This part of the speech reminded me of what was said about Reagan, that he read it as if it was the first time he had ever heard it. I will bet thye house that after the speech he couldn't tell you which WW came first.
I was surprised that he did not mention the 20-year war in Afghanistan last night. Maybe because four of those 20 years occurred while he was in office?
have to say it, trumpy is/ and has been so fucking jealous of France, of Macron, of their history in battles, he admires the strength of the citizenry in France, they DO stand up, we sort of stand up, he's so envious of the long off and on, mostly on, anti Great Britian, he also knows deep in dusty sick little heart, without France, No United States, ( our debt will never actually be re-paid to France ) whether their motives were self enrichment, or not, does not matter, we owe them
Kurt - "Afghanistan I was very successful. They say the Taliban, but I never had a problem with them. They liked "Trump." I invited them, they were coming, everything was so nice. Camp David! Such a beautiful place really, so many trees. But they were coming. That was my first Peace. They said nobody could do it. They were coming to visit. We were gonna have Peace. And they killed our soldier, I said, "you can't do that." Very disrespectful. I did everything for them but they were very unfair to me. I said, "we can't let you do that." So they could have had a deal but then there was no deal. So, no... Afghanistan - Biden was terrible, the worst president ever. He wasn't even alive really..."
I don't know. Hegseth just got rid of army chief of staff Gen. Randy George, saying he needed someone who would do things "Trump's way." Could that mean Trump wants to drop a nuke and George said, "no way!"
Remember the Friedman Unit during the Iraq war? "The next three to six months will be crucial." Now it's the Trump unit, "the next two weeks." The result will probably be the same -- a brutal, pointless, years-long waste of lives that achieves nothing.
It's not the builder's fault there's all these delays. It's all the change orders the Iranians keep making. Ask anybody, every change order increases both the time and the cost of the project.
I wish there were a convenient infographic somewhere: Trump vs Children. Child deaths from preventable diseases like measles, deaths from the USAID destruction, and straight-up killings in war. His death toll among the most vulnerable people in the world is astounding. At yet my right-wing relatives still call him "pro-life".
Pro-life only means despising abortion. Everything else -- the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, single parents, orphans, hunger -- is some charity's problem.
There hasn't been more than a day that's gone by where I haven't thought about that girls' school we destroyed on Day 1 of Trump's War. I and every American should hate Scott Ritter with all the fire in their soul for the things that he's done and tried to do, but he is right that it was illegal and criminal to strike a school.
I think it is a very big political miscalculation to think that Americans care more about child sex traffickers than $5 a gallon gas. He's going to be begging Americans to look more at the Epstein files in a few weeks.
Jerry - wow, if we find the point where those two topics switch places in his worst negatives... I foresee dissertation material in several fields of study!
Each mention is like one more persistent little gnat buzzing around his eyes, his ears, wherever he goes, driving him to distraction. (Think: Katherine Hepburn vs the tse tse flies in "African Queen".) Mentioning will, inevitably, be the straw that breaks this camel's back.
I was at the Springsteen concert in Minneapolis, and it was beyond words--a fantastic combination of truth-telling, courage and wonderful music, with a truly fired-up crowd. Have to say that Trump's bitter, jealous comment is kind of the cherry on top for me.
When I attended a local No Kings demonstration, there was a variety of music playing. I never considered myself a Bruce Springsteen fan, notably because Top 40 radio numbed me to various genres, artists, and songs. When "Born in the USA" played, tears welled up in my eyes. I noticed the reaction. Then again with "Born to Run". Nothing else quite hit the mark from all the other music playing. Revisting Springsteen.
Definitely recommend a deeper dive into his catalog. I'm a fan of 50+ years and have seen him more times than I can count. So far I only have tickets for the Pittsburgh show, but that is subject to change! We saw him last summer in San Sebastian Spain, his 2025 European tour was very much a prelude to this one.
Jeanne - 25+ years ago, volunteered with my local food bank at a Springsteen show, collecting from the crowd. About 20 minutes before the show, somebody with a lanyard comes up to our table, says "The Boss wants to meet you guys." WTF? Leads us down a hall & passageways to a green room, we meet the band Clarence! Miami Steve! Nils! (my longtime faves), pictures with Bruce, he thanked US!!?? Autographed our food bank hats. Then staffer took us to a spot right in front of stage left for the concert. I think all the way back to hearing cuts from Greetings from Asbury Park on WMMS when it first came out, my first summer not coming home from college, Growin' Up... lotta his songs in the soundtrack of my life between then, that amazing concert night, and still today... that spirit... I can stand right up and let it shoot right through me 😊
Thank you for sharing that wonderful story. I've met him a few times over the years, but never at his request! I have photos with his arm around me at his Born To Run book signing in 2016- felt like I won the lottery when I scored one of the coveted tickets to meet him at our local bookstore. And ditto to the soundtrack of my life, if I ever write a memoir his music will be a huge part of it❤️
I saw where Pistol Pete quashed the investigation into and the suspensions of the Apache attack helicopter crews' fly-by of Kid Rock's Nashville home last weekend, which produced that viral video of the no-talent foul-mouthed red-necked little putz saluting them as they hovered just off the deck of his "Southern White House"...
M - yeah what does this do for military discipline when a civilian interferes with chain of command like this? I think JVL noted Hegseth's past record of much worse than this, but the Secy sticking his nose into relatively low level misuse of military equipment, flight path and altitude violations, joyriding at taxpayer expense against all orders - jeezuz H
Absolutely nothing good will come of Pete Hegseth being in the position that he's in. The longer he's there, the more degraded the professionalism of the armed forces will become.
so flabby calls the guy who sits astride a decent motorcycle a prune. think of trumpy attempting to spread his thighs, and , you know, get on a horse, quickly pop through a board fence, or over it, calls that guy, a PRUNE, well, I say trumpy is like stewed apricots, lumpy, odd in color, incapable of slipping past any bob wire, or barbwire fence. That soft man has never taken a stance, taken a brunt, anything physical, I'm not, never been a fan of Bruce S, I tried, as he aged I tried, two catchy tunes, not my guy, but he's 300 times more a real MAN than soft pampered, do it for me, donnie.
and I'm aware of you know marital stuff, some time ago, an affair, money stuff, musician issues, likes, so, not like a tan contruction worker,NO, some is costume, his buddies get him out. but d trumpy , very repulsive, very non manly.
Ellen - how awesome! I've seen a couple bits online, looked & sounded stellar. Memories for the ages for ya 🎼 After what your area's been thru together, you deserve the best rockin' party of all time
At this moment I am in a hotel room in Asbury Park, looking across at the Stone Pony wishing Bruce wasn’t on tour so there would be even a slight possibility he’d show up here tonight and jam. And he still looks hella good!
I agree, he's just gettin' started on twisting words, owning media , more bias coming, some will never believe the news was ever close to anything accurate
I lost all faith in the American voter when Dubya got re-elected. Trump is just a logical outcome of the decades-long GQP dumbing down the electorate. (I've said it before, and I'll say it again)
As to them being back onsides, I disagree. Why? Because I know enough about the American people to know that what things cost is their number one issue. That is the basis for their opposition. Most analysts I've come across have said effect on gas prices from the Trump-induced oil shock will go on for months, even if the Strait were to be opened today, which is not going to happen any time soon. As JVL said, the closure of the Strait is their strategic weapon. They've got the cards.
