aware of the scope of America’s munitions problem…that no amount of military insight could truly gauge what Iran would do in retaliation when the survival of the regime was at stake. Moreover, he thought there seemed to be little chance of building a peaceful Iran in the aftermath.”
12]. “Beyond all of this was perhaps the biggest risk of all: Iran held the advantage when it came to the Strait of Hormuz. if this narrow waterway carrying vast quantities of oil and natural gas was choked off, the domestic consequences in the United states would be severe, starting with higher gas prices.”
***. “The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears tobe one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.” [ Robert Lynd ]
2] “Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to almost certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. the regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assesses as minimal….Besides…..” [read this again. it appears to have had a decisive impact on Trump – how much have real events shown this to be accurate?]
3]. “The intelligence officials had deep expertise in U.s. military capabilities, and they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out. They had broken down Netanyahu’s presentation into four parts. First was decapitation – killing the ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran’s power to project power and threaten its neighbors. third was a popular uprising inside Iran. And fourth was regime change, with a secular leader installed to govern the country. The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable…They assessed that the third and fourth parts of Netanyahu’s pitch…were detached from reality.”
6] “The president then turned to to Caine, “General, what do you think?” Caine replied, “sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”
*** “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. but if you must be without one. Be without the strategy.” [ General Norman Schwarzkopf ]
7] “As the small team of advisors who were lopped into the plans deliberated over the following days, Caine shared with Trump and others the alarming military assessment that a major campaign against Iran would drastically deplete stockpiles of U.S. weaponry. Caine saw no clear path to quickly replenishing these stockpiles. He also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran blocking it. Trump had dismissed that possibility on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that. The president appeared to think it would be a very quick war.” [NOTE: read this again – WHO is correct? WHO is working from data and rational thinking – and WHO is working from assumptions and wishful thinking???]
9] “Back in office for a second term, Trump’s confidence in the U.S. military’s abilities had only grown. he was especially emboldened by the spectacular commando raid to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro…Within the Cabinet, Hegseth was the biggest proponent of a military campaign against Iran…Rubio, however, did not try to talk Trump out of the operation.”
10] “Nobody in Trump’s inner circle was more worried about the prospect of war with Iran, or did more to try to stopit, than the vice president…..he had described a war with Iran as “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive..”…..What the vice president pushed for was a limited, punitive strike…thought a regime change war with Iran would be a disaster. His preference was for no strikes at all.”
14]. The final situation room meeting of February 26. Read the account of this meeting, the column under “I think we need to do it.” Participants say nothing of significance against war. They leave EVERYTHING up to Trump’s judgment. Which is most unfortunate. – because numerous psychiatrists, mental health experts, historians, analysts, largely agree. – “judgment and critical thinking”. – is something Trump DOES NOT have.
[NOTE: – remember this: “…the notion, that his team is working to protect him from himself, has since become one of the defining narratives of the Trump administration…President Trump should not be shocked that wary aides and cabinet members saved his presidency..many times.” [Anonymous – a senior Trump administration official: “A Warning”. – BUT – this was in the FIRST Trump term. – NOT the second, filled with “loyalists” ]
*** “While discussing “Fear’. on television, I was asked for my bottom-line summary of Trump’s leadership. “Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis, I said.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner bob Woodward in “Rage” ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXII – Donald Trump’s “Psychotic State”
*** ‘people who don’t believe evil exists have clearly never encountered a psychopath, sociopath or narcissist.”
[ Morgan McKean ]
There have been multiple attempts to evaluate Donald John Trump as a human being. Bandy Lee’s. “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”. provided analysis of “37 psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts”. [2017, 2019]. Then other mental health experts analyzed Trump’s speech patterns over a fairly long period of years. Omarosa Manigault Newman, in Trump’s presence for 15 years, wrote “Unhinged,” discussing the ways he changed “mentally and physically.” Mary Trump, Trump’s niece and a trained clinical psychologist, wrote. “Too Much and Never Enough.” Adam Gabbatt, in the Guardian, wrote. “Is Trump Mentally OK?,” providing a long list of 25 specific examples of Trump’s ‘unusual behavior in 2025,” some quite startling.
