Trump is Ready for his Close-up with Mr. DeMille

I never suspected that my most self-referenced post would be "Day 334: The Final Number." In that post, written after Trump gave one of his ad hoc television addresses, I wrote:

What we saw Wednesday night was an entertainer who is way past his prime, reduced to cliches and tired routines that only his most diehard philistine fans would appreciate. We are watching the final act of a failed reality television show, one with ratings so bad that even A&E wouldn't renew it for another season. No matter how frenetic the song and dance routine he does, the audience is leaving the theater in droves, and he is powerless to stop them. 

The other night's update on his Iranian "excursion" was just more of the same: a tired old man having the verbal equivalent of a hissy fit; a man insisting that you believe him on every issue, rather than trusting your own lying eyes. But unlike his address in December, this one was more surreal because the nation got to see the putative Commander-in-Chief making the case for a war that had been underway for a full month. That would have been bad on its own, but what made it worse was watching the dottard describe a conflict as existing in a kind of quantum state: a war that is not a war, that is already won, currently being won, and destined to be won, all at once.

And if that mental pig feed wasn't bad enough, he then returned to his favorite topic: how he is the best president ever. According to Trump, America was "a dead country" that he has miraculously...revived? Resurrected? Zombified? Probably the latter. Regardless, things are now just swell. Those climbing gas prices? Temporary! Imaginary! Or something. That sticky inflation rate? Nonexistent! The exploding national debt? Nothing to worry about! Everything is just swell in Trumpland!

In other words, the dottard's prime time address was just more of the same, a sad spectacle of a man who is way out of his depth, flailing for purchase while desperately trying to project an image of strength. It was such a "low energy" performance that even his supporters were left dismayed by his failure to sell his war of choice with more vim, vigor, and, most importantly, clarity.

Trump continues his transformation into Norma Desmond. Like the unhinged aging actress of Billy Wilder's classic film noir Sunset Boulevard, Trump has now become a parody of himself. 

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Such a spectacle of a has-been desperately trying to regain the love of his audience would normally be cause for some healthy schadenfreude, but not when it comes to the security of my home.

It was ironic that Trump recited all the conflicts America has been involved in over the decades. As he robotically recounted (a sure sign that what he was reading was new knowledge to him):

It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective. American involvement in World War I lasted one year, seven months and five days. World War II lasted for three years, eight months and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for three years, one month and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days. Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days. We are in this military operation, so powerful, so brilliant against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days. 

There is a great irony here, one Trump hasn't yet accepted: It took nineteen years for America to lose the Vietnam War, something that damaged US prestige for nearly a decade in its wake.  Likewise, America lost the fight for Afghanistan to the Taliban after a twenty-year struggle. (It is noteworthy that Trump ignored the Afghanistan War entirely, something I suspect was because he proposed the same retreat policy as Biden implemented, just with the added humiliation of bringing the Taliban to Camp David!) Incredibly, Trump has managed to accomplish something no other president has done: engineer a defeat for the US in a mere thirty-two days!

And make no mistake, that is precisely what this is if the current course of the war does not change.  As Trump himself has acknowledged, then denied, and then acknowledged again, the all-important Strait of Hormuz has now fallen entirely in the clutches of Iran.  This is a stinging strategic reversal for the US, as Iran did not exert control over the strait before Trump's war of choice.  Despite his bluster to the contrary, it is a problem driving Trump batty, as proven by his unhinged social media post:

Losing a war weighs heavily on the mind, and it’s clearly weighing on Trump. His unhinged post makes plain that he understands this is a strategic defeat — one already paying huge dividends for Iran. By seizing de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has not only secured a new revenue stream through its toll system, but has also given its rivals, Russia and China, a windfall as their ships pass unmolested and they position themselves to help rebuild Iran once the shooting stops. Even longtime U.S. partners such as Japan and the Philippines are now forging direct relationships with Tehran. It is, in every sense, a strategic victory for Iran and a strategic loss for Trump and America.

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I cannot overstate how much of a mess Trump has created with his immoral war of choice.  As has been amply demonstrated by this blog, I always knew Trump's second term would be calamitous for this nation. Still, even I did not suspect that Trump and his Clown Cabinet were so incompetent that they would do to the American military what Putin's ill-conceived plan to invade Ukraine did to the once-feared Russian military: expose it to the spectre of defeat in a stunningly short time.  And have no illusions: that is precisely what is happening here. The US military is being shown to be something of a glass cannon, a force that is highly trained and technologically sophisticated, but one that quickly becomes stymied as soon as supplies of high-tech weaponry run low and the enemy refuses to cry uncle.

This is not a new lesson, mind you, but one first learned in the late 20th century in Vietnam and repeated in the early 21st in Iraq and Afghanistan — a lesson the warhawks stubbornly refuse to absorb. And now, six weeks into what Trump promised would be a one‑week “military operation” (or “excursion,” or “war,” depending on his memory that day), the U.S. military has once again run headlong into the same wall. It has failed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz; failed to stop the rain of drones and missiles falling on the GCC and Israel; failed to eliminate Iran’s drone and ballistic‑missile program; failed to bring Tehran to the negotiating table; and failed to protect more than seventeen U.S. bases in the region from being blasted to bits.