As long as gas is $4/gallon, and it will likely go to $5 (premium in CA is already $6+) his approval will continue to decline.
He spoke because he was panicked, and he said nothing because he knows nothing.
It is difficult to determine which phenomenon is more utterly baffling, a sitting president commandeering the national airwaves to deliver an address entirely devoid of substance, or a pundit class that is ostensibly just now waking up to the reality of his staggering ineptitude.
Bill rightly identifies the vacuous nature of last night’s speech, a desperate, flailing attempt by an administration terrified of plummeting poll numbers to suddenly declare a premature, unearned victory and retreat from a disastrous, unprovoked conflict in Iran. Yet, the framing of this critique betrays a bizarre, almost willful amnesia among political observers.
To ask "what was the point" of the address is to project a baseline level of strategic forethought onto a man who possesses absolutely none. The Rotting Orange is not a grand strategist executing a complex geopolitical maneuver, he is, quite literally, one of the least capable humans on the planet. His "governance" has always been done by raw impulse, hollow bluster, and an acute inability to manage the basic machinery of the state. The fact that the commentariat is suddenly clutching their pearls over his failure to articulate a coherent military doctrine, or expressing shock at his abhorrent, primitive rhetoric about bombing a nation back to the "Stone Ages" is frankly absurd. We are not discovering a sudden flaw in his leadership. We are merely enduring the entirely predictable consequences of his character, and of ours as a nation to empower such a being.
This is not the sudden deterioration of a previously functional commander-in-chief; we are observing the inevitable, catastrophic result of handing the immense apparatus of the American military to a historically incompetent figure. The charade of analyzing his addresses for hidden meaning, strategic pivots, or underlying logic must end.
He spoke because he was panicked, and he said nothing because he knows nothing. It is high time our political analysts stop feigning surprise and confront the glaring, unadorned reality of his absolute ineptitude without pretending there is a functioning intellect behind the Resolute Desk.
I had read that Trump himself is convinced that his war in Iran is going great, and the only reason the volk are getting the yips is that is that they aren't seeing how great it is going, you know due to that Lügenpresse. So he wanted to speak directly to the volk so could hear him and see him and rest assured that it is going great.
I also heard that Trump can't withstand not being the center of attention for even a day, so he scheduled a prime time address right after the Artemis II launch to make sure he was still the headline and not the collaborative achievement of science and humanity that is the Artemis mission.
You are likely entirely correct on both counts. The decision to bulldoze the Artemis II launch was probably driven by nothing more complex than a pathological terror of irrelevance, and it requires no stretch of the imagination to accept that his staggering ignorance allows him to genuinely believe his disastrous foreign policy is a triumph.
While his malignant vanity and profound incompetence are undeniable, they are also a known quantity. The far more corrosive issue (the one that truly degrades our political reality) is the bipartisan consensus within the media apparatus to endlessly insulate him from his own agency.
We are subjected to a relentless, pathetic infantilization of the President of the United States. His loyalists on the right endlessly peddle the fiction that he is a capable leader constantly betrayed by treacherous, incompetent advisors. Conversely, the supposedly adversarial resistance clings to the comforting illusion that he is merely the captive of a curated echo chamber, spoon-fed overly optimistic intelligence. Every faction seems desperate to manufacture a scapegoat, bad staff, flawed briefings, a hostile press, to avoid confronting the terrifying void at the center of the administration.
He is a grown adult occupying the highest office in the nation, wielding supreme executive authority. It is long past time to stop granting him the leniency of a wayward child led astray by bad influences. The catastrophic misjudgments and the sheer dysfunction are not the byproduct of the people around him or the data he receives.
The rot is entirely foundational, and the problem is simply his incompetence.
You mean the volk aren’t hanging onto every little word from his truth social bleats? It’s not like he isn’t putting himself out there and at some point one has to come to the conclusion that it isn’t the message, but maybe the messenger.
What I see isn't feigned surprise or sudden awareness. Punditry's reactions look to me like the stories of the latest outrage, either like or exceeding all previous outrages, that people trapped in abusive relationships tell.
I think he did as a make-up quiz, like in 6th grade, he could not ask the networks on like the 3rd of March to talk to the ' people ' so he did it late, see, I fixed it. such a pea brain, on the front of looks, the other ideas/actions not his ideas, hello .
Well, oil is up around $14 since the speech: traders may be finally realizing that Trump, although incompetent, isn't TACO'ing anytime soon.
The $200/barrel price that is thrown around as a "long tail risk" is very much still a possibility.
The crazy thing is that when I talk to Fox news and Trump people, they somehow think he is playing "5D chess" with all of this, totally ignoring the reality of everything he says and does. And think oil will just "go back down" once the war is over. As if Iran doesn't have a say and doesn't have tens of thousands of drones, with the parts to build many more.
Just ridiculous stupidity from people who support him.
Or maybe they all know what Trump is doing is batshit but to admit that now would be a narcissistic injury. It would mean we (Never Trump) were right all along and they were wrong.
Exactly. All the hell the disruption of the global oil system will bring on them doesn't compare to the pain of admitting Never Trump and Democrats were right about him.
Disclaimer: I didn’t bother watching the President’s pep rally last night. Why would I? I can get that information boiled down to its most essential twelve seconds in news coverage, without the aggravation of sitting through his mangled syntax and other gross misuses of the English language. And it was twenty or so minutes that I could have used more productively elsewhere. Flossing my teeth, ten times over. Watching my cats chase the laser pointer beam and crash into furniture. Pondering why I still am a Cincinnati Reds fan in yet another lost season of mediocrity, at best, only six games in. Trying to figure out why if it’s a penny for your thoughts, you have to put your two cents’ worth in. (Requisite credit to Steven Wright.) And so much more.
Conundrum: we cannot miss him if he will not go away. But I do not want to miss him. He is not worthy of that emotion, nor is he worthy of a daily presence in our lives. What to do, other than try to day drink away the memory of it all?
Nevertheless I feel compelled to offer you, fellow readers and skeptics, a brief user’s guide to the “speech.” May it save you some time and aggravation trying to figure out the incompetency.
1) He broke it. Someone else will have to fix it and clean up the mess.
2) Day after day, he’s making all this up as he goes along. There is no master plan. Just enjoy the ride. Or not.
3) It is about regime change. Until it isn’t. Or is again. Or both at the same time.
4) The non-war war will end when he says it is over. (But, but, but … he already did.)
5) Whenever it does end, we will have won, no matter what, because he says so, and there will be no ramifications for us as a nation and the rest of the world afterward.
6) Your pain at the pump, and elsewhere, is irrelevant. It’s all about him. Ask no questions and he will tell no lies.
7) What school of little Iranian girls? If it happened before yesterday, it doesn’t count. Guilt and blame are for losers. So are war crimes. Deal with it and toughen up.