This post presents excerpts from: “Trump Is Turning America Into A Psychotic State” [ Jonathan Rauch, Peter Wehner; New York Times; 4/12/26]:
12] “Institutional psychosis is ultimately self-defeating and unsustainable. Reality checks will return because reality always asserts itself. But severe damage will have been done, damage that may take a generation or more to repair.
As the Trump era winds down, the country may relearn something that never should have been forgotten. Institutions need to be reformed, not destroyed; governing well requires skill and careful attention to detail rather than leaders acting on impulse and ignorance; and character and mental stability matter perhaps most of all.”
2] “The issue is that the administration as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to reality and the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Mr. Trump’s grandiosity, impulsivity, inconsistency and outright breaks with reality have become state policy.”
11] “America and its allies have dealt with a lot of presidential imperfections and failings, but there is no precedent or even category for the institutional psychosis displayed by the second Trump administration. Precisely because the psychotic state is so unpredictable, setting up systems to manage it will not work.”
5] “Incoherence is not incidental in this administration; it is the administration’s modus operandi. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency caused chaos in federal agencies by sacking, then sometimes rehiring employees without any evident rationale. – and without making a serious dent in government spending. Mr. Trump flipped from “no more wars”. to waging war…using and threatening military force..seemingly every other month.”
***. “Emotionally he remains the thirteen-year-old troublemaker his father sent off to a military academy..Being stuck in the awkward year between childhood and maturity for nearly six decades..has twisted Trump’s personality and explains much of his narcissism..” [Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Imagine”]
1]. “It has been clear for a long time that President Trump is a person with a disorganized mind and a disordered personality. What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how his pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized.The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is that it cannot.”
3] “It is the Iran war that has most vividly demonstrated the scope of the problem. In this conflict, the most potent antagonist has been the administration’s own incoherence. The Trump administration chose to wage a war without deciding on its aims, mapping out a strategy, planning for contingencies or even being able to explain itself. The goal was regime change. – until it wasn’t. The demand was unconditional surrender. – until it wasn’t. Deadlines were issued and then erased. Threats of total destruction were made and then pulled back.”
4] “THe administration might have been readier had it not chopped back the State Department’s Middle East desk, gotten rid of its oil and gas experts and eliminated its dedicated Iran office. the administration handicapped its own National Security council by firing staff members, some at the behest of a conspiracy-minded internet personality, and undercutting its independence.” [Note: this is often called ‘shooting yourself in the foot” !!!!]
*** Dictionary and thesaurus definitions of ‘psychotic”: “insane, mad, psychopathic, crazy, schizophrenic, maniacal, unbalanced, unhinged, mentally unsound, bereft of reason, deluded, disordered, nutty, screwy, half-cocked, unglued, not playing with a full deck…” [NOTE: this is what the above paragraphs – and much more, discuss and imply when t hey discuss Trump’s mind, and that of those around him.]
6] “Normal administrations set up policy processes that assemble evidence from varied sources, collate viewpoints and priorities across multiple agencies and ensure rational deliberation before options reach the president. one of us served in three Republican administrations and participated as interagency reviews took place in a cabinet department, in an executive agency and the White House itself. a single line in a presidential foreign policy statement might require the input of 20 or more people..” [in a “normal administration’..”
7] “The policy review process can be tortuous and sometimes mistaken. It can’t substitute for wide presidential judgment. But it is vital. It asks hard questions and assesses competing arguments. It ensures expert input in specific domains, anticipates how policies may ramify and prepares for contingencies. In all those ways, the systematic review of policy amounts to an institutional mind; a cognitive process that organizes the government’s deliberations to keep them rational and anchored in reality.” [NOTE: does a Psychotic State” operate rationally???]
