Trump may have entered the wounded, cornered animal phase of his second term. Everything he’s touched in his second term is a damn mess — the economy, foreign policy, the bleeping White House and grounds. He’s even managed to make the Iranian regime stronger and the U.S. look weak and stupid — and friendless. Europe Is Done With Appeasing Trump writes Serge Schmemann at the New York Times:
There was a time when Mr. Trump’s stream of insults, falsehoods, expletives, threats and malice would have raised questions among foreign leaders as to whether Mr. Trump was being deliberately obnoxious to achieve a goal — say, to get European allies to pay more for NATO, or as a variant on the “madman theory” strategy devised by President Richard Nixon to convince rivals that the president was dangerously unpredictable. They tried to appease Mr. Trump with praise and pomp, hoping to steer him in a more productive direction.
But more than a year into Mr. Trump’s return to the White House, the Europeans, and much of the world, have concluded that no amount of bowing or scraping will win more than fleeting approval from him. The barrage of tariffs that opened the second Trump administration, aimed indiscriminately at friend and foe; the brazen demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States, and now the absence of any consultation with European allies before joining Israel in an attack on Iran that has affected the entire world, have erased any illusion among most Europeans that Mr. Trump is anything but an unpredictable, vindictive and uncontrollable danger. …
… Even Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, one of Mr. Trump’s closest European allies, distanced herself from his seemingly unprecedented threats to Iran this week. “It is crucial to clearly distinguish between the responsibilities of a regime and the fate of millions of ordinary citizens,” she said. That effectively left Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, as Mr. Trump’s most loyal ally in Europe, which explains why Vice President JD Vance was dispatched to prop up Mr. Orban in advance of an election on Sunday that he may well lose. Mr. Orban’s stance on the Iran war, however, is unclear, especially after The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Hungary offered to help Iran in 2024 after Israel caused thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, to explode.
Trump doesn’t consult. He doesn’t get prior approval. He just jumps in and does what he wants to do in the moment. It’s how he’s always functioned. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again — he’s never had a real job. He worked for his father, who ran the Trump company as an autocrat, and when Donald took over he ran the company the way his father ran it, making all the decisions alone. It really is just a small family business even though it owns a lot of real estate in several countries. He’s never been part of a business with a multi-level organizational structure responsible for diverse enterprises and product lines. And he’s too stupid to conceptualize what that’s even like. So he’s focused on remodeling the White House and paving over the Rose Garden and putting up stupid giant triumphal arches. He’s even trying to take over some municipal golf courses in the D.C. area to turn them into high-end Country Club-type golf courses. Nobody needed the President of the United States to take over municipal golf courses. Those were the courses for people who can’t afford Country Clubs.
It’s too bad Americans can’t get health care, but that’s not his problem. Let the states do that. He’s got to fight wars and build his ballroom and upgrade golf courses. And watch Fox News. Oh, and write epic Truth Social posts lashing out at former supporters who oppose his war in Iran. He’s very busy.
So, yeah, he doesn’t really comprehend what his job is. He probably doesn’t appreciate how badly he’s screwing up.
Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner write in the New York Times,
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. The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state.
And may I add, putting Trump in charge of the U.S. military is a bit like butting children in charge of the candy store. It’s become Trump’s favorite toy. And it’s why he wants to pump ghastly amounts of money into it to the detriment of everything else except his remodeling projects, See Josh Marshall, The New Defense Budget.
You probably heard about the Pentagon meeting that sent a threat to Pope Leo if he doesn’t stop criticizing Trump. Da Pope from Chicago ain’t intimidated. I wrote about it at Patheos and also explain what the Avignon Papacy was and why it was a big deal.
Talking Turkey, all depends a lot upon Hungary. So goes Oban, so goeth the USA. Starting Sunday our future becomes clearer as the alter ego to our cornered rat faces voters. The scales tipped in their election by a flagrant last second interference campaign by our vice president. Where is the shame?
Let's see if the Hungarian people get their way. If they don't little chance we will.
Both leaders are in situations goading unpredictability as neither respect the will and welfare of their people. Both consider their personal will and welfare paramount, a characteristic anathema for a good shepherd or a good leader.
The curse of interesting times is still upon us.