8) We’ve blowed up things real good. So we’ll keep doing it. Gee, this video game sure is fun.
9) What’s next? He doesn’t know. Ask Pete, the cheerleader-in-chief. The President is busy with the ballroom.
Rinse and repeat, as always, with seemingly no end in sight. On that happy note, enjoy this first day after April Fool’s Day when the things we’re talking about are no joke. Except to the guy in charge.
I thought Trump elaborated quite honestly on your pain, or your neighbor's needs, and any federal role in alleviating them, earlier yesterday at the noon yap session, "“The United States can’t take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state, We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people, we’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare. You’ve got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too."
Not only is he not worthy of a daily presence in our lives I can’t help think this is the most undeserving person of fame,fortune and power in the history of our country.It just irks the hell out me that such a spoiled asshole rich kid real estate shyster could be in this position.
At this point Trump is your cat after chasing the pointer for too long. Sitting there with a glazed expression, head spinning snd not sure what direction to turn.
sort of, more like a little toddler, a new top, the old ones, with many colorful balls, once they start spining or rotating, it's just listening to a lot of politicians, trump's a schemer, a ' let's play a game guy ', not much real about him. he, too is amazed that so many efing believe him,
I have to disagree about 6. I've seen framing that our pain at the pump is a noble and needed sacrifice to protect ourselves from this horrible regime and to free the Iranian people.
I was just using the phrase ironically, as with much of the rest of the text, and as commonly reproduced as a saying. We all can agree that lies come out of his mouth, prompted or not, as if water from a fountain, endless and undistilled.
I'm fine with the Brewers, but I can't bring myself to turn my preferences away from the favorite teams of my youth. (Which also explains my seemingly irrational fondness for the Cincinnati Bengals, when my time and attention and sanity would be better served as a Packers fan.)
I say this because NPR recently ran a story about how gas prices don't seem to be keeping people from going on road trips, and I thought "of course not." We like to complain about prices, of course, but we don't change our behavior, and that's because we don't want to accommodate the world.
I only know Americans, but we certainly expect the world to bend toward our will. This was clearest during the Covid pandemic when accommodations were forced on us - and we nearly lost our minds! Although complaints were usually directed toward moments of government overreach, I have always suspected that it was more than that: What we were really doing was blindly lashing out against nature, against god, and against fate.
How dare ANYONE tell us what to do?
And it is this refusal to meet the world even half way that makes Donald Trump one of the most American presidents we have ever had. When someone tells him he cannot or should not do something, he will petulantly go right ahead and do it, just to show he can. It's why laws mean nothing to him (unless he can use them against others), and it's why one of his favorite phrases is "people said it couldn't be done."
It is also why I am not yet convinced he will not send troops into Iran.
Trump has been told it's a bad idea to invade that mountainous and dangerous country. But he can be so incensed by anyone denying his will that he won't give much thought to exposing service members to dismemberment and death. After all, isn't that what they are in the military for?
I'm sure he believes that is what the military itself is for - to bend the world to his and America's will and prevent us from having to accommodate anyone or anything, whether it's cutting back on road trips or acknowledging how the rest of the world see us and treats us in the future.
Many people are too young to remember the oil embargo 50ish years ago and the lines just to get gas. I worry about something similar occuring.
I am currently babysitting my grands on the east coast and will be returning to the Midwest in a few weeks. Then I will repeat this same 700 mile drive next month - I hope. I will pay the price for increased gas, but I will not buy new flowers for my garden, or update my wardrobe for summer, or purchase more craft supplies, and will decrease the amount of money and supplies I donate to a variety of organizations to afford that gas. Unless there are gas lines. Then I will stay home.
This war is a waste of lives, money and energy. And let’s not forget about the grifting, and the Epstein files.
Family dinners were important to my parents. I remember my stay at home mother who did not curse, exclaiming to my father one evening, "oh, sh*t, it's Tuesday and I didn't get gas!". In NJ last letter on license plate determined day you could buy gas.
He changed out of his suit and took her car to sit in line. She kept a plate warm for him but he missed dinner.
Oil is an internationally traded commodity, so oil from American wells (which largely can't be refined in the US) will go for the price on the international market. Any oil CEO that doesn't sell it at market price will be grossly negligent to shareholders and can be sued.
zed - 'won't' is pretty definite term. Hypothetically: Trump destroys Iranian oil infrastructure (maybe even for their electricity generation, dams, etc as he's threatened). Our intel & counterterrorism capabilities are already weakened from DOGE, then more political firings & departures. Iranian assets or people sympathetic to Iran decide to even the score, targeting US infrastructure. "You think you can ignore the Strait of Hormuz? ...that you're an energy exporter? ...energy independent? What if your petroleum can't be refined in your region of the US?"
I can’t help wondering just how effective the Iranian trolls are at playing Trump. It may be a loathsome regime, but that doesn’t make it stupid. The Iranians have already helped to change European public opinion about both Israel and the United States. We may find ourselves becoming more and more friendless, sort of like Iran.
Iran will not roll over. So, Trump will get stuck in an escalation trap because Trump cannot abide by humiliation.
Trump is desperate for a kind of validation that only abusers seek, and Iran is not going to give it to him, ever.
Iran faces an existential crisis but has found a winning play by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Why would they stop making the choice to win, when the alternative is death? Even if there are black outs or a water crisis, the Regime has no compunctions about killing tens of thousands to cling to power -- this is demonstrated already.
So many people are puzzled by Trump's appeal to his followers, but IMO you've nailed it.
I'll object to framing it as "American" and "us" because it only applies to a portion of the citizenry, and I simply reject as a matter of empirical evidence that there is any significant unifying "we", as in "we elected this monster". What we're talking about here is exactly how 'they' differ from 'us'.
I frame it a bit differently - that MAGA is a coalition of people at war with reality. Reality can be a bitch, which is basically the understanding of well-adjusted normie adults: the "reality based community", Planet One, etc. Shit is easier to accept, I think, if you frame it as 'reality' (which just is and doesn't give a shit either way) than 'nature' 'fate' or 'God' which creates cognitive dissonance.
Not that discontent with the real is anything new, but what we have here is both large in scale and extreme in hostility. That's why I call it a war. It's not an escape from reality, or a distortion of some part of it, but a total attack in which the OPPOSITE of the real is asserted as a weapon.
This isn't operating at the level of self-aware reflection or anything, just more as an intuitive sense of tactics, but it explains why MAGA spews forth so many statements that are absurd on their face. P1 folks get flustered, 'how can they believe that?' But they don't believe it, in the sense of "I actually hold this statement to be true". Belief in the sense of facial truth has nothing to do with the utterance. The words are bullets. They're spoken because they fly toward the target, aim at the hated real.
Too many examples to list: climate change is a hoax/burn more fossil fuel; vaccines create disease; nature/God created only rigid gender norms; ICE is a law-enforcement agency/Renee was a terrorist...
As you say, it's the Id lashing out in revolt against the constraining shit the rest of us accept enough to actually try to deal with, to improve or abide, ever on the horns of the 'serenity prayer' dichotomy.