8]. “In Mr. Trump’s second term, those functions still exist, but they can be disrupted, circumvented or just plain abandoned at any moment on the say-so of the president and his senior officials. In that respect, the Trump administration is mindless….irrational processes produce inexplicable outcomes, and that is what we have seen, again and again. The only rhyme or reason is the principle that Mr. Trump proclaimed when explaining his policy toward Cuba: “I think I can do anything I want with it.” That is the principle by which his administration governs.”
***. “Whatever big crisis comes, the one thing we know is that Donald Trump lacks the deep knowledge, critical thinking skills, emotional maturity and ability to separate sound advice from nonsense that are needed in a crisis.”
[Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “The making of Donald Trump”]
9] “..until a coherent policy process is restored under a chief executive who understands the need for it, we should expect geysers of mindlessness to keep erupting in unforeseeable ways and places.”
10] “As one of us has argued, he is a patrimonialist. – a leader who believes the state is his personal property. And both of us have said that his administration displays the hallmarks of fascism. Ultimately, however, institutional psychosis defies rational categories. Predicting this administration’s behavior is impossible under any framework. And if Mr. Trump becomes more desperate as he grows more unpopular, the danger only increases.”
*** “People should not vote for ANY Republican because they’re dangerous, dishonest, and self-serving…Republicans care most about those who will only get richer because of government help. The government is truly broken, particularly in dealing with national security, and another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” [NOTE: these words were spoken by a “lifelong Republican’ who knew G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney personally. He spoke anonymously because one of his sons had an important nonpolitical government post “and we both know that Republicans will seek revenge wherever they can find it.” it is the closing quote in John W. Dean’s. “Broken Government,” published in 2007. It was the last of three books Dean wrote about the corruption of government by Republicans.”
***. [NOTE: The United States is now one year into the 5th year of the 8 years under Republicans that this man feared.We have 3 years more of the Trump DICTATORSHIP. Under “Project 2025” guidance, Trump and his “Project 2025′ Rasputins ARE destroying the American system of democratic government. – as the man predicted. – making YOUR American government “unrecognizable and unworkable.” AND. – YOUR children and grandchildren WILL have to build a new government that works ‘of the people, by the people, for the people”. – OR American democracy WILL. “perish from the earth.” ]. [ What are. YOU. going to do ????? ]
The Trump Dictatorship. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXI. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, X
***. “Eoyang said Trump’s speech and actions at Riyadh showed that “he really doesn’t get what the issues are and he won’t pay attention to those who try to explain it to him. He speaks without thinking about other people, other interests. Below-the radar people are turning away from the U.S. in ways Trump does not see.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]
This post is the 10th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His character and judgment have often beed declared deficient; that he is “transactional.” Read the above quote again. – this is an example of the DAMAGE that Trump is inflicting upom the United States. He is THE anti-George Washington; THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.
This post presents excerpts from: “Trump’s War Has Weakened America”. [ New York Times Editorial; 4/12/26 ]:
8]. “Perhaps the greatest long-term damage to the United States from the Iran war will be in its relationships with allies around the world,” Daniel Byman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote on Wednesday.”
4] “Mr. Trump’s lack of foresight about the strait reveals glaring incompetence…Iran appears to have won diplomatic leverage that it could have only dreamed of six weeks ago.”
10] “America’s appeal stems not only from its freedom and democratic values. Mr. Trump has undercut those values for his entire political career and perhaps never more than in the past week when he made odious threats to erase Iranian civilization.”
6] “The war has also revealed that the U.S. military is vulnerable to new ways of warfare…The world saw how a country that spends one-hundredth of what the United states does on its military can seek to outlast it in a conflict.”
*** “As with most of his foreign leader meetings, Trump has been briefed but didn’t appear to have retained the material and instead tried to wing it…”It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.,” Trump said, seeming to dismiss the threat to India. Modi’s eyes bulged out in surprise.” [ Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “a Very Stable Genius” ]
1]. “when President Trump attacked Iran on Feb. 28, we called his decision reckless…In the six weeks since, the recklessness of his war has become clearer yet. He has distained careful military planning and acted on gut instinct and wishfulness…[Netanyahu’s prediction of Iranian popular uprisings was called by].. the director of the CIA..”farcical”…Mr. Trump proceeded nonetheless.”