Then there is the human cost: over one hundred sixty schoolgirls killed on the first day of the air campaign, and more than 1,600 additional Iranian civilians dead as America and Israel’s increasingly indiscriminate bombing grinds on. And finally, the financial cost: a fortune burned through in high‑tech weaponry, from air‑defense missiles to the aircraft themselves. To put this in perspective, the U.S. has just lost two MC‑130 transport planes (each valued at over $100 million), four Little Bird helicopters, and an A‑10 Warthog during the operation to rescue a single aircrew of a downed F‑15E, a staggering bill for a mission that should never have been necessary if Trump’s claim that Iran can no longer defend itself against American air power were even remotely true. The entire operation was more costly, if also more successful (fortunately), than Carter's failed Operation Eagle Claw. 

However, other than that list of failures, things are going "flawlessly," as one former US general and 

MSNOW military pundit put it. With spin like that, I am starting to understand why over 60% of veterans supported Trump. It is becoming clear that both share the same mindset of spinning every fumble as a touchdown. (I need to revisit this topic at a later time, as I am coming to believe that we need to have a serious and sober discussion about the state of the US military.)

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Even some of the president's most ardent supporters are beginning to panic over the staggering cost of this ill-conceived and ill-executed war. While having publicly broken with Trump over the Epstein files, Marjorie Taylor Greene, most famous for believing "Jewish space lasers" were responsible for starting California wildfires, posted this, frankly, shockingly honest post about Trump's and his war:

 Notice the accusation of insanity. That is not a randomly chosen word, but one that is being used more frequently as calls to remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment grow across the land, from both sides of the aisle. As Time reports:

President Donald Trump’s decision to jointly bomb Iran on Feb. 28 despite internal warnings of retaliation and without a clearly articulated rationale surprised the American public and lawmakers. So have his decisions to rail against American allies, offer varying timelines for American withdrawal, and assassinate dozens of the country’s leaders as well as seemingly target civilians and civilian sites, to which Iran has retaliated by choking off the world’s most important energy corridor, dramatically raising prices around the world. Trump’s possible next move, which he has threatened will come Tuesday, has led some to deem him unfit for office.

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Calls for invoking section four grow

“The 25th Amendment exists for a reason. The President of the United States is a deranged lunatic, and a national security threat to our country and the rest of the world,” Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D, Ariz.) posted early Monday. In another post early Monday, Ansari questioned the reported U.S.-Israeli strikes that hit Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, “Why are we bombing a university in a city of 10 million people?”

Other Democratic lawmakers echoed Ansari’s call. “The emperor has no clothes,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D, N.M.) posted on Sunday night, alongside a screenshot of Trump’s post. “Time for the #25thAmendment. Congress and the Cabinet must act.”

Several Republicans and former Trump allies have also called on lawmakers and Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, especially as Trump previously described Vice President J.D. Vance as having a “less enthusiastic” view of waging war on Iran.

Former Congressman and prominent Never Trump Republican Joe Walsh posted, alongside a screenshot of Trump’s threat, “His Easter morning post. And just 2 days ago, one of his ‘religious advisors’ compared him to Jesus Christ. He will forever be a stain on this country. And the world. 25th Amendment. Now.”

Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as the White House communications director during Trump’s first term but has since become a vocal critic, posted, “It was at this point that our Founders thought the best thing to do would be to remove a mad man who has the executive office. It became more formalized with the 25th amendment, but more people now should  be calling for this man’s removal.”

Ty Cobb, who served as White House counsel during Trump’s first term and is now a prominent Trump critic, said on The Jim Acosta Show last Wednesday, “Given the fact that the Cabinet will not invoke the 25th Amendment for a man who is clearly insane—this war highlights that and these screeds that come out nightly, you know, at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m., or whatever time Trump decides to vent without oversight—it highlights the level of his insanity and depravity.”

Cobb added that Trump’s post telling U.S. allies to “go get your own oil” from the Strait of Hormuz—a message the President reiterated in his presidential address last week—further proved his point.

When you have a radical like Greene saying that she thinks you're nuts, you know that you might have gone too far off the reservation.   

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Such is the present American crisis, brought to you by the most bigoted, most ignorant, and most fascistically-inclined voters in the nation.  As I see it, America is in the taloned grip of the most incompetent and corrupt leaders since the post-Civil War years. Worse, an obviously evil man, Donald Trump, is now descending into age-induced mental impairment, all the while clutching the nuclear launch codes in his arthritic fingers as a war he started for reasons that seem unclear even to him rages out of control. That is where we are now.  And we are not even halfway through his second term. 

Joe Gillis, the protagonist of Sunset Boulevard, upon seeing Norma Desmond's dilapidated mansion, quipped, "The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis - out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion." So it would seem to be with Trump's administration. Hobbled by a lifetime of studied ignorance, stricken by the infirmities of advanced age, and surrounded by a cabinet of imbeciles, the president is like a ghost haunting an entire nation, tormented by the fading echo of a greatness he never earned, pacing the dim corridors of a republic buckling under his decaying touch. The walls tremble, the lights flicker, and history watches from the doorway, recording each tragic misstep with cold precision. We are an audience trapped inside the mansion with him, forced to endure the slow collapse of a performer who long ago outlived his own myth as the final reel grinds toward its inevitable, inescapable end.  

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