"Let's see if the Hungarian people get their way. If they don't little chance we will."
I disagree. I'm no expert on Hungary, but Hungary has been down a very different road in the past century or so from the U.S., and I suspect social, cultural, and political dynamics there differ from the U.S. quite a bit. And Orban's been in power for more than 15 years. Trump's losing his grip by the hour.
I may be overestimating the influence of illiberal international politics on our own. As the results come in, we my get a better read on the future shape of conservatism here.
The slice of the U.S. electorate that gives a hoo-haw about Orban, or indeed could reliably point to Hungary on a blank map, is pretty damn slim. The most hard core of Trump's base is pretty much it, and that's maybe 20 percent of voters, if that.
Quote of the Day:
To paraphrase the great Brian Cantrell (talking about Larry Ellison): Do not anthropomorphise Donald Trump. Think of Donald Trump as a lawnmower. You stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' — lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you.
The question, then, is, who is "guiding" the lawnmower.
At this point, mostly karma.
Yikes; this warning ("keep hands and other body parts away from spinning blades") might be even scarier when applied to Larry Ellison than to Trump!
Yes, of course, Trump is "President" of the USA, the "most powerful job on Earth", but there are [still] some institutional brakes on his power (I think…).
Larry Ellison, though, is CEO of an extremely dangerous set of huge Tech Corps, accountable to no one, and clearly willing to use his money to (1) keep expanding his power and (2) use that power for nefarious purposes.
IMO, Trump is very close to getting "25th Amendmented" by Republicans who are finally realizing that it's not safe to leave him in power. Sadly, there is nobody who can do the same to Ellison (or the other monstrous TechBroligarchs).
Cardinal Christophe Pierre served as Papal Nuncio in Haiti and Uganda before his Washington posting. Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the new papal nuncio to Washington, has been papal nuncio in Lebanon.
Clearly the Vatican only dispatches combat-hardened prelates to Washington.
I don't see how you can call the most intelligent, the most illustrious, President of the United States of America, the holder of a second hand Nobel Peace Prize, a "cornered animal.
https://ragheadthefiendlyterrorist.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/img387.jpg
At his core, Trump is a reality TV star. I think Trump thinks of elections like ratings. If your popularity is sinking, you change the storyline of the next episode. It's all about perception and not reality. The problem is that a gas pump is real. Inflation is real. Threatening millions with nuclear extermination, even by implication, makes you think about your values. It was a bridge too far, even for Alex Jones, a soulless creature.
Trump noticed. He didn't apologize or clarify that he'd never use nukes except in response to the use of WMDs. But he replied with an attack on his conservative critics. Attack dogs like Calson and Owens always protected Trump's flanks from liberal criticism – now they are singing in harmony with Kimmel and Colbert. I do not know the exact point when MAGA will decide that Trump is not really MAGA and begin a search for a new Saviour. But we're going that direction. Trump has the feral instincts of a cat that's never seen the inside of a house. He knows the political climate is changing.
Much of the damage is self-inflicted, especially in international affairs, as Maha pointed out. If the US 'takes' Cuba, very few will cheer. Many will ask, 'What does that get me? Lower food prices? Now we have to feed starving Cubans.' The point being, the next installment of the show will be a flop.
So you turn to domestic plot lines to turn it around. I predict we are falling into a recession now. I think the economy is contracting. The last quarterly statement for Home Depot is a canary in the coal mine. Sales are down. Profits are down. The stock price is down. The interest rate for new construction is up.
The only happy news is a great moon shot. (Congrats, NASA) Lotsa luck riding that story for the next six months.
If the US 'takes' Cuba, very few will cheer.
Trump has been wanting US allies to increase defence spending. I think he has managed to do so in most NATO countries and in Japan and South Korea. And, of course, in the Chinese province of Taiwan.
What I don't think he has grasped is that some (most?) of this spending is in reaction to US imperialism. I expect to see many countries applying for BRICS membership.
Hotlines for US soldiers thinking of leaving the armed forces as "conscientious objectors" are being overwhelmed. Almost all the calls mention the bombing of the girls' school in Iran that killed more than 100 school children.
https://bsky.app/profile/tparsi.bsky.social/post/3mjb44jxmec2p