2] “Mr. Trump’s irresponsibility has left the United states on the cusp of a humiliating strategic defeat….We count four main setbacks for America’s national interests that are the direct result of Mr. Trump’s carelessness. These setbacks likewise weaken global democracy when authoritarians in China, Russia and elsewhere were already feeling emboldened.”
3]. The most tangible blow to the United states and the world is the increased influence that Iran has secured over the global economy by weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz.”
*** “Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asked his chief of staff. Kelly was momentarily stunned. Trump had heard the phrase. “Pearl Harbor”. and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else… “He was at times dangerously uninformed,” said one senior former advisor. Trump’s lack of basic historical knowledge surprised some foreign leaders as well… A senior European official observed, “He’s totally ignorant of everything. but he doesn’t seem to care. he’s not interested.”
[ Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “a Very Stable Genius” ] [!!!!! what can we say?????]
5] “The second setback is to America’s military standing around the world…Returning the stockpile to its previous size will take years.”
7] “The war’s third big cost is to America’s alliances. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and most of Western Europe refused to support the United States in this war….these countries will remain allies in important ways, but they have made clear that they no longer consider the United States a reliable friend.”
9]. “The fourth setback is to America’s moral authority. For all the flaws of this country, it remains a beacon to many around the world. When pollsters ask people where they would move if they could, the United states is consistently the runaway No. 1 answer…..Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth have embraced a brutal approach to armed conflict that the United states led the world in rejecting after World War II. By doing so, they have undermined the foundations of America’s global leadership.”
***. “My first book on his presidency, “Fear: Trump in the White House”…described Trump as “an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader”. who had created a governing crisis and. “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.” While discussing “Fear”. on television, I was asked for my bottomline summary of Trump’s leadership. “Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis,” I said.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner bob Woodward: “Rage” ]
[NOTE: Maybe it’s time for YOU to consider the ‘useful idiot” possibility. We know mysterious billionaires have provided the Trump DICTATORSHIP with a guidebook: “Project 2025.” Numerous of its authors are IN. the Trump DICTATORSHIP. It has been estimated, as of about march 1, 2026, Trump had implemented about 53% of “Project 2025″s proposals in domestic American affairs. – the “useful idiot’ being used by America’s rich and reactionaries. We know that Israel’s premier, Netanyahu, had a decisive voice in getting the Iran war started. It is said that another Middle Eastern leader also favored it – “useful idiot.’ Since Trump seems, in one person’s view, to “worship” Russian leader Vladimir Putin. – is it fair to ask is Trump the real “Manchurian candidate’. – Putin’s. “useful idiot”?]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXX. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, IX
***. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria…it’s time to bring our great young people home!”…It was contrary to what had been recommended to him…”People are going to fucking die because of this,” a top aide angrily remarked. We all scrambled to figure out what had happened and what Trump’s plans were….In a normal White House, decisions of this magnitude receive sober deliberation….None of these questions were answered. Not only was the decision reckless, but administration officials had been testifying under oath that ISIS was NOT yet eliminated…Now the president was falsely declaring ISIS to be finished, because he just decided it was true one day.” [ “Anonymous: “A Warning.” He was a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security ] [ Do YOU want “your” president making a major decision. “..because he decided it was true on day.”?????? ]
This post is the 9th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His character and judgment have often been declared deficient. He has been described as being “transactional.” He is THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.
This post presents excerpts from: “When A Narcissist Goes to War” [ Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 3/29/26]:
8] “This gets to the real problem. Trump is famously indifferent to the concerns of those around him. He is the consummate narcissist, and he is, without question, the most solipsistic person ever to occupy the Oval Office…Like Trump, the White House does not seem to understand that other people have agency too. It sees itself the same way the president sees himself: as the protagonist of the universe, with everyone else acting as a supporting character or a non-player one. – extras with no will of their own.”
