Trump Is Bored

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Chris Hayes gives a retrospective account of Trump’s war dispatches from Mars. You’ll want to watch this.

The big news today is that the Virginia Supreme Court surprised everybody and threw out the redistricting referendum of a few days ago. So no redistricting in Virginia after all. All the pundits are saying this is going to make it harder for Dems to take back the House. I am not a math whiz, but I don’t think taking back the House is out of reach. It’s so close now, and I am skeptical all the redrawing is going to work in the GOP’s favor as they believe it will. Also there is talk from Albany about New York redistricting, but there is very little time left now so I don’t know how they’re going to pull it off.

And to catch up on the mess going on in Tennessee, just read Evan Hurst at Wonkette. The state legislator seems determine to bring back Jim Crow in all its non-glory. So much for the alleged post-racist society.

I believe I’ve said earlier that we haven’t hit bottom yet with Trump and MAGA. And I don’t think we have, but that doesn’t mean the way down isn’t very painful and upsetting.

Going back to Trump and Iran, do see Trump Is ‘Bored’ With the War He Started by Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic. He thought it would be an easy win, and now that it’s dragging on he’s just plain lost interest.

Trump never thought it would turn out like this. After the impressive military operation to snatch Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, the president set his eyes on Iran, telling confidants that it would “be another Venezuela,” a pair of outside advisers told me. They, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Trump believed that the U.S. military was unstoppable, and that he had a chance to topple Tehran’s theocracy, a prize that had eluded his predecessors. He was redrawing the world’s maps and expected a victory to come in days, a week or two at most. 

Not exactly how it’s turned out.

Patience is not Trump’s strength. One outside adviser, who speaks with him regularly, told me the president is “bored” with the war.

Chris Hayes also said something about Trump being bored last night. In some of those photos where he appears to be asleep in the Oval Office he might just be bored. He wants to talk about his ballroom and other desecrations of the White House and grounds and National Mall, because that’s a comfortable subject for him. The presidenting thing is frustrating and confusing him, obviously.

Trump always assumes complex issues or projects are simpler than they are. Trump doesn’t like to confer with people; he wants to act unilaterally. And if events aren’t giving him instant gratification, he gets bored. It’s widely reported he’s looking for some “magic bullet” that will allow him to leave Iran while calling it a win, because he must realize it’s making him look bad. But he’s not able to do the real work of understanding the issues and working with others to mitigate the damage. He wants a gimmick that will give him a quick fix. Trump in a nutshell.

6 thoughts on “Trump Is Bored”

  1. “If Florida moves like it can, the Republicans will at least be even,” he continued. “But there’s a risk there, because what they’re going to do is they’re going to have to take Republican votes out of Republican districts and put them into Democrat districts.” Rove said this will “lower the numbers for some incumbent Republicans, and they may lose a seat or two.”

    Karl Rove

    I don't trust Rove, but in this case, I think he was issuing a warning based in fact. In states with high Hispanic populations, like FL and TX, redistricting reduces the margin in some adjoining "R" districts to create a new "R" majority district. The calculations assume midterm voting patterns won't change and the 2024 numbers will hold in '26. ICE changed that. The brutalizing of Hispanic neighborhoods in Minneapolis did break though nationally. The murder of white protesters who were on the streets in defense of their Hispanic neighbors was covered nationally. Insulting the Pope didn't play well, I suspect, in a lot of Catholic communities. r

    The result is an emotional reaction reflected in polling long before Trump started a war that drove gas prices through the roof. Elections are not decided by reason – humans are an emotional species. Trump played on the fear of being the victims of "other" non-native, not-your-tribe criminals. Trump and ICE are now viewed as hostile to Americans. It's emotional, not based on evidence and reason, so it will stick. In November, it will show up in an abnormally high "D" turnout. (A lot of Democrats don't turn out in the midterms. In '26, they will.) There will be a shift of Hispanic voters everywhere to vote against Trump, even when he's not on the ballot. The impact may be devastating in FL and TX where aggresive germandering cut the Republican margin. 

    Trump, being the reality show president, has a plan to pull a rabbit out of his hat in time to reverse the decline in the polls. Watch the Fed. Trump is getting his toady installed as chair. The new Trump chump will try to slash the prime by huge amounts, a full point, in every meeting of the Fed between now and November. If he can get it through the full body – it's not a solo decision. In the right economic climate, the economy would explode. We are in an inflationary period, when increasing the supply of money will drive up inflation faster than you can say, "Oh, shit!" 

    The "golden era of Trump" will become a punch line leading up to the election.

    This week, on Wednesday, the news was that Iran would respond to the US peace proposal on Thursday. Which became "within the next 48 hours" (Thursday or Friday), which morphed into "over the weekend."  So the media is moving the goalposts or the WH press office is, as Iran messes with Trump's head by making him wait. Not Trump's greatest virtue, as Maha noted. I do not think Iran is undecided – they know what they want. 

    France and the UK were reportedly sending ships to the Strait through the Suez.  Is this by Iran's request? Coupled with the 'concession' they will open the Straight if the US armada leaves? Europe would be there to give Trump cover for his defeat and withdrawal. Trump is no more likely to return than Napoleon would have taken a vacation in Moscow after Waterloo. No smart people are saying this is in the works, but I hope we'll get out of this mess. (No one is supposed to notice that Iran will still have the nuclear fuel somewhere.) Bibi will be livid.

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  2. All we seem to have in this situation is our thoughts and prayers at the shine of St. Jude, also known as Judas Theddeus, the patron saint of hopeless cases.  Not a speck of light at the end of this tunnel.  

    We missed our chance to bid no-trump.  If only hindsight would have come sooner to more people.

  3. I saw a documentary about Caesar's Palace, the lux fantasy world resort created in the 1960s in Las Vegas. It was revolutionary at the time – an average Joe (no Janes) could live large, like a Roman emperor. It was massively successful. Jay Sarno created it, he came from owning a "motor inn" in Atlanta. The point is, a few years after Sarno got Caesar's running, he sold the business and moved on. The appeal was in the creation, not the operation.

    I suspect the same is true for Trump. He's got his eyes on the next grift, Cuba. Let his underlings deal with Iran.

  4. Quite the regular commenter to the NYT, Socrates referred to the nation's bored one as a tiny-minded cult leader of destruction.  He was commenting upon Maureen Dowd's Ted Talk titled tribute.  He cited Ted on green matters.  Quite nice tributes.

    "Even if we didn't have greenhouse gases, were going to have to move away from fossil fuels, as we're going to run out. They're finite, whereas solar and wind are infinite." – Ted Turner

    "The next most dangerous thing [after nuclear proliferation] is probably… global warming, and then, right behind that are overpopulation — we need to get serious about family planning-and trying to alleviate poverty, to get clean, renewable energy, probably with solar panels to the billion and a half people in the world who don't have access to electricity. – Ted Turner

    "The sad thing about destroying the environment is that we're going to take the rest of life with us. The bluebirds will be gone, and the elephants will be gone, and the tigers will be gone, and the pandas will be gone." – Ted Turner

    "If there's no environment, there's no human race". -Ted Turner —

    Contrast that basic Ted Turner wisdom with the astounding anti-social, anti-environment, anti-evolution, anti-planet, antediluvian "drill, baby, drill" and "beautiful clean coal" intellectual, moral and environmental bankruptcy of the Gas Oil Pollution-Greed Over Planet party and their tiny-minded cult leader of destruction. Listen to Ted Turner and choose life, my fellow Americans…….not the Party of Death.

    Really nice.

     

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  5. Quote of the Day:

    I feel like I'm not good enough to have imposter's syndrome.
    – Josh

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