Trump now has engaged the US in three Vietnam war – all of them quagmires that Trump has stumbled into because he is ignorant, he believes he can do no wrong, and he thinks we, the American people, will swallow anything he says.
Trump’s three Vietnam quagmires are:
- The War in the Middle East
- Tariffs, higher prices, slower economy, and now exploding gas prices
- ICE murders and mass deportations
As a newly crowned Emperor (he crowned himself in his January NYT interview), we have been slow to realize that he can do wrong.
- Trump wants us to believe that whatever he is does is RIGHT, and JUST, and WISE, and STRONG.
- He wants us to believe he can only win, because, when he decides something, it is the responsibility of the people and countries of the world to YIELD and SUBMIT, as those people in Venezuela did in January.
- When he wishes something it must become and be.
And here we are. Another day, another incredibly dangerous, ridiculous Mad King shitshow.
This morning Trump announced that due to progress in talks with Iran — talks that the Iranian government denied are taking place — he has backed off his threat to attack Iranian civilian infrastructure – for five days at least.
We will get the facts about this Trump lie in the coming days but we should note that Iran released a list of Gulf and Israeli targets they would hit if Trump attacked Iranian electrical power plants. Trump’s allies in the region, along with any level-headed people who can break through to him, probably warned him about what would happen to oil and commodity prices, stock markets, gas prices here in the US if he escalated, and that he would also be committing clear and unequivocal war crimes.
As I am writing we are getting clips from a presser Trump just did. It was the usual rambling, disconnected, phony Trump bullshit:
- War ending in a few days,
- Strait of Hormuz opening soon,
- bombing them forever,
- Iranians making concessions in talks that are not actually happening
- all just extraordinary incoherence and make believe.
As he so often does when things are not going as he imagined Trump has now begun inventing a false world where he is winning, where he is strong, and mighty, and wise, and not losing IN FACT, he is stupid, and pathetic, and weak, and idiotic.
After falling this morning on what appeared to be promising news the Brent Crude price is rising again and the Dow has begun to drop – for nothing has changed on the ground, other than Trump looks more ridiculous, scared, and weaker.
For the only way out of this war now is if Trump just leaves and takes the loss – something that we know he cannot do. Vietnam #1.
Vietnam #2 is his ICE private army with its murders and mass deportations.
He wants these masked men roaming our cities, terrorizing all of us. It’s clear it makes him feel powerful and strong. Like his war in Iran, Trump’s ICE has grown wildly unpopular, and the White House and Congressional Republicans have spent the last few weeks screaming COURSE CORRECTION/NEW DAY/KINDER, GENTLER ICE.
Just as the Iranians have outplayed Trump, Schumer and Jeffries outplayed Trump on DHS/ICE funding. They successfully isolated DHS/ICE funding from the rest of appropriations; got the White House to enter into negotiations to rein in ICE, and got some early, meaningful concessions; Noem was sacked and Bovino retired; Democrats have kept forcing the Republicans to vote down dedicated TSA funding as airport lines grow across the country; and yesterday Thune went to Trump with a bi-partisan deal – fund the rest of DHS, put TSA back to work, and Rs will try to pass the ICE portion of DHS funding through a party-line reconciliation vote, with no Democratic votes. It was a way out. But instead Trump, as he does, when threatened and feels like he is losing, escalated.
This morning:
Thune told Trump that Senate Republicans would support funding all of DHS except ICE, the agency at the center of the bitter partisan dispute over Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to senators and aides.
ICE funding could be handled later in a party-line reconciliation bill. Democrats would accept the offer, the South Dakota Republican informed the president.
Democrats wouldn’t get some of their chief demands — banning masks for federal agents or requiring judicial warrants — if reconciliation were used. Plus, TSA agents would get their paychecks and the security-line madness at airports would end.
But Trump said no, according to multiple sources. The president wants Republicans to stay in D.C. and keep fighting with Democrats over DHS funding and the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill.
Not only that, Trump warned that he’d publicly slam Senate Republicans if they left town for the upcoming recess. Trump also said he’d invite all the GOP senators and their families for Easter dinner at the White House. Some Republicans took that as a threat, not a reward.
In a Sunday night Truth Social post Trump made clear his position: “I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.’”
Trump added: “Kill the Filibuster, and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The Mad King did not take the deal because, of course, he believes he is WINNING. FOR HE IS ALWAYS WINNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The real key here is that Trump believes he and Republicans are winning the DHS battle, while a lot of GOP lawmakers aren’t sure that’s the case.
So not only does our Very Mad King not take the deal, he blows up the GOP’s runaway-as-fast-as-we-can-from-ICE “course correction” by sending ICE agents into our airports today, and demanding that SAVE be passed as part of any deal to re-open DHS and end the airport lines.
Finally, Vietnam #3. The economy is headed into a tailspin because of his policies, policies he cannot admit were wrong and so he cannot course correct.
Pre-war all the data was tracking in the wrong direction – GDP growth slowed, jobs were being lost not grown, inflation was rising not falling. It’s clear from the data that our economy was weakening and prices were rising due to his economic agenda, his mass deportations, and more. But like with so many things with Trump we don’t really know if he understands how much harm he was doing to the country. At the State of the Union he talked about the big economic boom under way, as he does most days. He says prices were falling when they are rising. So we don’t know that when he made the decision to attack Iran that he understood; (1) how bad the US economy was at the moment, making it far more vulnerable to shocks, and (2) that the war would likely bring debilitating economic shocks, including exploding gas prices.
And so he launched a war that is doing extraordinary harm to an American economy that was already headed towards recession and the dreaded “stagflation.”
Trump has really fucked up here.
- His tariffs were a huge, catastrophic mistake. When struck down by the Supreme Court, he doubled down and reinstated ruinous, global tariffs.
- The ICE terror force and mass deportations were a huge, catastrophic mistake. While Republicans and White House staff had forced him to begin to course correct today he once again doubled down.
- The war was a huge, catastrophic mistake. And in the last few days he has doubled down, threatening huge escalation, sending more marine, ships, and troops to the region.
- And then whatever it is that happened today – walk back, TACO, cowardly retreat, facesaving bullshit – we stumble forward with an enormous armada in the Middle East, war raging, a $200 billion supplemental and preperations for the attempted seizure of another country, Cuba, well underway.
For the good of the country we need Trump to walk away from his three Vietnams, to cut his losses, and end the war, end the tariffs, and end mass deportations/ICE as terror force. Thune tried this weekend to get Trump to agree to a small piece of cutting his losses – reopen DHS, work to fund ICE. Trump, of course, refused, and then did he what he does when threatened – he escalated. He can no longer do “deals.” He can only accept 100% surrender.
That is the pattern. And that is where we are.
Trump has stumbled into three “escalation traps,” three Vietnams, and our leaders – and those across the world – are going to spend the next several years working to extricate us, and them, from all of them.
The central project of our Founders was to build a country where none of this could be possible. They understood the wildly destructive psychology of Mad Kings and escalation traps. As we work to remove the Trump enablers from power, and undo the harms of this terrible Trump era, we also need a grand project to talk to the American people about the vision of the Founders and why democracy must prevail here and everywhere. This terrible Trump era must become a lesson and must never happen again. And those responsible for these huge errors must go to jail, starting with Trump.