1] “If you can set aside both the unconstitutionality and the immorality of President Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran and focus on the operation itself, it is hard not to be bewildered by the utter lack of real planning or even basic strategic thinking that has gone into it.”
2] “Trump and his aides, according to recent reporting, did not plan for Iran to target shipping and close the Strait of Hormuz. They also do not seem to have planned for serious and sustained retaliation against America’s gulf state allies. They did not plan for an energy crisis and the potential disruption to the global economy, and they did not plan for America’s European allies to, by and large, reject their call for support.”
[ NOTE: reread the three sections above. This is a summary of. TOTAL. INCOMPETENCE!!! A question in YOUR mind should be; what exactly DID they plan for??? Leaving aside other things – the Strait of Hormuz is THE question of this war – how could a responsible government going to war NOT plan for this???? If America wants to retain allies and friends – don’t you plan to protect them; don’t you consult with them??? ]
***. “As president, Trump’s decisions were often made in an instant… Esper warned that President Trump had also brought the United States to “the brink”. of war many times…Former secretary of defense James Mattis had been so worried that Trump would have a nuclear war with North Korea during his watch that he had slept in gym clothes.”
[ Pulitzer prize winner Bob Woodward: “War” ]
3] “It appears that both the president and the White House expected token resistance, followed by the collapse of the Iranian regime, the installation of a pro-American government. – or at least one we could tolerate. – and a return to the status quo ante; a replay.. of the president’s first intervention of the year, in Venezuela.” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]
4]. “Now that this replay fantasy has collided with a more complex, indeterminate and difficulty reality, Trump is unable to explain his objectives or even give the country a sense of when the war might end. he told Fox News radio that he would ‘feel it in my bones.” [ NOW – are YOU more comforted ????!!!??? ]
5] “If anything, Trump is caught in a classic escalation spiral. When one approach fails. [in this case, the initial airstrikes], he moves to the next. When that fails, he bids higher. And when escalation still doesn’t produce the desired result. – when he faces the choice between accepting defeat or stalemate or going even further – he goes further.”
6]. “What’s striking is how familiar this pattern feels. The administration did not expect the public to be repelled by DOGE. It did not expect outrage over the treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It did not expect Democrats to respond to threats of partisan gerrymandering with their own push to wring as many Democratic seats as possible out of so-called blue states.”
7] “Which raises another key question: Why can’t the White House see what others could have easily predicted? None of this should have been a surprise. Anyone capable of thinking through the actions of other people. – of imagining their perspectives and recognizing that they have agency. – should have been able to anticipate these outcomes and plan accordingly.” [But – maybe not when you are a narcissist?]
*** “Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Matttis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas…stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history, and even with the map of the world…the president wasn’t reading any of his briefing books, or even the concise three-page version…”I call the president the two-minute man. The president has patience for half a page.” [Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “A Very Stable Genius”] [NOTE: read this again. they are NOT the first to say this. Aren’t YOU delighted that this man has HIS finger on THE bomb’s trigger???!!!???]
[NOTE: Now – don’t YOU feel better!!! Aren’t you reassured about Trump’s fitness for office? This is a small smidgen of the volumes of reports by more competent human beings about Trump’s uninformed, IGNORANT, impulsive, whim-driven conduct to EVERYTHING. If we are lucky, on January 20, 2029, America will still exist, American democracy will still exist, and the world hasn’t been involved in some highly destructive war, some economic catastrophe. The odds are against us – because the true American patriots who restrained Trump’s worst impulses in term one. – have been replaced by “loyalists” and various Rasputins, some of whom reportedly have Trump “woven around their finger.” Others, like Putin, have learned how to manipulate him. A so-far unanswered question: what “kompromat” does Putin have on Trump?
With Justice For All 
You must be logged in to post a comment.