It is not Trump's refusal to meet the world half way that makes him the champion of these warriors, their ego ideal if you will: it's his SUCCESS at defeating reality. It's apparent that the guy is surrounded by some kind of reality inversion field, that wherever he is present however he wants things to be is almost always the functional way they ARE - if only 'transactionally', in that one moment of space and time. They say he always only aims to
'win' the next five minutes, but he does indeed appear to win, to body slam all the inconvenient truths and gloat over their prostrate bodies.
It's why everything he does that would be political malpractice by the old conventional wisdom e.g. as voiced by the Pod Save America guys, are actually features, not bugs. It because the whole premise of the 'movement' is asserting 'the upside down'.
I'll grant a minority of a domain can be labeled as characteristic of that domain if it is found expressed it a bit differently
Years ago we were having lunch in the Tampa-St. Pete area. When the server brought back my card and the slip to sign, he said, "The Space Shuttle is being launched in 4 minutes. You are welcome to join us on the roof to watch." We did. A hundred and forty-five miles away and it was clear as could be.
What better day than April Fool's Day to have had the biggest fool on the planet on prime-time TV and internet media to once again try to fool the American people and the rest of the world into believing his foolish war in Iran has been anything other than a fool's errand?
Fools rush in. And now this one has no idea of how to get out. Other than by his now well-established M.O.: a declared victory fashioned of wholesale lies and off-the-shelf self-delusion, all confirmed and promoted by his large supporting cast of pathological fools.
Donald Trump rose to the occasion and gave an eloquent, succinct, and stirring address to the American public on his masterful execution of the war on Iran. April Fools!
Trump’s little chat last night did nothing to assuage the oil markets as back up $110 today. If his thought was to calm things down that clearly didn’t work. As Mark Hertling said we are all going to die, all very true, but last night convinced a number people and the markets that this is going to happen sooner than they would like. Riding in as the four horsemen doesn’t inspire confidence or save the day.
The Dispatch news this morning mentioned the historic motorcade visit of the President to the Supreme Court. Historic! First in history!
They did not mention what he did there or how long he stayed or the reason for his visit. It was news-less news, words in the form of news without substance.
They didn't even mention the speech. I suppose there's only so much news-less news you can write without wanting to drink heavily.
When you give control of a 1 Trillion dollar war machine to two macho bros who's idea of "fun" is a rally lethal day in the neighborhood, what would we expect? Negotiations? Allies? Human compassion? That's all for Sissies. Some how these guys believe America is about "Might Makes Right" or "Onward Christian Soldiers". It's certainly true we do have "Might" on our side. In November, We the People will decide which side Morality is on.
Prepare to everything you can to protect the right to vote and we will end the brutality and corruption of the Trump eta
A quick and easy thing to do in the run up to November is to check your registration status online via through the state or county registrar's office where you live or VOTE.org. Check it early and often as we have reason to believe there will be voter roll purging attempts.
The hardest part of a two-week war is the first six years.
I was encouraged that this little conflict won’t last as long as World War I OR World War II.
Thank God, right? When they planned out WW1, I always thought they tacked on too many years.
Too many entrenched interests in that one.
Insert obligatory groan here. . .
This part of the speech reminded me of what was said about Reagan, that he read it as if it was the first time he had ever heard it. I will bet thye house that after the speech he couldn't tell you which WW came first.
Even though they’re numbered!
Roman Numerals. That makes it hard. He probably thinks they say I (as in me, Trump) I, I (Trump, Trump).
We're America. We should number our wars in American numbers! (do we think for even a second that he'd know the term is Arabic numerals?)
...brings to mind long ago memory of a high school friend's dad who'd jokingly refer to the war he'd served in as "dubya-dubya-eye-eye"
lol 😺
I was surprised that he did not mention the 20-year war in Afghanistan last night. Maybe because four of those 20 years occurred while he was in office?
Touché.
He did mention France though.
have to say it, trumpy is/ and has been so fucking jealous of France, of Macron, of their history in battles, he admires the strength of the citizenry in France, they DO stand up, we sort of stand up, he's so envious of the long off and on, mostly on, anti Great Britian, he also knows deep in dusty sick little heart, without France, No United States, ( our debt will never actually be re-paid to France ) whether their motives were self enrichment, or not, does not matter, we owe them
LOL, "French" fries?!?!? So woke, they're called "Freedom Fries", right?
Kurt - "Afghanistan I was very successful. They say the Taliban, but I never had a problem with them. They liked "Trump." I invited them, they were coming, everything was so nice. Camp David! Such a beautiful place really, so many trees. But they were coming. That was my first Peace. They said nobody could do it. They were coming to visit. We were gonna have Peace. And they killed our soldier, I said, "you can't do that." Very disrespectful. I did everything for them but they were very unfair to me. I said, "we can't let you do that." So they could have had a deal but then there was no deal. So, no... Afghanistan - Biden was terrible, the worst president ever. He wasn't even alive really..."
I’m surprised the pathetic dunce didn’t mention the Hundred Years War.
Really? You think he has any clue that that happened or where or when?
And it probably won’t end with the dropping of two nuclear bombs!
idk, what are the prediction markets saying on that one? I might take the over in how many nukes get used in Iran :(
Especially if the Trump family makes a bet.
Yes. His 1st-term Chief of Staff at DHS has stated publicly that his senior advisors had to talk him out of using nukes. More than once
🤞
I don't know. Hegseth just got rid of army chief of staff Gen. Randy George, saying he needed someone who would do things "Trump's way." Could that mean Trump wants to drop a nuke and George said, "no way!"
And that bit about WW I lasting less than two years? I guess the only important part was while we were over there.
Somewhere between that and Grenada or the Bay of Pigs.
The Hundred Years War lasted 116 years! This is way ahead of schedule!
And the War of 1812 took longer too!
Fun fact! ;-0
Maybe they'll re-define what a day is, like the Congress did. I suggest a two-week war measured in Venusian days.
About nine and a third Earth years... .
Remember the Friedman Unit during the Iraq war? "The next three to six months will be crucial." Now it's the Trump unit, "the next two weeks." The result will probably be the same -- a brutal, pointless, years-long waste of lives that achieves nothing.
The man hasn’t even learned to hide his “two week” tell. Worst poker player, negotiator, casino operator, businessman, president on the planet.
You left out "person."
You’re right. That might be the most relevant characteristic .
He said two or three weeks in order to trick everyone
It's not the builder's fault there's all these delays. It's all the change orders the Iranians keep making. Ask anybody, every change order increases both the time and the cost of the project.
And it'll keep going as long as the kickbacks continue.
Notice during those types of wars they always said "The troops will be home by Christmas" but never specify what year.
Reminds me of pronouncements that everyone would be back in church for Easter, because the pandemic would have vanished by then.
Oh, well. At least it wasn't "in a couple of weeks."
...but they can damn sure say "Merry Christmas" now. Winning!
This wins the Internet today.
Yes, especially "We lost. They won. He did that."
Amen
Truth!!!
You beat me to it.
“And he wants to divert attention as much as possible from the real-world consequences of his war for the American and global economy.”
Not to mention the Epstein files.
And the dead children he bombed.
I wish there were a convenient infographic somewhere: Trump vs Children. Child deaths from preventable diseases like measles, deaths from the USAID destruction, and straight-up killings in war. His death toll among the most vulnerable people in the world is astounding. At yet my right-wing relatives still call him "pro-life".
Well, they accepted his excess COVID deaths long ago. And school shootings.
Kate - gotta break a few eggs to lower the price of eggs /s (but you probably know that from me by now)
Amazing what electing a sociopath for President will result in. Sad to find out that family is onboard with any of it. I know, I live with them, too.
Pro-life =while it's in the womb it's precious. Once it's born, to hell with it.
"Pro life" has never been about life. It's "pro-birth". Once you're out of the womb, you're on your own. It's the "IRON LAW" of the world.
Very true.
To paraphrase George Orwell: "All humans are equal, but some humans are more equal than others."
Pro-life only means despising abortion. Everything else -- the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, single parents, orphans, hunger -- is some charity's problem.
And despising abortion is all about despising free sex.
Dead children, dead women, raped women, dead troops, deranged* troops, dead civilians. Every war. Every time. Why haven't we a peace movement?
* Shell-shocked, battle-fatigued, PTSD, and so on.
Peace is woke.
I guess he never listened to speeches by competitors in his beauty pageants. Shocking, isn't it?
He was too busy walking in on them in the dressing room
Just like the Pope and Bill Kristol.
Huh?
Replying to “Peace is woke”
American global empathy? A bit weak at the moment.
Reminds me of George Carlin's bit about that terminology.
I thought that's what No Kings is. No?
There hasn't been more than a day that's gone by where I haven't thought about that girls' school we destroyed on Day 1 of Trump's War. I and every American should hate Scott Ritter with all the fire in their soul for the things that he's done and tried to do, but he is right that it was illegal and criminal to strike a school.
I think it is a very big political miscalculation to think that Americans care more about child sex traffickers than $5 a gallon gas. He's going to be begging Americans to look more at the Epstein files in a few weeks.
Jerry - wow, if we find the point where those two topics switch places in his worst negatives... I foresee dissertation material in several fields of study!
Please. Mention them. And keep ON mentioning!
Each mention is like one more persistent little gnat buzzing around his eyes, his ears, wherever he goes, driving him to distraction. (Think: Katherine Hepburn vs the tse tse flies in "African Queen".) Mentioning will, inevitably, be the straw that breaks this camel's back.
I was at the Springsteen concert in Minneapolis, and it was beyond words--a fantastic combination of truth-telling, courage and wonderful music, with a truly fired-up crowd. Have to say that Trump's bitter, jealous comment is kind of the cherry on top for me.
If he thinks The Boss looks like a dried-up prune, what does he think Robert Kennedy looks like? Inquiring minds want to know!
Trump is a tender little snowflake, isn’t he? Plus, has he looked in his own mirror recently?!?
A turd that's been too long in an air fryer.
And the solicitor general sounded like secretary Kennedy speaking!
I frankly wonder how the Justices can stand it. Like fingernails on a chalkboard.
And imagine RFK’s
singing!!!
When I attended a local No Kings demonstration, there was a variety of music playing. I never considered myself a Bruce Springsteen fan, notably because Top 40 radio numbed me to various genres, artists, and songs. When "Born in the USA" played, tears welled up in my eyes. I noticed the reaction. Then again with "Born to Run". Nothing else quite hit the mark from all the other music playing. Revisting Springsteen.
Definitely recommend a deeper dive into his catalog. I'm a fan of 50+ years and have seen him more times than I can count. So far I only have tickets for the Pittsburgh show, but that is subject to change! We saw him last summer in San Sebastian Spain, his 2025 European tour was very much a prelude to this one.
Jeanne - 25+ years ago, volunteered with my local food bank at a Springsteen show, collecting from the crowd. About 20 minutes before the show, somebody with a lanyard comes up to our table, says "The Boss wants to meet you guys." WTF? Leads us down a hall & passageways to a green room, we meet the band Clarence! Miami Steve! Nils! (my longtime faves), pictures with Bruce, he thanked US!!?? Autographed our food bank hats. Then staffer took us to a spot right in front of stage left for the concert. I think all the way back to hearing cuts from Greetings from Asbury Park on WMMS when it first came out, my first summer not coming home from college, Growin' Up... lotta his songs in the soundtrack of my life between then, that amazing concert night, and still today... that spirit... I can stand right up and let it shoot right through me 😊
Thank you for sharing that wonderful story. I've met him a few times over the years, but never at his request! I have photos with his arm around me at his Born To Run book signing in 2016- felt like I won the lottery when I scored one of the coveted tickets to meet him at our local bookstore. And ditto to the soundtrack of my life, if I ever write a memoir his music will be a huge part of it❤️
Try the Nebraska album & find the lyrics. Every song could be a movie
I saw where Pistol Pete quashed the investigation into and the suspensions of the Apache attack helicopter crews' fly-by of Kid Rock's Nashville home last weekend, which produced that viral video of the no-talent foul-mouthed red-necked little putz saluting them as they hovered just off the deck of his "Southern White House"...
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/31/kid-rock-army-helicopter-suspended.html?msockid=09c9287f953c6ce738353ef894af6d1b
I've been looking for the odds on Polymarket of an air crew not being sent directly to Leavenworth if they did the same thing at Springsteen's home.
Unless they opened fire on it, of course.
Kid Rock is proud of his service! Oh, wait…
Hah!
M - yeah what does this do for military discipline when a civilian interferes with chain of command like this? I think JVL noted Hegseth's past record of much worse than this, but the Secy sticking his nose into relatively low level misuse of military equipment, flight path and altitude violations, joyriding at taxpayer expense against all orders - jeezuz H
Absolutely nothing good will come of Pete Hegseth being in the position that he's in. The longer he's there, the more degraded the professionalism of the armed forces will become.
100%
Born in the USA.
so flabby calls the guy who sits astride a decent motorcycle a prune. think of trumpy attempting to spread his thighs, and , you know, get on a horse, quickly pop through a board fence, or over it, calls that guy, a PRUNE, well, I say trumpy is like stewed apricots, lumpy, odd in color, incapable of slipping past any bob wire, or barbwire fence. That soft man has never taken a stance, taken a brunt, anything physical, I'm not, never been a fan of Bruce S, I tried, as he aged I tried, two catchy tunes, not my guy, but he's 300 times more a real MAN than soft pampered, do it for me, donnie.
and I'm aware of you know marital stuff, some time ago, an affair, money stuff, musician issues, likes, so, not like a tan contruction worker,NO, some is costume, his buddies get him out. but d trumpy , very repulsive, very non manly.
You should A/B this against a Kid Rock concert! Jorts FTW!
It was probably true before, but MAGA-free concerts sound great!
Ellen - how awesome! I've seen a couple bits online, looked & sounded stellar. Memories for the ages for ya 🎼 After what your area's been thru together, you deserve the best rockin' party of all time
At this moment I am in a hotel room in Asbury Park, looking across at the Stone Pony wishing Bruce wasn’t on tour so there would be even a slight possibility he’d show up here tonight and jam. And he still looks hella good!
Bill: "Trump doesn’t want the American people to think too hard about the lack of justification for the war."
Based on what I've seen over the past 10+ years, I don't think there's any danger of the American people thinking too hard about anything.
Tell it. I'm into 60+ years of observation and it's only getting worse.
Oh, it can get worse. And it will.
Yeah, he’s just getting a good roll on. As they say, “You ain’t seen nothing’ yet!”.
I agree, he's just gettin' started on twisting words, owning media , more bias coming, some will never believe the news was ever close to anything accurate
so un-appreciated, so taken for granted, ugh
Idiocracy has hold now.
Life imitating art.
I lost all faith in the American voter when Dubya got re-elected. Trump is just a logical outcome of the decades-long GQP dumbing down the electorate. (I've said it before, and I'll say it again)
Doesn't the current polling on their opposition to his war show that they are?
They'll be back onsides before you know it, Sandy.
OK, so they are thinking about it.
As to them being back onsides, I disagree. Why? Because I know enough about the American people to know that what things cost is their number one issue. That is the basis for their opposition. Most analysts I've come across have said effect on gas prices from the Trump-induced oil shock will go on for months, even if the Strait were to be opened today, which is not going to happen any time soon. As JVL said, the closure of the Strait is their strategic weapon. They've got the cards.
As long as gas is $4/gallon, and it will likely go to $5 (premium in CA is already $6+) his approval will continue to decline.
Not really THINKING....
He spoke because he was panicked, and he said nothing because he knows nothing.
It is difficult to determine which phenomenon is more utterly baffling, a sitting president commandeering the national airwaves to deliver an address entirely devoid of substance, or a pundit class that is ostensibly just now waking up to the reality of his staggering ineptitude.
Bill rightly identifies the vacuous nature of last night’s speech, a desperate, flailing attempt by an administration terrified of plummeting poll numbers to suddenly declare a premature, unearned victory and retreat from a disastrous, unprovoked conflict in Iran. Yet, the framing of this critique betrays a bizarre, almost willful amnesia among political observers.
To ask "what was the point" of the address is to project a baseline level of strategic forethought onto a man who possesses absolutely none. The Rotting Orange is not a grand strategist executing a complex geopolitical maneuver, he is, quite literally, one of the least capable humans on the planet. His "governance" has always been done by raw impulse, hollow bluster, and an acute inability to manage the basic machinery of the state. The fact that the commentariat is suddenly clutching their pearls over his failure to articulate a coherent military doctrine, or expressing shock at his abhorrent, primitive rhetoric about bombing a nation back to the "Stone Ages" is frankly absurd. We are not discovering a sudden flaw in his leadership. We are merely enduring the entirely predictable consequences of his character, and of ours as a nation to empower such a being.
This is not the sudden deterioration of a previously functional commander-in-chief; we are observing the inevitable, catastrophic result of handing the immense apparatus of the American military to a historically incompetent figure. The charade of analyzing his addresses for hidden meaning, strategic pivots, or underlying logic must end.
He spoke because he was panicked, and he said nothing because he knows nothing. It is high time our political analysts stop feigning surprise and confront the glaring, unadorned reality of his absolute ineptitude without pretending there is a functioning intellect behind the Resolute Desk.
I had read that Trump himself is convinced that his war in Iran is going great, and the only reason the volk are getting the yips is that is that they aren't seeing how great it is going, you know due to that Lügenpresse. So he wanted to speak directly to the volk so could hear him and see him and rest assured that it is going great.
I also heard that Trump can't withstand not being the center of attention for even a day, so he scheduled a prime time address right after the Artemis II launch to make sure he was still the headline and not the collaborative achievement of science and humanity that is the Artemis mission.
You are likely entirely correct on both counts. The decision to bulldoze the Artemis II launch was probably driven by nothing more complex than a pathological terror of irrelevance, and it requires no stretch of the imagination to accept that his staggering ignorance allows him to genuinely believe his disastrous foreign policy is a triumph.
While his malignant vanity and profound incompetence are undeniable, they are also a known quantity. The far more corrosive issue (the one that truly degrades our political reality) is the bipartisan consensus within the media apparatus to endlessly insulate him from his own agency.
We are subjected to a relentless, pathetic infantilization of the President of the United States. His loyalists on the right endlessly peddle the fiction that he is a capable leader constantly betrayed by treacherous, incompetent advisors. Conversely, the supposedly adversarial resistance clings to the comforting illusion that he is merely the captive of a curated echo chamber, spoon-fed overly optimistic intelligence. Every faction seems desperate to manufacture a scapegoat, bad staff, flawed briefings, a hostile press, to avoid confronting the terrifying void at the center of the administration.
He is a grown adult occupying the highest office in the nation, wielding supreme executive authority. It is long past time to stop granting him the leniency of a wayward child led astray by bad influences. The catastrophic misjudgments and the sheer dysfunction are not the byproduct of the people around him or the data he receives.
The rot is entirely foundational, and the problem is simply his incompetence.
uncouth so, what are we going to do about it
You mean the volk aren’t hanging onto every little word from his truth social bleats? It’s not like he isn’t putting himself out there and at some point one has to come to the conclusion that it isn’t the message, but maybe the messenger.
WELL SAID.
For the moment the most stable job in America is dry cleaning Trump’s sweaty, panic stained suits and getting his smell off of them.
What I see isn't feigned surprise or sudden awareness. Punditry's reactions look to me like the stories of the latest outrage, either like or exceeding all previous outrages, that people trapped in abusive relationships tell.
I think he did as a make-up quiz, like in 6th grade, he could not ask the networks on like the 3rd of March to talk to the ' people ' so he did it late, see, I fixed it. such a pea brain, on the front of looks, the other ideas/actions not his ideas, hello .
Well, oil is up around $14 since the speech: traders may be finally realizing that Trump, although incompetent, isn't TACO'ing anytime soon.
The $200/barrel price that is thrown around as a "long tail risk" is very much still a possibility.
The crazy thing is that when I talk to Fox news and Trump people, they somehow think he is playing "5D chess" with all of this, totally ignoring the reality of everything he says and does. And think oil will just "go back down" once the war is over. As if Iran doesn't have a say and doesn't have tens of thousands of drones, with the parts to build many more.
Just ridiculous stupidity from people who support him.
Or maybe they all know what Trump is doing is batshit but to admit that now would be a narcissistic injury. It would mean we (Never Trump) were right all along and they were wrong.
Exactly. All the hell the disruption of the global oil system will bring on them doesn't compare to the pain of admitting Never Trump and Democrats were right about him.
Trump couldn't beat a pigeon at checkers, keeping in mind that the pigeon has no idea what's going on and may well crap on the board.
The 5D chess explanation indicates that they can’t justify it any other way.
Disclaimer: I didn’t bother watching the President’s pep rally last night. Why would I? I can get that information boiled down to its most essential twelve seconds in news coverage, without the aggravation of sitting through his mangled syntax and other gross misuses of the English language. And it was twenty or so minutes that I could have used more productively elsewhere. Flossing my teeth, ten times over. Watching my cats chase the laser pointer beam and crash into furniture. Pondering why I still am a Cincinnati Reds fan in yet another lost season of mediocrity, at best, only six games in. Trying to figure out why if it’s a penny for your thoughts, you have to put your two cents’ worth in. (Requisite credit to Steven Wright.) And so much more.
Conundrum: we cannot miss him if he will not go away. But I do not want to miss him. He is not worthy of that emotion, nor is he worthy of a daily presence in our lives. What to do, other than try to day drink away the memory of it all?
Nevertheless I feel compelled to offer you, fellow readers and skeptics, a brief user’s guide to the “speech.” May it save you some time and aggravation trying to figure out the incompetency.
1) He broke it. Someone else will have to fix it and clean up the mess.
2) Day after day, he’s making all this up as he goes along. There is no master plan. Just enjoy the ride. Or not.
3) It is about regime change. Until it isn’t. Or is again. Or both at the same time.
4) The non-war war will end when he says it is over. (But, but, but … he already did.)
5) Whenever it does end, we will have won, no matter what, because he says so, and there will be no ramifications for us as a nation and the rest of the world afterward.
6) Your pain at the pump, and elsewhere, is irrelevant. It’s all about him. Ask no questions and he will tell no lies.
7) What school of little Iranian girls? If it happened before yesterday, it doesn’t count. Guilt and blame are for losers. So are war crimes. Deal with it and toughen up.
8) We’ve blowed up things real good. So we’ll keep doing it. Gee, this video game sure is fun.
9) What’s next? He doesn’t know. Ask Pete, the cheerleader-in-chief. The President is busy with the ballroom.
Rinse and repeat, as always, with seemingly no end in sight. On that happy note, enjoy this first day after April Fool’s Day when the things we’re talking about are no joke. Except to the guy in charge.
My only objection is point 6, he will lie to you regardless of whether you ask him questions.
I thought Trump elaborated quite honestly on your pain, or your neighbor's needs, and any federal role in alleviating them, earlier yesterday at the noon yap session, "“The United States can’t take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state, We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people, we’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare. You’ve got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too."
CW - gotta be room for this 10-15 sec clip in EVERY Democratic campaign commercial for the next 2 years!!
Trump will lie when the truth would suffice.
Not only is he not worthy of a daily presence in our lives I can’t help think this is the most undeserving person of fame,fortune and power in the history of our country.It just irks the hell out me that such a spoiled asshole rich kid real estate shyster could be in this position.
Hopefully people will see the necessity of taxing the billionaires and how great the estate tax was.
At this point Trump is your cat after chasing the pointer for too long. Sitting there with a glazed expression, head spinning snd not sure what direction to turn.
sort of, more like a little toddler, a new top, the old ones, with many colorful balls, once they start spining or rotating, it's just listening to a lot of politicians, trump's a schemer, a ' let's play a game guy ', not much real about him. he, too is amazed that so many efing believe him,
Aside: Don't play with a laser with your cat.
One of your best, thank you. Now I can get back to the cats
My only quibble is with point 6. He's gonna lie, whether we ask or not.
He can't help himself!
I have to disagree about 6. I've seen framing that our pain at the pump is a noble and needed sacrifice to protect ourselves from this horrible regime and to free the Iranian people.
I was just using the phrase ironically, as with much of the rest of the text, and as commonly reproduced as a saying. We all can agree that lies come out of his mouth, prompted or not, as if water from a fountain, endless and undistilled.
Except the Iranian people aren’t being freed.
I mourn for how much they're suffering, because one awful person decided to play games.
Aw, man. I thought this was sarcasm, then saw that you're a Phillies fan.
TL;DR of the speech: He lied for 20 minutes.
Not a Brewers fan?
I'm fine with the Brewers, but I can't bring myself to turn my preferences away from the favorite teams of my youth. (Which also explains my seemingly irrational fondness for the Cincinnati Bengals, when my time and attention and sanity would be better served as a Packers fan.)
I get it now. When I've lived in different teams' media markets, I've remained a fan of Philadelphia teams.
As did I. Right now the Phils are stinkin' up the joint!
It's weird, they're a 0.500 team this morning, which is not concerning.
Vegas has them as the Number 3 team to win the NL pennant, slightly behind the Mets. [LA should obviously be the favorite.] No worries there.
HOWEVER, watching a game is brutal. They fail the "eye test" miserably. I dread seeing the top of the lineup bat.
They're still "my" teams, but I have no high hopes for this season.
My friends still in Philly say the Philly sports media is calling for the hitting coach's head.
Troops may still be heading into Iran.
I say this because NPR recently ran a story about how gas prices don't seem to be keeping people from going on road trips, and I thought "of course not." We like to complain about prices, of course, but we don't change our behavior, and that's because we don't want to accommodate the world.
I only know Americans, but we certainly expect the world to bend toward our will. This was clearest during the Covid pandemic when accommodations were forced on us - and we nearly lost our minds! Although complaints were usually directed toward moments of government overreach, I have always suspected that it was more than that: What we were really doing was blindly lashing out against nature, against god, and against fate.
How dare ANYONE tell us what to do?
And it is this refusal to meet the world even half way that makes Donald Trump one of the most American presidents we have ever had. When someone tells him he cannot or should not do something, he will petulantly go right ahead and do it, just to show he can. It's why laws mean nothing to him (unless he can use them against others), and it's why one of his favorite phrases is "people said it couldn't be done."
It is also why I am not yet convinced he will not send troops into Iran.
Trump has been told it's a bad idea to invade that mountainous and dangerous country. But he can be so incensed by anyone denying his will that he won't give much thought to exposing service members to dismemberment and death. After all, isn't that what they are in the military for?
I'm sure he believes that is what the military itself is for - to bend the world to his and America's will and prevent us from having to accommodate anyone or anything, whether it's cutting back on road trips or acknowledging how the rest of the world see us and treats us in the future.
Many people are too young to remember the oil embargo 50ish years ago and the lines just to get gas. I worry about something similar occuring.
I am currently babysitting my grands on the east coast and will be returning to the Midwest in a few weeks. Then I will repeat this same 700 mile drive next month - I hope. I will pay the price for increased gas, but I will not buy new flowers for my garden, or update my wardrobe for summer, or purchase more craft supplies, and will decrease the amount of money and supplies I donate to a variety of organizations to afford that gas. Unless there are gas lines. Then I will stay home.
This war is a waste of lives, money and energy. And let’s not forget about the grifting, and the Epstein files.
Absolutely I remember the gas lines. I grew up in Detroit - the embargo hit really hard.
Family dinners were important to my parents. I remember my stay at home mother who did not curse, exclaiming to my father one evening, "oh, sh*t, it's Tuesday and I didn't get gas!". In NJ last letter on license plate determined day you could buy gas.
He changed out of his suit and took her car to sit in line. She kept a plate warm for him but he missed dinner.
Unfortunately we won’t experience gas lines. We have too much gas of our own. Asia and Europe possibly will.
Oil is an internationally traded commodity, so oil from American wells (which largely can't be refined in the US) will go for the price on the international market. Any oil CEO that doesn't sell it at market price will be grossly negligent to shareholders and can be sued.
Sure. Gas prices will go up for us. Sortages wint happen here though
zed - 'won't' is pretty definite term. Hypothetically: Trump destroys Iranian oil infrastructure (maybe even for their electricity generation, dams, etc as he's threatened). Our intel & counterterrorism capabilities are already weakened from DOGE, then more political firings & departures. Iranian assets or people sympathetic to Iran decide to even the score, targeting US infrastructure. "You think you can ignore the Strait of Hormuz? ...that you're an energy exporter? ...energy independent? What if your petroleum can't be refined in your region of the US?"
I can’t help wondering just how effective the Iranian trolls are at playing Trump. It may be a loathsome regime, but that doesn’t make it stupid. The Iranians have already helped to change European public opinion about both Israel and the United States. We may find ourselves becoming more and more friendless, sort of like Iran.
Iranians getting quite an assist from 1600 PA Ave on that opinion change op
Iran will not roll over. So, Trump will get stuck in an escalation trap because Trump cannot abide by humiliation.
Trump is desperate for a kind of validation that only abusers seek, and Iran is not going to give it to him, ever.
Iran faces an existential crisis but has found a winning play by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Why would they stop making the choice to win, when the alternative is death? Even if there are black outs or a water crisis, the Regime has no compunctions about killing tens of thousands to cling to power -- this is demonstrated already.
Harsh but must be considered a possibility
So many people are puzzled by Trump's appeal to his followers, but IMO you've nailed it.
I'll object to framing it as "American" and "us" because it only applies to a portion of the citizenry, and I simply reject as a matter of empirical evidence that there is any significant unifying "we", as in "we elected this monster". What we're talking about here is exactly how 'they' differ from 'us'.
I frame it a bit differently - that MAGA is a coalition of people at war with reality. Reality can be a bitch, which is basically the understanding of well-adjusted normie adults: the "reality based community", Planet One, etc. Shit is easier to accept, I think, if you frame it as 'reality' (which just is and doesn't give a shit either way) than 'nature' 'fate' or 'God' which creates cognitive dissonance.
Not that discontent with the real is anything new, but what we have here is both large in scale and extreme in hostility. That's why I call it a war. It's not an escape from reality, or a distortion of some part of it, but a total attack in which the OPPOSITE of the real is asserted as a weapon.
This isn't operating at the level of self-aware reflection or anything, just more as an intuitive sense of tactics, but it explains why MAGA spews forth so many statements that are absurd on their face. P1 folks get flustered, 'how can they believe that?' But they don't believe it, in the sense of "I actually hold this statement to be true". Belief in the sense of facial truth has nothing to do with the utterance. The words are bullets. They're spoken because they fly toward the target, aim at the hated real.
Too many examples to list: climate change is a hoax/burn more fossil fuel; vaccines create disease; nature/God created only rigid gender norms; ICE is a law-enforcement agency/Renee was a terrorist...
As you say, it's the Id lashing out in revolt against the constraining shit the rest of us accept enough to actually try to deal with, to improve or abide, ever on the horns of the 'serenity prayer' dichotomy.
It is not Trump's refusal to meet the world half way that makes him the champion of these warriors, their ego ideal if you will: it's his SUCCESS at defeating reality. It's apparent that the guy is surrounded by some kind of reality inversion field, that wherever he is present however he wants things to be is almost always the functional way they ARE - if only 'transactionally', in that one moment of space and time. They say he always only aims to
'win' the next five minutes, but he does indeed appear to win, to body slam all the inconvenient truths and gloat over their prostrate bodies.
It's why everything he does that would be political malpractice by the old conventional wisdom e.g. as voiced by the Pod Save America guys, are actually features, not bugs. It because the whole premise of the 'movement' is asserting 'the upside down'.
I'll grant a minority of a domain can be labeled as characteristic of that domain if it is found expressed it a bit differently
"MAGA is a coalition of people at war with reality" - BAM!
Also, thanks for engaging with me on this topic. I appreciate it.
just a three year old stamping his foot and shouting 'Look at ME!'
I want to stamp my foot and shout, “Make it stop!”.
Thinking if he continues his blather long enough and loud enough, everyone will agree....
It works with the cabinet...
That tactic has worked for him his whole life.
What about the Epstein files? Hellllooooooo?
Speech? I thought it was an audio feed from his psychiatrist's couch.
I wish he had a psychiatrist. His being treated by stephen miller ain't helping.
Or transmissions from a lonely room in a nursing home.
Years ago we were having lunch in the Tampa-St. Pete area. When the server brought back my card and the slip to sign, he said, "The Space Shuttle is being launched in 4 minutes. You are welcome to join us on the roof to watch." We did. A hundred and forty-five miles away and it was clear as could be.
Tom - what a great moment!
What better day than April Fool's Day to have had the biggest fool on the planet on prime-time TV and internet media to once again try to fool the American people and the rest of the world into believing his foolish war in Iran has been anything other than a fool's errand?
Fools rush in. And now this one has no idea of how to get out. Other than by his now well-established M.O.: a declared victory fashioned of wholesale lies and off-the-shelf self-delusion, all confirmed and promoted by his large supporting cast of pathological fools.
Donald Trump rose to the occasion and gave an eloquent, succinct, and stirring address to the American public on his masterful execution of the war on Iran. April Fools!
Trump’s little chat last night did nothing to assuage the oil markets as back up $110 today. If his thought was to calm things down that clearly didn’t work. As Mark Hertling said we are all going to die, all very true, but last night convinced a number people and the markets that this is going to happen sooner than they would like. Riding in as the four horsemen doesn’t inspire confidence or save the day.
RE: Trump's little *chat* last night
Considering both the economic and military prospects of Trump / Iran, perhaps he should consider going all FDR with regular fireside chats.
Only instead of a fireplace as a metaphorical prop he could have a video screen in the background playing real footage of burning oil tankers.
Fireplace or no fireplace, more Trump chats would set people on fire. His little excursion into FDR territory may end prematurely.
The Dispatch news this morning mentioned the historic motorcade visit of the President to the Supreme Court. Historic! First in history!
They did not mention what he did there or how long he stayed or the reason for his visit. It was news-less news, words in the form of news without substance.
They didn't even mention the speech. I suppose there's only so much news-less news you can write without wanting to drink heavily.
As a non-habitual alcohol consumer, Is it Friday yet? I ask every damn day.
It's five o'clock somewhere!
Are you referring to The Dispatch website?
When you give control of a 1 Trillion dollar war machine to two macho bros who's idea of "fun" is a rally lethal day in the neighborhood, what would we expect? Negotiations? Allies? Human compassion? That's all for Sissies. Some how these guys believe America is about "Might Makes Right" or "Onward Christian Soldiers". It's certainly true we do have "Might" on our side. In November, We the People will decide which side Morality is on.
Prepare to everything you can to protect the right to vote and we will end the brutality and corruption of the Trump eta
A quick and easy thing to do in the run up to November is to check your registration status online via through the state or county registrar's office where you live or VOTE.org. Check it early and often as we have reason to believe there will be voter roll purging attempts.